27 Feb to 16 March

Friday 27th February

Moved from Minlaton to Kadina in the northern end of the Yorke Peninsula and set up for weeks stay.

War Memorial and town hall.

Saturday 28th February

This involved an early start to travel back to Adelaide (about 2 hours) to visit the Caravan/camping show which meant dropping into Windsor Grove caravan park to drop Foxy off with her favourite dog-sitters Arley and Jenny.
The show proved to us that the caravan we have is better than most others without spending in excess of twice what we paid. The alternative would be to settle for a fifth-wheeler, but as that would involve selling our house, it is not going to happen.
As is the case at these shows, everything you have managed without for years is reduced to a special show price so that you now can’t mange without it, and if it is food or drink it costs a small fortune.
After the show we spent some time with the dog-sitters and then took ourselves and Foxy to Dale’s house (Ann’s sister) in Greenwith, who we got to know when Ann and Ashley were visiting, and stayed the night.

Sunday 1st March

Returned to Kadina in the afternoon after enjoying Dale’s company in the morning.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday passed uneventfully other than some rain (rare) and wind, shopping and housework.

Thursday 5th March

Returned to Adelaide to have our gas system checked (fourth time) as it is still not using any gas with the diesel despite their previous attempts which involved flushing the lines, changing the filter, changing to a bigger jet, increasing the regulator pressure and deciding we must have a load of bad gas and is therefore not their problem. We didn’t agree with this theory and called the Perth people who contacted Adelaide while we were there on our fourth visit, although this wasn’t appreciated by the Adelaide crew. However, this time they decided the microprocessor unit was defective and not passing out any signals so they replaced that and retuned everything. We are still not using gas. When we made our first visit we actually told them what we thought was the problem, and will let you know when they eventually change that unit and achieve success.

Called in to see Dale again for a cuppa, and then returned to Kadina with a bag full of peaches straight off Dale’s tree.

Friday 6th March

Washing day.

Saturday 7th March

Day out at Wallaroo to check out the town and driving around the Heritage Trail. We had lunch on the beach but the amount of weed didn’t inspire a walk for Foxy but we did have a walk in town and through the Nautical Museum which was quite good, and most importantly allowed Foxy in.

There is a tourist train ride available from Wallaroo to Bute via Kadina but we didn’t do this.

Only the smelter chimney remains from the good old days when a copper mine processing plant was here complete with a sulphuric acid plant. This was also used in the local fertiliser plant to make superphosphate.



Wheat and barley are dispatched from this town.

On the way back to Kadina we drove around the back of the town to the Wallaroo mine but there is not a lot left to see.

There is an amazing amount of housing development in this area. We were told that the Copper Triangle (Wallaroo, Moonta and Kadina are among the fastest growing areas in South Australia but mainly retirees are going there). Saw a property in a real estate agent’s window, for sale for $284,000. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms on 3 acres of land with sea views. We could sell our house and have $100,000 left over but we would be too far from the kids and all our friends.

Sunday 8th March

Drove to Moonta, which is the third town in the Copper Triangle.

Being a Sunday they had a market by the old railway station which is now the visitors centre, and whilst the old trains no longer run in this town, there is a narrow gauge train ride through the old mine site that we chose to be part of. This was quite interesting but the speakers on the train were not the best so we didn’t hear a great deal of what the train driver was pointing out.

Our photographs were not too good either because of the movement of the train. We then drove round the heritage Trail and saw everything again, plus more.

This also included a climb to the lookout on top of a slag heap for an overview of the site, town and the old slime dams which have been cleaned out but nothing grows there because of the acid that leached into the soil.

The slag heaps are gradually being removed as the main roads department use them up on the roads.

There are some really nice old buildings in and around Moonta.

We had a trip through a “miner’s cottage” while we were following the heritage trail. It was quite a bit larger than I imagine any real miner’s cottage would be and we were told it was actually a mine manager’s cottage. Other than that it was very interesting with some nice furniture and bits and pieces.

