Day 23 – September 23 2012

The wind was blowing strongly through the treetops as we left Mambray Creek this morning, a few people were out chasing photos of the group of emus that feed around the camp ground.  We drove the short distance to Port Germein, being buffeted by very strong winds, before parking across the road from the old tram depot.  We rugged up, put our coats on & started on the walk to the end of the longest wooden jetty in Australia, all 1,532 metres of it.  What amazed us was the young kids in bare feet & lightly dressed walking back off the jetty – they must be locals.  Towards the end of the jetty there were a few locals tending their crab nets, ropes tied to the jetty with a baited crab net & hoping to catch a feed of blue swimmer crabs.  They all had varying degrees of success, with most catching enough for a feed.  The crab fishermen had all sorts of ways of taking all their gear out the length of the jetty, an old pram, a fridge trolley, a 4 wheel trolley, all to make life a bit easier on the long walk out & back as apparently the crabs can only be found out near the end of the jetty.

The walk back in was a lot more pleasant with the strong wind at our backs pushing us along & we chatted to some locals walking back in with their catch, they were having crab for lunch.  Tereza’s poor knees thankfully stood up to the task of a 3km walk after yesterday’s marathon of 14km.  We decided not to camp at Port Germein as we had just seen all there was to see in this little town after a walk up & down the small main street unsuccessfully trying to find somewhere to eat, plus the small caravan park was very exposed to the wind.

We decided to drive to Adelaide & pulled in for lunch at Harry’s Roadside Café, a very nice place specialising in selling olive oil & preserved fruits & jams, smoked & fresh fish plus fresh vegetables & a selection of salamis.  We chose the kangaroo pepperoni salami plus some home grown olive oil, however we were tempted by the giant one metre long metwurst.

The rest of the drive to Adelaide we were still pushing very strong headwinds, which made the concentration that little more difficult with the wind trying to blow both car & Karavan off the road.  We passed some very nice looking farm land with lush wheat fields billowing in the wind & we passed a few large salt lakes, again tinged with the pink algae that grow in the very salty environment.

Driving through Adelaide we drove down through the coastal suburbs, with a lot of very nice old stone buildings fronting the sea.  The wind was whipping up the waves & there were large whitecaps everywhere, with some adventurous wind surfers & kite surfers having a great time.  We arrived at the caravan park around 5pm along with lots of other campers, rain is forecast for tonight so we hope it is fine tomorrow. The caravan park is lovely resort park, catering for families.  Our 2 grandsons would have a ball here – swimming pool, beautiful adventure playground, entertainment room, huge jumping pillow etc.  The camp has great community kitchen, bathrooms, even café, we are not used to this city camp after our outback travel or to this miserably cold weather – we are sitting with the heater on.  Hope that the cold front will go through & we will have some great weather in the next few weeks.