Trekkin

Day 29 – September 29 2012

Well, we have been on the road for one month now.  This morning we decided to explore part of the south coast by heading to Cape Gantheaume.  Not far along we were stopped by a flock of sheep being herded along a road, with lots of little lambs amongst them.  There was a fair bit of water on both sides of the road, some dams but mostly natural lakes, all brimming with water to overflowing.  One of the lakes right on the road we stopped & observed a pair of swans with a glide of cygnets, totally unconcerned by us being so close.  The dirt road was in mostly good condition, right up until we reached the border of the Cape Gantheaume Conservation Park, where it turned pretty bad with lots of corrugations & pot holes.

We went all the way to the end of the road at Wheaton’s Beach & admired the ruggedness of the coastline & rock formations, with huge waves crashing onto the reefs, a legacy of the very strong winds.  There were also thousands of terns & little terns roosting on the rocks, I’ve never seen so many in one place before.  It was still very windy & cold, around 12C, so we were rugged up a bit.  As we walked along the beach, amongst the masses of seaweed heaped up, I spotted a seal sunning itself.  We walked up to it & took a few photos, it is really quite a large animal, it stretched itself out to survey us, then went back to sunning itself.  This was fairly exciting seeing the seal so close.

We journeyed around to Wrecker’s Beach, this is very sheltered from the prevailing winds & the sea was very flat & calm looking.  This beach was named from the numbers of ships that were wrecked in the area & the salvage of parts from the ships by people that profited from the salvage.  Point Tinline offered a good vantage point to survey the rest of d’Estrees Bay as it stretched right around to Point Reynolds & Pennington Bay.  During winter southern right whales are supposed to calve & nurse the young whales here, but I didn’t see any so they must have already left for Antarctica.  It’s hard to imagine that the next piece of land that you come across from here is Antarctica.

We stopped at Clifford’s Honey Farm on the way back to Kingscote to have a look around, it is only a small place & we bought some “famous” Ligurian bee honey & a honey ice cream (they advertised it as the only place in the world that you can buy this famous ice cream from), the ice cream was so-so. Now that we tried it can be removed from our bucket list.  We were starving so we stopped in town at Kingscote’s famous fish & chip shop – just on the side of a Caltex garage, very unpretentious.  They have fresh fish so they can make it to your own order.  We shared a fisherman’s basket, it was delicious.  While waiting we read the testaments of many very satisfied customers.

Back at camp we had just pulled up & I was standing at the Karavan when someone called out my name.  A sailing friend, Libby, from Canberra had just booked into the caravan park with her Swiss friend.  What a small world we live in. We had afternoon tea with them. To finish the day we went for a quiet walk on the Nepean Bay beach – calm & placid after yesterday.

Day 28 – September 28 2012

We packed between intermittent showers & on the road again, with the first stop at Pennington Bay.  We had been reasonably sheltered from the wind at Penneshaw, but here on the exposed southern coast it was blowing reasonably strongly & was a bit cool.  The ruggedness of Pennington Bay was picturesque, with some big waves rolling in & stirring up rough surf.

We drove on to Kingscote, through a pretty farming countryside, with the odd canola crop providing a lovely contrast to the verdant greens of the wheat & barley & lush pastures, with fat sheep enjoying themselves in the good pastures.  The camp ground at Kingscote is fairly basic, tucked in amongst some gum trees, though reasonably close to the beach of Nepean Bay.  The bay is very shallow for about 100 metres from shore.  After setting up we headed out exploring Kingscote & saw a casualty of the strong winds, a fishing boat half full of water resting on the bottom & tied up to a large trailer.  We walked around the town centre, had seafood for lunch, explored the wharf & saw some cute seals, while nearly getting blown off the jetty by the wind, so strong & cold (if there is a jetty Ron has to walk out on it & I am mad enough & follow him no matter how long the jetty is or how terrible the weather).

