Into Adelaide

For those concerned about the name Coffin Bay, I can report that there is no sinister connotation, it was named by Flinders after his mate who was an admiral and had something to do with provisioning Flinders journey south.

I didn't have the oysters as I am not a fan but I did have some great King George whiting and bought some more on departing which I enjoyed later.

From Coffin Bay, I headed south in the Eyre peninsula to Venus Bay and then onto Lucky Bay. This as it turned out was a mistake but it was ok in the end.  I misread where the campground was.  Having stopped at Cowell and rejected that camping ground, I headed onto Lucky Bay thinking that was the next number on the map.  Both numbers related to Cowell.  However having reached Lucky Bay, I found a fishing village a bit like Wedge Island in WA where there was a string of basic shacks along the sand dune overlooking the ocean.  I saw someone driving down the track towards me, stopped him and asked if there was a camping ground anywhere in this village.  He said not, but there was a place at the end of the track I could park but there were no facilities.  I went on and found a turning circle at the end which did have a tent sign so I figured I was legal to park there.  Again upon putting up the pop top, it started to rain.  It was so hot, despite being only 50 metres from the ocean that I kept the windows of the van open (with my new flyscreen cover) and the next morning after a stifling night, found my drivers seat was wet as were my towels draped over the back and some of my books.

The towels dried out during my drive on to my next stop but the books are still drying out.  I stopped for lunch at Port Germaine  which has the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere.  I didn't pace it out, it was very long.  The tide was out and it was mudflats forever so I guess that it why the jetty was so long.  Apparently that was a port where wheat used to be shipped from but no longer.  Before the jetty was a huge corrigated iron building that looked like an aircraft hangar with the words Broome Pearls in faded paint on the side.  I asked a few people what that was about but they either didn't know or had never noticed.  I continued to walk up towards the jetty to this funny little lighthouse thing and there was some signage that explained the reason for the sign was because the beachfront had been used in filming a TV series about Broome several years ago - apparently something to do with the bombing of Broome.

Travelling on up the east coast of the Eyre peninsula I looked at what my options were for accommodation.  I decided on Redhill, not knowing why it was thus.  The other option was Snowtown but I decided to give that a miss even though I could be fairly sure that the perpetrator of the bodies in the acid barrels was still incarcerated, I still felt I wouldnt get a restful sleep.  Redhill is a very pretty historical wheat farming town which advertised free camping at the recreation ground.  I couldnt find the recreation ground but found a grove of sheoak trees with a sign of a caravan.  I was alone in the gove but that looked OK.  I had just put up the pop top when two things happened, yes, it started to rain and a huge freight trained roared by about 50 metres away quickly followed by another 5 minutes later and yet another soon after.  I thought it would be hell to try to sleep there but in the end, there were no trains between about 7 pm and 7 am.  Tim says the unions would work at night.

I figured it was called redhill because of a large patch of red rock showing through the grass or crop stubble that covered the surrounding hills.

I arrived in Adelaide yesterday - no more rain, but very hot and 38 degrees today.  Lovely house, lovely people, lovely airconditioning.  More another day as I am about to hop in their pool.
 

Cyclone Randy is still following me

I am in Coffin Bay on the Eyre Peninsular and guess what - it has started to rain.  I drove down from Venus Bay this morning and watched the clouds dumping rain out in the ocean heading in this direction.  The sight was wonderful, big banks of clouds, rainbows, great drifts of heavy rain in different directions but I was on dry road.  I got myself set up in the caravan park here after having a delicious lunch of King George whiting, chips and salad at a restaurant on the foreshore called the Oysterbeds and the view from that was indeed of the oyster beds for which this place is known.  No sooner had I put up my pop top and opened everything up to let the breeze in and it started to rain and hasn't stopped since.  The humidity is about 100%.  Having had a real shower, I am still dripping water.

Apart from the weather display the drive down was enjoyable.  Very dry stony white limestone soil, would have been very difficult for the early settlers to scratch a living.  Probably not so easy today, looking at the dry crop stubble on the undulating hills.  Along the way, there was lots of evidence of dry stone walling.  In most places, farmers had replaced it with modern fencing but left the remnants there.  In one place the walls were almost still intact.  I did take a photo.

Not quite the pristine standard of Ireland or the South West counties of England, but still standing when not much else is.

More dramatic cliffs with raging ocean beneath. One place I stopped was noted as a memorial to a fisherman in the early 70's who was lost when his boat crashed on the rocks - two crew with him managed to get ashore.  This was that spot.

Venus Bay is a very dedicated fishing place.  I was able to scoop a bay in the caravan park only as someone phoned to say they had vehicle trouble and needed to cancel that night.  The park was jammed with the hugest rigs I have ever seen.  I didnt have to worry about looking for shade (there wasnt any) but in any event the height and length of the vans swamped me and kept me in the shade for all but a couple of hours in the mid day.  I tried to show how much of a tiddler I was by comparison, but I should have put the pop down first.  This vehicle had another ten feet in front of my van.  The kitchen was the bit that hung out the side next to me.  I gathered that the people who stay there come for weeks and sometimes months on end for the fishing.  I overheard the neighbour in the row behind ask his wife when she returned with a bucket, "How may crabs did you get?"  She said "Only 25".  I was shocked, dont they have bag limits here?