With a nice cottage garden.

Monday 9th March

This is a South Australian public holiday for the Adelaide Cup.

We drove to Moonta again without Foxy to tour the Wheal Hughes copper mine. It is open cut to a depth of 30 metres and then tunnelled in a wide, steep spiral (1:7 slope) to a depth of 85 metres, with an air shaft through the middle. We had to dress up as miners with boots, hard hats complete with lights and belts to carry the battery packs, and then travelled in one of three carriages drawn by tractor down to the portal. We had to tag on before we could go into the mine with a tag that had been given to us with the other kit. We placed this tag on a board outside the underground part of the mine.

We then descended another 25 metres underground to some of the old workings. This showed the drilling pattern for the explosives and the relatively modern drilling equipment. In its earliest days the blast holes were hand made in candle light. We did go down to a second level and 57 feet and the tour guide turned off the lights to show us how difficult it was to work with 2 candle power. He then showed us what complete darkness was.

It was quite interesting to see where the copper seams had been and the pillars that remain between levels which we were told needed to be there to stop the rest of the hole from caving in. the tour guide also pointed out different methods of securing against rock fall some was what looked like huge screws that were fastened into the rock at various intervals with what looked like flat bits of metal which the screws were holding in place. He claimed it kept the rock safe but I couldn’t work out how. There was also some metal netting which was draped around like you see on road walls that are subject to rock falls. Again this looks precarious.

Lower depths are not available as they have not been secured against rock fall, and are permanently flooded. We tagged off and handed in our tags when we got back to the surface. Interestingly they were missing a tag and we left them busily panicking about where the missing tag was.

We were a little disappointed with this trip as it was basically just a big hole with some evidence of blasting and drilling. It was very untidy compared to the copper mine that Barry worked in and I toured in Zambia. It was very wet underfoot and I was very worried about slipping on the slopey ground but I managed to stay upright.

Tuesday 10th March

The morning was spent locating the local diesel/gas agent to have yet another try to get the car to use some gas, and having spoken to him, I got the impression that we might be about to have success. I then found a garage to arrange for the car to have its oil, etc changed.

Returned to Moonta in order to go to Moonta Bay and check the beach, etc, which had some piles of weed but still had plenty of room to walk on the beach, and we also walked out along the jetty.

There is a lot new residential building happening despite the fact that doesn’t appear to be much work available other than a bit of fishing and wheat/barley crops which couldn’t supply work for the whole town. It was suggested that it is to accommodate retirees but I don’t think so many all have the same idea at the same time, and some of the building represent serious real estate.

Whilst in the area, we drove along the coast to Port Hughes but was not particularly impressed so returned to Moonta and had afternoon tea in a café in town before returning to Kadina.

Whilst driving around, we heard on the radio that there had been a burst water main in the Adelaide area. Since being in the Adelaide area we have seen on TV, or heard on radio, of at least a dozen burst water mains (almost one a week) that loses millions of litres of water whilst everybody’s gardens are suffering badly because of the water restrictions.

Wednesday 11th March

Took the car into the Diesel/gas agent to have the gas injector fitted which was sent up from Adelaide in readiness and then the car went for its oil change. This bit went alright but the gas mob had decided that the problem was the converter (regulator) and had arranged to have one sent from Adelaide and would fit it on Friday.

Thursday 12 March

Visited the local Information centre come museum called The Farm Shed which is quite impressive with a huge array of old trucks, cars, tractors, farm implements, dairy implements, telegraph equipment, school house farm house, etc with interactive sections.

We then did some shopping in readiness to move on Friday after the car was ready but then changed the caravan arrangements to leave on Saturday

Friday13th March

Car was returned from the diesel experts quite quickly so we could have moved on but having made the arrangement changes decide to stick with it. The Diesel/gas mob is confident all is now okay, we are not so confident as it still is not making the noise it used to make.


