Rest Day

A day of doing nothing much. Cleaned the car, cleaned the van, did the shopping, mooched around Port Augusta.
We went to the beach that Kathy used to play on about 50 years ago – see picture.
We had fillet mignon for dinner, with an avocado and mushroom salad and a bottle of Glaymond Shiraz. Life‘s tough on the road.
On the move again on Saturday, aiming for Coober Pedy but, going on past performance, if there is somewhere we like we will stop for a while.

Port Augusta

We had a tough time crossing the Eyre Peninsula due to the strong wind and dust that was blowing about. 250 k on almost a tank full of fuel was not good economy and being buffeted about was not pleasant. We stopped for a break at Kimba at the Big Galah tourist trap. I think that it used to be the BP roadhouse a long time ago; pic shows Kathy at the door. When I saw the ad for the big galah I was looking for Trevor, but all that was there was big concrete parrot.
Now at Port Augusta, swanking at an ensuite site for a couple of days. The van got a bit of dust in it so we need to clean it out, and we need some shopping. We will move on to Coober Pedy in a day or so.

Kathy's Birthday

Kathy’s birthday was in the Gawler Ranges. We went into the Ranges at the eastern end, followed the 4 wheel drive tracks through to the western end, then went round the Minnapa tourist drive and back to Wudina for dinner at the pub.
Some spectacular sights in the Gawler Ranges, they seem to be changing every time we turned a corner. Finding a picture to put on the blog was hard, but the one of us at the Organ Pipes won as it shows the amazing rock formations that are in the district.
Moving on today, heading towards Port Augusta. The wind has got up and it will be blowing us along so maybe we can save a few litres of petrol.

Wudina

Ceduna is now behind us and we are in Wudina, where many people are wearing a fox hat.
The town is in the Eyre Peninsula about 300 k from Ceduna and is close to the Gawler Ranges.
The Scenic tour of the district took in the local sights including Pygerey Rock (pronounced pie - jerey, they get upset if you say piggery).

Kathy took the pic of a Stumpy lizard by the side of the road. There are dozens of them, always crossing the road, never going up or down the road.

Tomorrow we will go to the Gawler Ranges for the day and tonight we will watch the eclipse of the moon, about 6:20 SA time.
The mobile phones have stopped working. I have bought a headset and got my VoIP installed so we can call people if we have to, at least while we still have internet access.

Whales -The Head of the Bight

Whales at last. We saw more whales than you can see from LLangollen.There were about 50 at the Head of the Bight, with several coming in close to the shore. It is usually the mum with a calf that is close in as the new born take time to grow and be able to handle the deeper water. This means that there were many baby whales close in, with the adults further out making the big splash.The only things that spoiled the day was 100 million flies and four noisy kids.
We stayed at Ceduna and set out for the Head of the Bight at 7:30 am. (It's true I tell you!) and got there about 11:00.After about 3 hours of whale watching we went to Nullabor to get petrol (at $1.65per litre) then back to Ceduna via Fowlers Bay. The pic shows some of the whales we saw, Photoshop put them in one frame.

Streaky Bay Still

Still at Streaky Bay. The office at the caravan park has local oysters for $6 a dozen, so we get half a dozen each for entrée every night. Went down the coast to the Sea Lion colony, more beautiful coastline, lots of places to stop and stare. (see pic)
Kathy had booked a tour of the abalone farm so we had to rush back to see how they farm the green lip abalone on concrete bays with sea water washing over them. It’s a bit more complex than that, but the basic concept applies. The direction of flow is changed regularly so the abalone moves up and down the concrete. I never realized you could exercise abalone. The sad part is, all the abalone is exported to China or Japan with very little making it to the Australian market.

Streaky Bay

We reached Streaky Bay and decided to stay for a while. We got a site next to a cabin that gives us a lot of privacy, but is close to the loo. Very important at 3:00am!
Lots to see and do here, we went to Cape Baur, magnificent coast lines and photos that were far to good to cut down for a web copy, so I used the pic of the pelican near the Van Park. There were about a dozen pelicans on the beach waiting for a man that was cleaning some fish to chuck them the scraps.
Talking of fish, we are having whiting fresh from the sea for dinner tonight, with a bottle of white. How are the working folk doing?
Still can not get the phones to work, but the wireless internet works OK.

Alligator Gorge

Tourists at last!The dog trials at Barmera went very well, with several good passes. The social life after the trials was good too.

Now at Wilmington near Alligator Gorge in the Flinders Ranges. The pic shows us at the lookout over the gorge. The strange thing about Wilmington is the mobile phones have no service, but the wireless internet works. I knew I should have got the VoIP working on the lap top.

The next big decision is to see if we can make Ceduna in one go, or spread it out over a couple of leisurely days.

Next trip

We will be on the road again by Friday 17^th Aug. The first stop is Barmera in the Riverland for a dog trial, and then to Melrose for some time in the Flinders ranges.

After that, we may go to Ceduna to see the whales then to Alice Springs for another dog trial.