On my way to Venus Bay I went passed a group of huge granite boulders rising out of a cropped field.  They were called Murphy's Haystacks.  Enormous, cant quite get the scale here.

Tomorrow on through Port Lincoln to who knows where.....

Finally got the hang of the photos

I will try again with the photos that I tried to add yesterday.

And I will now try to add a photo of the Bunda Cliffs along the Bight.  I went to the Head of the Bight which was pretty spectacular but no whales this time of year - will go back on my return journey.

I survived the Nullabor

Here I am in South Australia at Streaky Bay. I have had my first dip in the ocean in over 40 years and it was delicious to wash off the Nullabor dust. There wasnt actually much of that because it was raining for most of the journey. Can you believe how surreal it was to be driving through the desert through water rushing across the road, with great swathes of water on each side of the road. It was like, Hello! Is this the desert? All courtesy of Cyclone Rusty. Once the rain stopped it was HOT. I had spent a couple of days wearing a jacket and snugging up at night with a doona. Suddenly it was gasping for the air conditioner and any hint of a breeze. The sea breeze is in now at Streaky Bay and is lovely. Some interesting experiences along the way, apart from the flooded desert. There was the woman at Madora Pass who was working in the servo and commented that she had a campervan. She went on to tell me that she had arrived there in October last year and accepted a weeks work whilst someone took a week off. She was still there and didnt think she could get away until May. She said her lovely new van had only 2,000 km on the clock. I thought I would just keep going in case I got trapped there as well. Then there was the vehicle that pulled out into the service station at Mundrabilla from behind a steel gate. I was just getting back into my van after phoning Judy, or was it Joan? Anyway, I heard this scraping of steel and looked to see from whence it was coming. The gate in a solid steel fence was slowly opening and this vehicle drove through. I asked the driver if I could take a photo. I have now tried to download this photo twice so it may appear twice or not at all. This is being difficult. Anyway if you see the photo you will understand why I commented to the driver that it was like something out of Mad Max. He was however somewhat offended. The scenery along the Bight was fantastic and I took photos but given the experience of the vehicle photo, I will leave that until I get to a more stable environment to send photos.

It seems that the dates will be wrong when I type this in the mornings as although my computer correctly shows it is 2 March today by the time the blog gets published it is still the day before in the US where Google organise the magic. Sorry also about the typos. I did try to preview the entry and then lost it so when I posted again I didn't bother and just went to publish.

Yesterday at 6.45 am, I pulled out of my driveway in my trusty VDub and left summer behind. By the time I got to Merredin it was raining, being the tail of Cyclone Rusty that dumped deluges of rain in the Pilbar. Fortunately it was not that heavy but the temperature had cooled sufficiently for me to look about the van for where I put my jumper. Rain continued through Southern Cross where I stopped for lunch and onto my campsite at Koorarawalyee which is in the Goldfiels Woodlands CP 114 km west of Coolgardie. Rain continued overnight but by dawn had ended. Still full cloud cover. Due to the rain I will bypass Kalgoorlie enroute to Menzies for the Gormley experience at Lake Ballard. A do not want to get bogged at the beginning of my trip on the dirt road from Menzies to the Lake. Tonight I plan to camp at Fraser Range on the Eyre Highway so I will be well and truly into the desert by then. So far I have travelled through the wooded hills of the Darling Range, the dry stubble of the wheatbelt and the salmon gums of the more marginal areas where gold mining has had its heyday. At dinner before I left, the children made me promise that I would photograph any wildlife that I came across. Alice was however disappointed to hear that I did not expect to see a giraffe. I passed on the many dead kangaroos on the road as I figured they didnt qualify and was relieved that I had not caused their demise. This free campsite is very well done. Toilets, lots of shade if needed, table and chairs in both wood and concret, campfires set up with billy overhang and plenty of bays to park. When I arrived at about 2pm, I was the first. Others dribbled in and there are now 5 campers and a huge truck rig. Only one other campervan, the rest are caravans. No eyeing each other off at this ground as it is too wet and we all remain in our vans except the occasional run to the toilet through the rain.

Madge is on the move again! This time in Oz. Leaving home on 1 March 2013 to places and spaces known and unknown. First port of call will be the Gormly statues at Lake Ballard where I will camp. I will be travelling in my trusty VDub and flying solo. I am still at the stage of poring over maps and working out where to go and when I need to get there. I will be visiting Helen and Tim in the Fleurieu from 11 March and Harriet and family from late April. Tom will fly across to meet me in Sydney for a week and then we will travel to Canberra for the second week of his school hols and then fly home. After that - who knows? I have a new camera to play with and will need to see how I go at putting photos on the blog - it wasnt easy with the last one on my small computer.