Heading into the Unknown.

I feel like I need some creepy music now. Once Warren and I drove past Port Pirie it is all new territory to us. We have nor been more west than that. Warren has flown into Perth but not by road.

It was interesting to go through places that we remembered having to place on maps when we were at school. PT Pirie, Pt Wakefield, Pt Augusta Whyalla, it was great to go through, didn't have time to stop.

A highlight of the day for me was stopping in a rest spot just outside Whyalla, making lunch, we were alongside a train line and we saw a train coming but it was only the engine, we stood up and waved wondering if he would even see us. He saw, he waved and then he pulled the cord, no-one else around but us, small thing but made my day.

We drove on to Cowell, nice part just outside the town. Its like a bush part with string bark trees for shade, we are members of this park chain and only need to pay $26 for the night. Great looking pool which we used this afternoon, very nice.

Heading West tomorrow.

Port Germein

We packed early today as we awake and had a fair way to go. We don't hurry when we are packing up and we have discovered that if we do we will forget to do something so its pretty leisurely and we were ready to pull out by 8.30 am. Last thing before leaving,  is a lights check. Blinkers, yep check, tail lights yep check, brakes, brakes? what was he doing? there was a yell from the front. Oh dear he had been testing the brakes but there was no lights happening.

Out comes the tool box etc etc, he was fiddling while I was looking up the nearest Auto electrican or RACQ (RAA in sth Aussie). Give it another go, yep working thank goodness but then no blinkers. Not a problem as he then knew what the problem was, took the connector apart again and tightened all the wires and yes then we had lift off or at least could go. So much for our early start, left around 9.30 am which is our usual time.

Morning tea was at Port Germein or Port Germie as the GPS says it. As I discovered the other day it has the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere, it says it is 1536 metres long, wikipedia says 1.67kms, whatever it is, its a loooong way.

We didnt have time to walk it so we walked to the jetty start and took a photo. There is about 200 metres of dirt before getting to the actual jetty, possibly where the confusion lays.

This is an automatic tide indicator and was in use up until 1986

Visiting the toilets I saw a mural on the outside wall.

I am amazed at these murals besides the fact that they are well done, the other thing that I realized today that impresses me about them is there is no graffiti on or around them, how fantastic is that?

Wallaroo and Kadina

Today was a travel day from Pt Turton to Wallaroo. We are staying near the beach again but it has come a little cold so no swimming.

Mid afternoon we headed to Kadina to see Val, Warren's sister.

When we got there she was measuring the height of the garage as there was a chap there moving some display cabinets. They were loaded into a trailer and apparently there was little clearance to get it out from under the garage roof.

Warren climbs into the trailer to weigh it down and tells me to jump up too. Before I knew it we were both standing in the back of a trailer, acting as ballast, while an unknown man slowly drove through the garage. It worked and although we had to duck our heads the cabinets went through with a clearance of five or six inches.

After we waved him off ( he was collecting the displays from Val who had been storing them for the gem club) and locked the gates, we had a few hours with her, finishing up at the Ale house in Wallaroo for dinner. Excellent place looking over the marina and we also caught up on the footy, Brisbane Lions playing Gold Coast at Morton Bay footy ground, which is in Caboolture!

A rainy Day

At the beach on a rainy day, what do you do? Clean the van and climb back into bed with a good book.

Then I surfaced and made scones with jam and cream for afternoon tea which we ate after a long walk about 6 kms so didn't mind eating scones then.

The start of the walk we went out on the jetty and then the breakwaters and we saw three dolphins followed by an Eagle Ray.

Sheridan had her phone so she rang the rest of the family and they bolted down, just as well as the dolphins were working a patch and were soon on their way out to sea.

Wildlife in the York

There are heaps of it here.

Bit hard to see but there is a string ray in the top right of the photo. We had seen an eagle ray the day before but didnt have my camera with me. The string ray is round like a dinner plate and the eagle ray has pointed fins. Its amaxing what can be seen on a walk out the jetty and along the breakwaters.

Two or three seals seem to be in residence off the rocks of the breakwater, I did use my zoom but even so he is only about three metres away, this is the smaller one.

Pelicans waiting for a feed from the guys who were cleaning fish.

Then there was this guy, just lucky to get a shot in as he flew off just after, he must have thought I was getting too close.

We have been snorkling earlier in the afternoon and had seen quite a lot of small fish. I dont snorkle often and have never done it in southern seas but it was good, water was fine. Kids need to get used to snorkling as we are booked in to do swimming with the whales over in WA.

Edithburgh

We are staying at Point Turton and as it was misty rain and cold this morning we drove across to Edithburgh which is a pretty quiet township with a few places closed because it was Monday. We took a walk on the jetty which seems small to us after walking several times out on Beachport's jetty. At 772 metres, (it was 1.2kms until some cold fisherman decided to light a fire on it) Beachport's is the second longest in Sth Australia. I had to google to see which the longest is and it is at Pr Germain just up the road from here (1.7 km long).

We went out to view the wind farm, biggest one I have seen with sixty that we could count.

Many building in small towns have murals painted on them, this was one in Edithburgh.

The cafes that we had headed towards to have lunch was closed (Monday) so we went across to the Troubridge pub and had lunch there, very nice it was, as we were at a seaport I opted for fish and butter fish was on the menu. Never tasted it or even heard of butter fish but very nice. 

Funny things that are seen on the road.

Leaving Kapunda this morning, I was glad that we hadnt left ten minutes earlier as just when we were about to get in the car, we saw this.

Driving out of Kapunda we waved goodbye to Map.

Map's full name is Map Kernow which means in Cornish The son of Cornwall. I did have a photo of him but it has gone into the sky never to be seen again. He is a massive bloke from the mining era.

Coming along there was a fence line of about a hundred metres with all wheel trims on it, there must have been a couple of hundred of them, all different types and sizes.