Saturday 14th March

Headed out for Whyalla which was to be about a five hour journey with lunch break, etc but decided to re-arrange the caravan park arrival from Saturday to Monday and break the journey at Port Germein. This proved to be a lovely small township with the longest wooden jetty in Australia (approx 1500 kilometres) which is useful as the tide goes out 1 kilometre. It was used for loading wheat onto the sailing ships of the era.

The other upside to stopping here is the fact that it is only about 40 kilometres to Wirrabara which is supposed to be home to another of the diesel/gas agencies should we need one.

We elected not to put up the awning and annexe as it very blowy at the moment. After we had spoken to the park manager we decided that we needed more time in Port Germein as it is very close to the Southern Flinders Rangers so we arranged to leave next Saturday.

In the afternoon we took a trip to Port Pirie to see what it had to offer other than a coating of lead, and checked out the information centre which also had an art gallery attached to it. Merry liked some of the exhibits but it looked to me like someone had too much spare time on their hands and didn’t know what to do with it. Some of the glass blown exhibits where superb and really delicate and there were some bark and glass exhibits which I could have spent money on if I had it (says Merry). We drove across a bridge and onto the other side of the inlet to look more closely at the smelter. This is the biggest lead smelter in the southern hemisphere and it looked it. We drove around what looked like a small island but there was nothing else to see except samphire and mangroves.

Sunday 15th March

The wind has dropped so we set up the annexe and settled in a little more comfortably and was informed that a women’s group at a place just round the corner provides midday meals for $7.50 so we gave that a go, and it proved to be good value, plus they make donation to charities from the profits, so quite a few people gain the benefits.
Drove over to Port Pirie again for a bit of shopping and attempted to top up the gas cylinder to see if we had actually used any gas as the indicator showed it to be still full, and as expected we got no more in as none had gone out, so we will be visiting Wirrabara on Monday if we can get an appointment. There are only two components left to change.

Monday 16th March

Called the mechanic at Wirrabara but he wanted to know about payment and when we said it would be a warranty job he wasn’t really interested in talking to us. He said he would need to get in touch with the mechanic in Adelaide to see about payment. I spent the day working on Safe (Saving Animals From Euthanasia) books as I discovered nothing had been done since I stopped doing their work last July. Since I have very little other work and I like a little bit that I can be extravagant with, I have decided to start doing this work again.

I called Whyalla and told them we wouldn’t be arriving until next Saturday and I called the Hearing Life centre and told them that I wouldn’t be able to make the appointment I made for next Tuesday and rearranged this for 6th April.

Barry tried several times to get in touch with somebody who could help us with the car. He rang Gary in Adelaide and left a message for him to call but it never happened. He called Tony the guy who supposedly fixed the car in Kadina but he wasn’t interested and said that the car was definitely using gas when he gave it back to us. This leaves us wondering what we are doing wrong because nothing goes out of our gas tank. He also said we had to stop moving around if we wanted to get the car fixed. Obviously the four attempts over four weeks was not good enough. We called Mark in Perth and his receptionist said that Mark will call Diesel Gas Australia head office and advice them of the run around we are getting. Finally in the middle of the afternoon Gary called back and said that the only way we could get the car fixed was to take it back to Adelaide or back to Kadina. We have decided to go back to Adelaide as the caravan park in Kadina is awful and expensive. This meant another call to Whyalla to advise that we would be there one day but we didn’t know when at this stage. We had to arrange for them to forward our mail back to Adelaide. I also had to call Hearing Life again and rearrange my hearing test. We need to bill Diesel Gas Australia for all the extra fuel they are costing us with trips back to Adelaide and telephone calls to rearrange our lives. It now looks like we will be stuck in Adelaide for at least another month because we can’t book anywhere else for Easter because we don’t know when the car will be finished.

Believe it or not we never intended spending much time in major cities!!!

The rain trickle has stopped and the wind has once again got up and the annex feels like it is blowing away.