17 March to 20 April 09

Tuesday 17th March

In the morning, we drove into Port Pirie for some shopping and Centrelink business (no fight this time).

In the afternoon drove about thirteen kilometres into the Southern Flinders Range to explore Telowie Gorge, which is more like our type of interest rather than towns, beaches, jetties and war memorials. We walked in to the Gorge for about twenty five minutes along a well defined track to the end of the so called tourist part, where there would have been a cascade of water into a small pool if any significant rain had happened in the last year or two. The literature claims that if you sit quietly, you may see a rare yellow footed wallaby, but the latter part didn’t happen, so ten minutes later we climbed over the imaginary cascade (didn’t get my feet wet) and walked on along the gorge for another ten minutes before sitting quietly again, with the same result. We were told the gorge goes right through the range to the other side (about 29 kilometres but that was not our intention). We were rather impressed with the tree growing around a large stone which has become imbedded in the tree.

Wednesday 18th March

Did a day trip to take in some of the relatively nearby towns and attractions so headed initially to Murray Town which involves a pleasant winding drive though Germein Gorge, and as nothing of interest lives at Murray Town went on to Melrose and Mount Remarkable which boasts some trails to a Cathedral Rock and the summit. The signposts give you information on the severity of the trails but no idea of where you are going. Consequently, we didn’t get to either place. The summit would have been a major achievement as the track was exceptionally steep and rough and 12.5 kilometres long. Whilst the track we did take split off later with no indication of where any of the tracks went. Having driven and walked about half way to the summit and/or Cathedral Rock, we gave it away to seek out somewhere to buy some lunch. The only place was the local pub which claims to provide all types of meals and drinks, but seems to lack anybody to serve them, so we gave that away as well. So much for Melrose and Mt Remarkable which proved to be anything but, and moved on to Booleroo Centre (which we thought was a centre for something but it wasn’t) and found a cafe/bakery that provided a reasonable meal but the rest of the township offered nothing so continued on our way to Wirrabara and followed the sign to Wirrabara Forest. Fifteen kilometres of dirt road later we came to a locked gate across the road but no forest other than pine plantations so backtracked and headed for Laura which is quite a pretty place with a well tended median strip and a larger than life bronze sculpture of some dude outside the art gallery. I only took 2 pictures all day which is very unlike me but there was nothing much to inspire photos. The one above was taken from near the monument at the base of Mt Remarkable.

We turned off here to go to Beetaloo Valley and Hughes Gap, but again once you leave the bitumen there is a distinct lack of signposts at ensuing junctions, and the local map doesn’t help, so ended up back on another bitumen road heading back to Port Pirie and on to Port Germein. All in all a wasted day and fuel with nothing to show for it although patches of scenery were okay.

Barry omitted to mention that the drive through Germein Gorge was beautiful. I love walking and driving through gorges. They are so majestic.


Thursday 19thMarch
Main street in Port Germein (almost only street in Port Germein)

Bought some bait and borrowed the trolley with crab nets and bucket from the Park office, loaded it up with chairs and drinks and then dragged it the 1.5 kilometres to the end of the jetty. Set the nets and chairs and dug in for 2 hours. The final outcome was four legal size crabs and then dragged it all back to the park where Merry did the technical stuff called cooking. It should provide enough for Merry to have two meals from it as I am not interested in seaborne meals of any description.. This was a first for both of us and was a pleasant experience with just one small drawback in the form of a crying baby. You don’t expect that a mile out to sea perched on an eight foot wide strip if wood. I was not allowed to use the baby as crab bait.

Barry caught three of the crabs and I caught one. As Barry said it was good fun. There was another lady on the jetty whom we talked to a bit and before we left I asked her how many she had caught. She said one and she had been there longer than we had and had years of experience so we felt quite proud of our four. Mind you we were allowed to catch 40. I decided that if I had taken my book so that I could read between checking nets I could have stayed out there all day. As it was two hours was enough. We do not have the patience to be good fisher people. I have often toyed with the idea of buying a fishing rod and having a go but the expense is quite off putting.