It was a perfect day to visit the Kingscote Museum which is very interesting & comprehensive, covering all facets of the early lives of the settlers on the island, from domestic items in an early restored stone house, to farm machinery, to tractors & stationary engines, to the old lighthouse from Cape Willoughby.  It is very well put together & is a must see in my opinion.  We next explored Reeves Point, a historic site where South Australia was formally declared & the first formal settlement occurred (there were lots of people living on Kangaroo Island, sealers, whalers, escaped convicts, etc).  The wind here was extremely strong, nearly blowing us off our feet, some of the gusts were 50 knots or more, they were lifting sheets of water off the sea.

Our next port of call was Emu Bay, a poor name as all of the Kangaroo Island emus were killed by around 1830.  It was just as windy here, though another pretty spot with most of the houses in this small settlement looking directly out to sea.  The BBQ & day visitor facilities here are second to none, they are brand new, including covered shelters, tables & seats, plus free gas BBQs & a great children’s play area.  We slowly wended our way back to Kingscote & our Karavan, put the heater on & warmed up slowly with a little light reading before another great dinner.

The weather wasn’t too favourable but we had really a very good day driving around this lovely island enjoying the sights, the seals & seabirds & laughing how the wind was nearly blowing us off our feet.

Day 27 – September 27 2012

We decided to camp in Penneshaw one more night to give is more time to explore the eastern end of Kangaroo Island.  First up this morning was the Cape Willoughby Lighthouse on the easternmost point of the island, this was a very pleasant drive through very green fields full of fat sheep, oats & wheat.  The trees on the island are more a mallee shape & along some of the roads they form an intersecting canopy & look very good.  The lighthouse is guarded by 3 old white lighthouse keeper cottages & looks significantly imposing.  We had a look through the small museum, mostly cataloguing the history of shipwrecks in the immediate vicinity of Cape Willoughby, before walking out into the blustery wind around the lighthouse.   It is certainly an imposing view standing so far above the water, we could see clearly the mainland off in the distance for a long way, the sun, dappling off the water & a light mist hanging around the Australian coast.

We went on the self-guided walk, exploring the cape & the locations of the old landing place, old lighthouse keeper’s cottages & the old soak that was their only water supply.  The old lighthouse keepers certainly did it tough, having to supplement their provisions as there was no guarantee when the next supply ship would arrive. The sun managed to keep us warm on the walk, despite the attempts of the blustery wind.  We finished looking around & decided to head back to camp for lunch.  On the way we stopped in at Antechamber Bay & the mouth of the Chapman River, this is a beautiful spot with lovely paperbark & gum trees lining the riverbank.

After lunch at camp it was off to American River for a look around.  This is a very pretty spot, though it is not American or a river, just a tidal inlet (some American sealers landed there & that’s why it got its name).  We stopped at the boat launching ramp to see how the fishermen (& women) were faring, plus a look at the pelicans as they were searching for a feed at the fish cleaning station.  There is also a very small campground there that was full of caravans, I guess because of the South Australian school holidays.  We drove a little more around the township of American River, some of the houses have spectacular views over the inlet & out to sea, it nearly makes you want to move here (if only it wouldn’t be so far from Canberra).

Back to Penneshaw, a bit more exploring, then some cheese & bikkies, a bit of a chat to the new campers, then Tereza whipped up a delicious dinner.

Day 26 – September 26 2012

The part for the car was due to arrive around 10am so I was in at the repair place by then & waited for the part to arrive & be fitted.  I stayed around at the dealer showroom looking at new & used cars, chatting to a salesman & reading a few magazines & papers.  They had good coffee on tap & supplied lunch for clients waiting in the lounge, it was very pleasant.  The work was finished around 1.30pm, so back to camp, repack the car, hitch the Karavan & then off to Port Jervis.

