21 April to 10 May

For our overseas readers. This is the Eyre Peninsula. If you look across the top you can see a black road, this is the main road which runs from the Nullabor Plains and Western Australia to Port Augusta in South Australia. When arriving from WA we drove straight across this road so that we could go to Adelaide and we are now backtracking to see the bits we missed. Unfortunately with the holdups with the vehicle the weather is not as good. As you can see from the rest of the following blog we are travelling down the eastern side of the peninsula and will then go back up the western side and back to Port Augusta.

The period from the Tuesday 21st April is a bit blurred as we didn’t make notes to remind us of what happened during that time, but we had heard that dolphins were following the boats into the harbour so we after lunch we took a walk along the beach to the marina and fisherman’s harbour to see if this were true. We saw several but it was impossible to get photographs of them as they were gone by the time we got the cameras focused and never knew where they would re-appear, so Merry tried filming them with a limited amount of success, and a lot of failures.



It was good to watch them frolicking in the wake of the boats as there appeared to be several mother/baby pairs.

There were lots of pelicans around that seem to think that lamp posts are installed for their benefit.

The walk to the harbour and back was a good hour so we stopped at a beach side café for coffee and cake. Defeated the purpose of the walk, but was nice and something we don’t do that often these days.

On Wednesday we went to the visitor centre which is also the Marine Museum and has the Frigate 'Whyalla' parked between the visitor centre and the museum buildings. We watched a video of the movement of the ship from the harbour to the current site which was a major engineering performance.

We then had the tour of the ship, followed by a look at the museum that included a large display of model trains simulating the rail system around the harbour and pellet plant plus another simulating the countryside which included The Ghan.

This was in addition to the marine displays of costumes, battles and equipment.

On the way back to the park we detoured to two lookouts, the Flinders/Freycinet overlooking the town and the other, Humpy Hill, overlooking the pellet plant and harbour.

It surprised me that a pellet plant still existed as the pellet plants that were at Robe River and Hamersley Iron, both closed in the 1970s. Here they still export iron ore in pellet form, but load the ore carriers by using tugs to tow huge barges out to the carrier and transfer it at sea because the harbour is too shallow for the large carriers to come in to the dockside.

Merry finds it interesting to watch other travellers parking their vans as some old hands slide great big vans in with the greatest of ease, and others tie themselves up in knots with little pop-tops. I maintain this is dependant on the instructions received from the person at the rear, plus the placement of trees, poles, fences and if the sun is in your eyes, or mirrors.

We had yet another cloudy day but no rain on Thursday. I am sure the rain clouds just look at SA and decide they don’t like it here and go somewhere else. Barry and I were always accused of being rain birds but we haven’t managed to bring any rain with us to SA.

We do however seem to be dogged by violence. Whenever we turn on the news on TV it is to hear about somebody being stabbed or shot where we were the day before. On Saturday we stopped overnight near Port Pirie and Port Germein. The following day we heard on the news that a man had been shot through the door of his car. Merry thinks the police are going to find the link and see that we were always near one of these acts of violence and decide that we must have something to do with it. Sunday we drove through Port Augusta and that night the police were shot at there.

I believe we have mentioned before that a boy was stabbed in a street in Adelaide the day after we walked down it and a man was shot, killed and left in his car in the carpark in Mile End the day after we went there to do some shopping. This was way across town from where we were staying but we needed a camping shop that was there.

We had discovered by the time we had travelled up to Port Augusta that second final adjustment to our gas system had been a dog’s dinner and our gas percentage was up to 36%. On the first Monday in Whyalla we informed Diesel/Gas of this and they posted out a selection of smaller jets, as we didn’t intend to return to Adelaide again.

These jets arrived on Thursday and I changed the current ‘C’ jet for a smaller ‘B’ jet on Friday morning

Sat 25th April Phoned Colleen (our daughter) to wish her a happy birthday, but did little else as it actually rained. There is a soccer pitch behind the caravan park so I was able to watch the soccer from the caravan annex in comfort whilst they all got saturated. That brought back a few memories of my younger sporting days.

Mon 27th April Visited the Mt Laura homestead museum depicting the agricultural history of the town. This was a bit of a let down as a lot of the displays were in poor condition.

The most eye catching items were in the garden in the form of an unusual statue, and a rose.

Wed 29th April Drove out to Secret Rock about 30 kilometres south of Kimba (we passed through here in November). The area around Kimba has many rocky outcrops, some of which are quite interesting but this one was just another rock and could be kept a secret.












From there we headed south east to Cowell on the coast with a break on the way to have our prepacked lunch at the roadside at a spot with a very pleasant view.

At Cowell we looked at the small harbour and town and then drove a short distance to Lucky Bay and watched the ferry from Wallaroo on the Yorke Peninsula arrive from its trip across the Spencer Gulf. We watched it unload and reload then depart back to Wallaroo. All the cars were put on one side of the ferry so I (Merry) asked if the ferry wouldn't tip over. After much derision the crew told us that the loading was done this way to counter balance the cafe and seating areas. There not being many cars. We discovered that they were doing half price deals on Tuesdays and Wednesday until August but we don't need to go back to Adelaide now. If we did it would be a heck of a lot cheaper than driving right around. Not though paying the full price.