Friday 20th March

Washing day. I did some work for SAFE as I discovered that their books have not been done since I stopped doing them last July. Also we decided to pack up as much as we could, annex, awning and anything else that didn’t go inside the caravan so that we could have an early start in the morning. Heading back to Adelaide.

Saturday 21st March

Left Port Germein at 8.00 am and arrived in Adelaide about mid day. As soon as we arrived, and were parked in the same place as our first visit to Adelaide, Foxy heard our neighbour Arley. Barry released her from her harness and she leapt out of the window into Arley’s arms and wriggled around as if she hadn’t seen him for a month, which of course she hadn’t. It was quite a warm day but we really needed to put the annex up so that we could put the chairs and tables into it. Done by 6.00 pm and we were exhausted. I asked Barry if we could have a Chinese meal. So we went to find a restaurant. We did find one but it was packed to the gills so we gave up and went home for me to cook again. Watched The Bill and that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday 22nd March

I spent most of the day working for SAFE and Barry pottered about. I think he watched the Clipsal 500, which was running in Adelaide, on the television in the afternoon. We managed our Chinese meal this evening.



Monday 23rd March

Barry took the car back to Diesel Gas Australia for our 6th attempt to get the gas to work. This time he left the car there and brought home one of the mechanic’s utes. We do not hold out much hope because the mechanic said the computer says the car is using gas. If this is so it is also manufacturing gas as we are not buying any and haven’t for 4000 kilometres.

I spent the day working for SAFE and gossiping with the neighbours.

Gary phoned at about 5.00 pm and said the car was fixed but he was going to drive it home to make sure it was using gas. We still have no hope that it is fixed.

Tuesday 24th March

Gary phoned at about 9.30 am and said the car is fixed. This time I think he really has got it as the car is making the growly noise that it used to make before it stopped using gas. He actually discovered the fault as he was driving home. He was watching the computer and he saw a “Mapping Sensor” fading out as he watched. Once this sensor unit was replaced everything worked as it should. When you consider what they have replaced (practically the whole system) and the hours they have spent on it, the cost would be astronomical. Time wise it would be longer than it takes to fit the original system and as expected the replaced item was the one I suggested to them in the original instance.

Wednesday 25th March

Washing day

Thursday 26th March

Trip to Mt Barker to gain confidence in the gas system, which proved to be successful (Barry was spinning the wheels when we took off from stop signs) but the other purpose of the trip was not so good. We had been led to believe the town and surrounds had some interesting points of interest which didn’t turn to be exactly true. The old centre of town is quite quaint but the surrounds had little to show except the nearby wetlands which did provide a 40 minute walk around the perimeter, and a pleasant spot for lunch. Considering the lack of rain, these wetlands aren’t in too bad a shape. There were quite a few birds which Merry took some photos of.

Once lunch was over with nothing left to do in Mt Barker we did the only logical thing to do in this area and made for Woodside and the Melba chocolate factory for the third time. We took a round about way home down through the Torrens scenic drive to get back to Windsor Gardens. We noticed that although there has been little rain the hills were definitely greener than they had been last time we drove through them. This is not to say actually green but green in patches and not quite so brown.

Friday 27th March

Just some shopping.

Wednesday 1st April

Took the car in for a final adjustment to improve the gas/diesel ratio as it is good, but could be slightly better.

Monday 6th April

Packed up some clothes and food to head out to Dale’s house for dinner and instructions regarding feeding the dog and cat and be shown where everything is. Dale invited us to look after her house and the dog and cat for the 4 days that she was in Melbourne.

Tuesday 7th April

Settled in at Dale’s

We did some lovely walks around the area where Dale lives. There are some beautiful houses around Greenwith and Golden Grove and some really big ones. The area is very dry like everywhere else in South Australia but still the walks along the creek were very nice.

Wednesday 8th April

We took Dale to the airport in the morning and when we got back we tore up cardboard boxes and weaved them through the fence to stop Foxy from escaping while we were out.
We did a bit of shopping in the afternoon.