It was around a 2 hour drive through some pleasant scenery, once we found our way out of Adelide & onto the freeway south.  This must be the greenest part of South Australia, it has to receive a fair amount of rain to look so lush.  The rolling hills & mountains are covered in green with fat sheep all over the place.  There are a number of vineyards this way as well, with the grape vines just starting to get their first green leaves.  The view of the sea as the road twists & winds its way south is also special.  We arrived at Port Jervis with an hour to spare before the ferry to Kangaroo Island was due to leave.  We were a little concerned while waiting for the repairs that we wouldn’t make it in time.  The car & Karavan had to be reversed onto the ferry in a very tight squeeze between other cars, the ferry was full this trip.  The short trip across Backstairs Passage was uneventful with a northerly breeze flattening the waves out, but the westerly swell made it a little rollie, however, the ferry was only motoring along slowly, so it wasn’t too bad.  We watched the sun set over the Southern Ocean & docked at Penneshaw in the dark.  Unloading the car was easy, I just drove straight off, then finding the caravan park was a little harder.  There was very little signage & the sign at the front of the caravan park was not lit, making it difficult to spot in the dark.  We set up camp in the dark & have now settled in, planning what we will see on Kangaroo Island in the two weeks we will be here.

Day 25 – September 25 2012

An early start as the car was booked in at 8am to have the left rear shock absorber replaced, so we had to leave camp by 7.30am, most people were still asleep.  The shuttle bus took us into Adelaide city near the Rundle Mall, so we had a bit of a walk around the length of the Mall watching Adelaide city coming to life.  There are a few statues in the Mall & Tereza quite liked the group of 4 bronze pigs.  At 10am the South Australia Museum opened & we had a good look through it.  The museum building itself is a very nice bit of architecture, complementing the nearby Parliament House & University of South Australia buildings.  After lunch we did a little more exploring of the shops in the Adelaide CBD, admiring some of the old buildings.  There is a really good selection of shops with a large variety, but we resisted the temptation & left Rundle Mall empty handed.

We finally received the call from the car repair place & caught the bus back there.  Unfortunately the new part had a problem so the car was not fixed (the one good thing about this was that they washed the car) & another new part was being shipped overnight from Melbourne.   Back to the camp, a quick shower, then back into the city to have dinner with friends Rick & Barbara at Louca’s Fish Restaurant.  It was great to catch up with them, it’s around 2 years since we saw them last when they visited us in Canberra.  The dinner was great & afterwards we went back to their house for coffee, more chatting & to catch up with Mary, Barbara’s lovely mum.

They have a beautiful old South Australian style house built in 1920, they have modernised things inside like the kitchen & they kept the old gas lights but turned them into electric ones, there is also a big swimming pool in the back yard.  All the modifications & additions have been made in good taste for a comfortable life style.  It was around midnight before we got back to camp & bed.

Day 24 – September 24 2012

This morning we had a rude awakening by the city traffic & aeroplanes flying overhead.  How we miss the lovely sounds of the birds in the bush. A cold morning & a quite cold day today (14C), time to catch up on all the big washing now we are near a real washing machine.  We also cleaned up the Karavan & the car a little bit, plus I attended to a few small maintenance items on the Karavan.  The bolts holding the flush toilet had worked a bit loose on the rough roads & needed tightening, the front right stabiliser wouldn’t wind down as it was jammed up with so much dust, so needed a little Inox lubrication & now it works a treat.  Little things like that.

I miss my Jackson & Austin, there are lots of children with such a lot of activities for them – they are in the heated pool even on a cold day like today.  The parents just have to come here in cabin/caravan/tent & stay put & let the kids have a good time.

After the washing was complete we drove into Glenelg to try & find the Hahndorf Gourmet Butcher then buy some of his famous Jaeger Bier Sticks.  We walked most of the main street before we found him, he certainly does have some very nice salamis, metwurst & smoked meats & sausages.  We bought some Weisswurst (white sausage) for dinner plus a few of the Jaeger Bier Sticks – they are very tasty.  We had lunch & headed back to camp & lazed away the afternoon walking by the sea, reading & relaxing.