We then drove south to check out Port Gibbon’s free camping spot, which didn’t impress us enough to want to use it. On our return to Whyalla we refilled the diesel and gas tanks to determine that the smaller jet had managed to defy the laws of Physics and produced an increase of gas use at 43% rather than reduce it.

Thursday 30th April

Changed the gas jet from ‘B’ to ‘A1’ which is the smallest jet.
A large group of multiple car clubs touring the Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas stayed at the caravan park. Some old cars had matching old vans. The range consisted of Morris Minor, Austin A35, 1957 Vauxhall Velox, several Chrysler tanks, Wolseley 6, 1954 Mercedes sports, MG B, Morris van, Jowett Javelin. As well as meeting with local car clubs they all gathered in town

Friday 1st May

Phoned our son Garon in Melbourne to wish him a happy birthday and then attempted to change a wheel on the car as the tyre was getting rather worn. This didn’t work out too well as the nuts on the spare wheel carrier had no intention of coming undone. With the assistance of a stronger brute than me, we managed to undo one nut and sheer the other to studs. I then changed the wheel and drove around town and found an AutoPro shop and purchased two new studs and then found a workshop to grind the old studs off and re-weld the new studs on. AutoPro recommended a workshop to me and I was able to remove the carrier and leave it with them for a few hours.

I later returned and re-fitted the carrier and the spare wheel

Merry did some work for SAFE

Sat 2nd May Drove down to Cowell again, and on to Cleve to see what an inland town has to offer.

Just before reaching the town is Yeldulknie Weir built across a small valley which once had a stream running through it which supplied water to Arno Bay and Cowell. It has BBQ facilities and tables and is a pleasant spot but unfortunately doesn’t have any water.


The town is quite small but boasts several building with large murals depicting the way of life in Cleve











This trip allowed us to determine the new gas percentage of 23%, a lot healthier than before but lower than the 28% that we are trying to achieve. Changed the ‘A1’ jet for an ‘A’ jet which in theory should get us closer to our target figure.

Sunday 3rd May Packed up and moved on down to Port Lincoln. This move let us determine the effect of the new ‘A’ jet but under towing conditions which proved to be 19%. This appears low but is always low when towing because of the load and gearing (not using overdrive) have filled both tanks and will now wait until we can determine the non-towing value. We decided to stay at a caravan park about 10 kms short of Port Lincoln at a suburb called North Shields. The caravan park is sitting on top of the cliffs and our caravan is looking out over the sea about 20 metres from the cliffs. There is no beach here and no access to the sea which hits against the cliffs even when the tide is in. The park is less expensive than the one in Port Lincoln (always a consideration) and very peaceful. When we looked at the other one it appeared to be very busy.

Port Lincoln is almost at the base of the Eyre Peninsula. It is almost as far south as Adelaide and has a similar climate. When it rains in Adelaide it usually rains in Port Lincoln. There are two National Parks at the base of the Eyre Peninsula, Port Lincoln National Park and Coffin Bay National Park. In the middle is an area called Whalers Way which is a flora and fauna reserve.

Monday 4th May Phoned our daughter-in-law to wish a happy birthday but didn’t actually make contact. Hopefully out enjoying herself and received our message later.

We took a drive up through the hills which are just inland from North Shields and got some lovely views looking out over Port Lincoln and Boston Island which is about 7 kms off the coast in Boston Bay. The map shows a scenic drive which we decided to follow. We also called in to look at the golf club and find out how much a game would cost.

This is a view of Port Lincoln taken from the lookout in the hills near North Shields.

Somewhere between the 4th and 8th I did some work for SAFE and one other client.

Friday 8th May 09

We took a drive around Port Lincoln and took some photos of the bays near the town. We drove around the marina and canals to see how the other half live. There were some lovely housed and some huge boats but I got envious so Barry got out of there.

This is in the Marina.

Barry walking at one of the bays near Port Lincoln.

Apart from the two trips mentioned up until today Sat 9th May, the week has been pretty uneventful as there has been thick heavy cloud cover which has not invited you to get out and about. It threatens rain but even when it attempts it we only get a light drizzle. We could have gone to England for that.

With reference to the violence that follows us, now that we have left Whyalla, someone has tried to burn the shopping centre down. I'm hoping we manage to stay ahead of it.

Foxy has developed a swelling on one pad of her left rear leg and has been to the vet, which she absolutely hates and starts trembing and trying to escape the moment we pass over the threshhold, but medication doesn’t appear to be doing anything so she will have to endure another visit in a few days time, on Monday 11th April.

10th May 09

We drove to Tumby Bay which is about 30 kms back up the coast from Port Lincoln. This is a pretty little coastal town which we believe is very popular with tourist in the summer. We spotted this rather nice wooden sculpture of a dolphin on the beach which we were impressed with. On the way back we drove inland to have a look at Cummins. This is just another farming community and there was nothing there that invited us to stop the car for a photo. Still we have been there so we wont be wondering if there was something there that we would have missed if we hadn't gone. We drove back down some graded roads through the hills to North Shields.