Sunday 11 December 2011
The beginning of our great adventure!
Odometer reading at 431643 and 500 litres of diesel, cost today $1.46 per litre. After a couple of rather costly hickups (clutch, electrics, etc) as well as a couple of very generous gestures we felt ready to take on this Great Southern Land.
My mother had stayed the night with us, up early and then got ready to head off, she admitted she had slept very well!! Managed to over fill airbags in car and pop hoses, flat rear tyre on the trailer, apart from that we left site safely. Colman almost had a conniption when he though the police were going to pull him over, especially as I was the illegal third passenger, turns out they wanted the car next to us.. Dropped mother off at Caltex station outside of Bolivar, met Ann and her sister in law Jane who were there to look after her & drop her home.
Then set of north heading for Port Lincoln. Saw the Star trooper going from Perth to Sydney raising money for charity, not sure if he had ever heard an air horn before, but he looked a bit the worse for wear once we tooted ours – poor thing!! Found a free road side stop just this side of Port Germaine. Views of the Flinders Ranges on one side and the gulf and PG jetty on the other, the jetty was completed in 1883 and was then 1664 metres long and was the longest in the southern hemisphere, due to storms it is now only 1283 meters long. But it is still the longest wooden jetty in Oz! Very windy, very quiet, just the occasional train rattling through in the distance. Nice sundowner after a chat with both mothers. Still hasn't sunk in, all a bit mind boggling and exciting / terrifying. Had a little chat to a fellow "road-sider" Charles, who was cooking the most naked chicken I have ever seen. Had a relaxing evening and then lay in bed and watched the full moon come up over the Flinders Ranges. MoMo&Co
Places: Adelaide - Shores Caravan Park West Beach, Baroota - A1 Heading North
Monday 12 December 2011
Good night rest, no hoones or other unwanteds. Had breakfast, tested our shower with generator & pumps, great hot shower and not too short either, enough for both of us and the wash up and some. Did a bit of housework while we waited for our first visitor. Colman got collared by the guy with the naked chicken and I had to rescue him after half an hour. Thought I should allow him time for a good chat!!! Petar (1st visitor) arrived, had coffee and chat then we set of for Cowell. Played chasee with Petar along the way. Drove through to Cowell where we found a pretty campsite overlooking the water. As always - windy.... Cowell is famous for a couple of things, back in 1965 jade was discovered, as well as colourful marble, the jade from here is one of the largest deposits in the world and apparently has patterns & colours not found anywhere else. The second things its famous for is seafood – oysters, and we will be trying those soon!! Took a drive through town and back to Harbour View Caravan Park, walked down to the boat ramp in amongst the mangroves, then we had a glass of bubbly, dinner which included the left overs of my mother’s potato salad, a bit of organising and more moon watching and off to bed.
Places: Port Augusta, Whyalla
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Woke up early to find full tide and looking out the bedroom window all the mangroves were covered in water, very spectacular. Straightened a few more bits out (I reckon we will be doing this sort of stuff for quiet a while), Colman ‘played’ in his ‘man-cave’ or Versailles as it is now know as!! (same black & white checked tiles – talk about delusions of grandeur!!) I shall attempt to refer to it as TheV, as really amongst men its all the same thing, as long as there is something to play with everyone is happy. Glad I’m the editor& reviewer of this, I don’t think this would get past reviewer2!! Then we set of to check out the scenery. Found another reason this place is famous – it is where May Gibbs was born, well apparently somewhere within 10 km of here anyway. I suspect they weren’t really too sure so they just took a punt, we plan to check this out tomorrow. Took the main road to Arno Bay until Colman got bored and decided on a bit of 4 wheel driving to “That Dune” over there. A couple of minor points, the dune was right & we went left, it must have rained earlier as there was lots of huge mud puddles & C was feeling adventurous! So 30 minutes later we were nowhere near the dunes, the car was covered head to tailgate in mud (as was I cause I had foolishly left my window open) and Colman was happy. He then took my advice which was for gods sake go right and keep away from those damn puddles!! It was all fun and we ended up on a “Tourist Drive”, this usually worries me because I have yet to go on a tourist drive where I haven’t gotten car sick. This was a tad different though because there were lots of stops along the way. There was Flat Rock, a flat rock jutting out to a beach (apparently a remnant of the last ice age), there was Nobbies point, a nobby point rising up out of a beach, The Chute which a jetty like chute which was used to slide bags of wheat of the cliff and onto boats in the early 1900’s, needless to say it was at the beach! And the last attraction was Red Hill, which was a red hill by the beach. Do you see the common factor here?? As the facebook photo showed, the beaches were lovely and apart from a massive crowed of 2 + 1 dog, it never got busier than that. After that we did a bit more mud surfing in Suzie and then headed to Arno Bay. I expected more (not sure why), but it was a pretty ordinary small town and although we thought to spend a couple of nights there we decided against it. Headed back to Cowell via the Birdseye Highway named after Sylvia who had a passenger & freight company in the area – not sure why that deserves a highway named after her but who’s to argue! Went into Cowell and collected a dozen of these oysters ($6!) together with a couple of oyster pies, yet to be tried. Then to the local for a drink and back to the campsite for oysters and a Vale Lazy Ballerina Viognier (thanks for that recommendation Mat), and they were easily the best oysters we have ever had, they were divine, photo on facebook! Decided to stay an extra night, there was pork on the spit happening the next evening!
Wednesday 14 December 2011
Had our first fry up today, we decided that for the sake of our waist and cholesterol we could only do these every so often. Did a bit of work around, the plumbing had a bit of a hick up and we had other house workie things to be done. Headed off in the afternoon to check out the May Gibbs Memorial and aim for Cleve. Well the memorial was a big rock with a little plaque under a big gum tree, which stated that May Gibb, author of the Gumnut Babies was born “close to this vicinity”, oh well we did try geocaching and lo & behold there was one in the above mentioned gum tree. We headed towards Cleve and came across a pretty bad accident , it had just happened but there were already a few people on the scene so we did not stop – very sobering though! We then found another scenic route(ie windy & dirt track) which took us along the High Road to the scenic High Road lookout for a scenic view of the High country (I guess) and a whole heap of windmills at least 50 if not more. Anyhow - creative with their names they are not!! Having said that we then checked out the Yeldulknie Weir (completed 1912 to supply local water) which had a visitors book and the first comment we read was “this weir is shite!!”, we couldn’t really add to this observation nor could we really disagree. It had interesting bits, I’m very sure. After that we went (via the church around the cross) to Cleve, this was a bigger town and quiet pretty, certainly clean. The highlight was Ticklebelly Hill which overlooked the town, they held a competition a few years ago to work out why it was named this back in the 1930’s but no one could figure it out, so posh people call it Observation Hill and commoners like us call it Ticklebelly Hill. Yes M&K, trailer trashiness is setting in. The reason it was named Observation Hill was that it was a WW2 aeroplane spotting point. We also managed to find another geocache. After Ticklebelly Hill (love that name), we returned to Cowell via the local cemetery, (I plan to make these a regular stop on our travels – visitors rather than residents that is....), there were lots of German names, quite a few WW stones as well as many many young kids and (possibly) mothers from early to mid 1900's. After we headed home for a rest before we meander up to the local for a $10 pork on the spit dinner. Speaking of which we must be off. We are heading off tomorrow so further updates in a few days. xxx
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