The beachfront here at West Beach is being badly eroded & the council have had to dump a lot of large rock to try & stabilise the dunes, it looks like they are fighting a losing battle.   The West Beach Surf Club has no beach left to patrol, the sand has all been washed away & the beach stairs are closed as they lead directly into deep water & breaking waves.  The Weisswurst was very nice on the camp BBQ & finished off a very pleasant day.

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.

Day 22 – September 22 2012

This morning we got away a little bit later than we had thought, a bloke was very interested in the Karavan so I showed him through & chatted about things for a while.  It was around 9.30am by the time we left Quorn & headed down out of the Flinders Ranges towards Port Augusta.  There were some nice views out over the top end of the Spencer Gulf, than as we re-joined the Stuart Highway the view east to the Flinders was impressive.  The further south we went the better the vegetation until we started seeing lush wheat fields, a long way from the deserts we have been looking at for weeks.

We turned off into the Mount Remarkable National Park & pulled into the Mambray Creek camping area & set up, then a quick bite to eat for lunch.  We started out on the Sugar Gums Lookout Hike, but after 3km took the turn up into Alligator Creek on the Hidden Gorge Hike.  We walked in around 7km before resting a while, some nibblies & water, then 7km back to camp.   Lots of very old & very big gum trees have been through a series of fires, so they have a burnt out trunk at the base, however, they still cling tenaciously to life, with branches seeming to grow out of dead parts of the tree.  There are a lot of wildflowers out, so the colour & smell was wonderful, we stopped a lot to look at them & take a few photos.  The birds are everywhere, there are a lot of bird calls I have not heard before.  It was interesting to hear a couple of tawny frogmouths calling through the forest during the day – their voice carries a long way.  We saw & disturbed lots of kangaroos & wallabies as we walked along, with a special treat near the end of our walk when a yellow footed rock wallaby let us get very close before it scampered up a near vertical cliff.

The sun had just set as we got back into camp, Tereza’s knees held out long enough to get her home, it was a 14km bushwalk so it was pretty tough on her, only 10 months ago she had surgery on both knees & they have recovered remarkably well considering the pain she was in before surgery.

We had a nice BBQ, salad, a hot shower & I think tonight will be an early night to bed.

Day 21 – September 21 2012

An early start this morning, I wanted to check that the temporary bolt replacement on the broken shock absorber was still in place & tighten it up if needed.  That meant unpacking the car again, but it needed doing anyway as this morning the left rear tyre was flat, the one that I had repaired with some plugs had gone down slowly overnight.  So out with the brand new spare & repair the old with two more plugs.  It was about 9.30am by the time it was all finished & repacked the car, so we headed down to the Woomera Museum.

The museum at Woomera is in two parts, an outdoor display of the old rockets & planes, then an indoor display that took us through the history of Woomera & the many different types of rockets that were launched from there for all different sorts of reasons.  Both parts of the museum were very interesting & informative, with the museum just about the only active part of Woomera these days.  There are lots of empty buildings & houses, but all the street trees & gardens are still well maintained.

Next we were off on the Stuart Highway again to Port Augusta, about 180km of driving through desert country again with the odd salt lake thrown in on either side.  The main features were the water pipeline from Port Augusta to Woomera & the Darwin rail line that followed the highway along on either side.  Again the vegetation was changing as the geography changed, a lot of red sand & low bushy shrubs, then red sand hills & small trees, then back to low grassy desert.  I noticed a lot of dead cattle in various stages of decay by the side of the road.  We finally drove off the escarpment down to the flat country that is the head of the Flinders Gulf around 50km out of Port Augusta.  We stopped for lunch with Rose & Mike at a roadhouse after refuelling in Port Augusta, then said our farewells, they have left us to head back to Canberra today.  They have been great travelling companions but need to get back home, so Tereza & I are now travelling on our own again.