Thursday 9th April.

We had planned to go to Glenelg and Brighton beaches today but we could see that there was already too much traffic on the roads and because it was going to be Easter Holidays we decided that those places could do without us and we would just enjoy veging out on Dale’s lovely recliner chairs. I had a good book.

Saturday 11th April.

Shopping in the morning for the food for Dale’s family breakfast on Sunday morning and we picked up Dale from the airport in the evening.

Sunday 12th April

We had a lovely breakfast with Dale’s family. Daughter Theresa and partner Carol, daughter Sue and son-in-law Kane, son Michael and wife Jo, brother James and wife Joan and another couple I didn’t catch the names of and various grandchildren.

After breakfast Dale, Theresa and I took the kids up to a playground with the dogs.

Barry and I then went back to Windsor Grove Caravan Park for the rest of our stay in Adelaide.

Barry took the car back for another adjustment as we discovered we were now using way too much gas (53%). Barry asked Gary if we needed to hang around in Adelaide for another week to make sure the gas was OK but Gary was convinced that it would be alright for us to leave for Whyalla.

Thursday 16th April

As Audible Books took $365.00 from me in December even though I tried to stop them and tried to get the money back I decided that I might as well have the books so I spent the day downloading books from their website. I downloaded 12 books but I still have 17 credits left which I will have to get next month. I am almost out of download usage with Bigpond.

Friday 17th April

Lovely dinner with Dale (a beef stroganoff) and pecan pie for desert. It was sad to say goodbye to Dale as it could be some years before we see her again and we really enjoyed her company.

Saturday 18th April

Started early on the pack up to leave Adelaide for the 3rd time. We were away by 9:00am after a sad farewell with Arley and Jenny and Barry and Rene all of whom we had become friendly with during our three stays at the park. Barry and Rene are leaving in two weeks to go to Kalgoorlie prospecting but Arley and Jenny are still at the whim of their health issues.

We stopped overnight at Port Pirie. Apart from a walk around the caravan park, which was on the main road not in Port Pirie itself, we didn’t do anything else. However, we determined that the second final adjustment to the gas system still left a lot to be desired, as it is still injecting too much gas (37%) but not as much as before. As we do not intend returning to Adelaide again, they are posting out some smaller jets that I can change myself to reduce the gas use back towards the 28% we desire. Rather than alter the computer settings. This can be done when we reach Port Lincoln in a few weeks time.
If only they would let me have the computer program on my computer in conjunction with the ten minute training, which is all they appeared to have had, I could also apply my own guesswork.

We arrived in Whyalla at about 11:30 am and spent the rest of the day setting up the annex and getting everything out of the caravan. We are getting quite good at setting up these days but Barry still gets frustrated with the caravan parks various problems when trying to park the van. Our site had a light pole dead opposite and a tree trunk right where we needed to reverse the van. Both made it necessary to juggle the van backwards and forwards until he got it into the right position. As usual the site was not level and we had to use 2 jockey wheels to get the front of the van low enough to make it level, juggling back and forth between the 2 until we were there.

We took Foxy for a walk along the foreshore in the evening. It was extremely windy and we were quite glad that we were too stingy to pay for a foreshore caravan site, they were about $5.00 a night dearer. We could see a lookout which looks inviting and a mariner where fishing boats appear to come in.

Monday 20th April

Spent half the day standing in Centrelink waiting to hand in our rent assistance forms. It is the only thing that makes me wish I was home and not having to keep handing the damn forms in. We could post them but if we do that we have no proof that they have received them and then we might lose our rent assistance. It is only a pittance but it helps. We have to put a form in every time we move and as this can some times be daily if we are travelling any distance it can be quite a few forms.

After Centrelink we called in to the Tourist Bureau to see what Whyalla has to offer to tourist. There are a few things for us to do but being a mining town rather than a tourist destination there is not a great deal to do.

We took Foxy for a walk the other way along the beach in the evening. There was nothing special to see this way but we did have a chat with some of the other travellers as we were passing their site.