After Port Augusta we turned north & drove the 33km to Quorn, following the old Pitchi Ritchi rail line up into the Flinders Ranges.  This part of the Flinders is also very nice, a very pleasant winding road.  After setting up camp we walked the short distance to the old Quorn Railway Station, now the Visitor Centre, looked around & headed off on a self-guided walk around the historic buildings in Quorn.  This is interesting, with a lot of the buildings in good condition & built from local stone.  Our walk also took us through the local botanic garden, planted with species that grow within a 30km radius of Quorn.  We spent around 2 hours walking the town before a spot of shopping for biscuits to go with our cheese, back to camp for some cheese & bikkies before doing our washing.   We chatted to some fellow travellers while having dinner & got a few pointers for the next parts of our trip.

Day 20 – September 20 2012

Our departure this morning was delayed somewhat.  I have discovered that the clunking noise in the back of the car was the top of the left rear shock absorber banging around, its two top high tensile bolts have both sheared, presumably somewhere on the Oodnadatta Track.  I found a place nearby that sold high tensile bolts of that size, so proceeded to empty all the tools from the back of the car & replace the bolt.  On doing this, I also found that where the shock absorber had been flopping around, it had also rubbed the tyre a bit, so there were a few chunks missing & a bit of steel showing so I had to replace the tyre.  Fortunately, the tyre shop next to the caravan park had the size that fits my car, it is not a common size so I was pleasantly surprised.  All of this delayed our departure a bit, so it was not until around 11.30am that we finally left Coober Pedy.  We said our fond farewells to Helen & John as we are parting company with them this trip, they need to head back to Canberra.

The drive on the bitumen, though pleasant was somewhat monotonous, the desert landscape did not change much for many kilometres.  Between Coober Pedy & Woomera, there are a few distinct vegetation types according to the underlying geology.  Firstly from Coober Pedy it was flat desert scrubby type of country with low grasses, then a few larger shrubs appeared.  The next section had a fair few small trees & lots of red sand hills, then lastly very low sparse grass desert for the last 100km into Woomera.  It was strange, just a switch from one vegetation type to another.  We saw a few largish salt lakes along the way, though nothing to compare in size to Lake Eyre.

We arrived in Woomera around 5.30am after 397km for the day, set up camp, a few nibblies with cheese & red wine, then dinner with Mike & Rose.  The wind has picked up & the temperature has plummeted to around 25C, (we are finding it cool after Coober Pedy’s 36C+) a few spots of rain finished our chatting early then off to the showers.

Coober Pedy – what a town!  Hot, dusty & windy,  home to about 3,500 people & around 45 different nationalities (according to Rudi our tour guide).  There are lots & lots of big & small mounds (mullock) & as many or more holes in the ground where they have been digging for opals.  The town has lots of opal jewellery stores.  Only two grocery stores – they are amazing with what they stock.  Thursday is the day when the fresh vegetables & fruit arrive, that’s when everyone goes shopping.  There are a few garages & what they all stock is an Aladdin’s cave, Ron was happy to discover today.  They have 4 churches & one primary school.  There are some nice big houses, ordinary ones & dug outs.  We were very fortunate to be invited yesterday to Judy & Brian’s wonderful big dug out home, they had rooms & rooms & huge workshops with everything in there & a beautiful even temperature of about 24C all the time.  There seems to be a lot of rusty old broken down machinery even in front/back of homes but the funny thing about is that it adds character/charm to the place.  The mining is not as busy now because the miners are all getting old & it costs a lot of money for the young ones to set up, work hard & live on hope & good luck, so they leave for the big cities or go to big mines (copper etc.) where they get good regular money.  People are friendly & chatty, they reminisce about the old (good & bad) days but everyone we talked to who have lived in Coober Pedy for a longer time, call it home & they wouldn’t live anywhere else.  I thought it was an amazing place.  Ron bought for me a lovely souvenir too.