The Roaming 5: Nov 9-13 (Day 283-287) - Pt Augusta to Border Village

Monday 9 November

Our plans to make a prompt departure from Pt Augusta were thwarted by a range of shopping activities and last-minute 'need to get this' which resulted in us driving up and back the same 2km of highway three times!

We headed north from our campsite towards Pt Augusta. We got fuel first. I then needed some pop-rivets to reinstall the exhaust fan and two gas bottle refills, but had to go to two hardware stores to get the right rivets. We'd also found the break-safe cable on the caravan (which automatically applies the caravan electric brakes if the van uncouples from the car when in transit) needed replacing, and we figured Pt Augusta would be the place to get it done, but the hardware store didn't have what we needed. So after driving north into town to do a bit of food shopping, we then had to double back and head south out of town along the highway again to a caravan shop past the hardware store to get a break-safe cable. By this time it was lunch time so we went further back to the same fuel station we were at that morning where there was also a Hungry Jack's and got lunch. This done, we turned north AGAIN and retraced our route through town and finally got out the other side!

Woo hoo! The junction across to WA!

Mine site near Iron Knob

Arriving at Kimba, the half-way
point across Australia!

Our first stop was Kimba where we got some fuel, had a leg stretch, and were encouraged to spend a bit of time there by a friendly local council worker who was diligently cleaning the toilets. He really talked the place up so we followed his directions to a pretty decent playground, where we had our obligatory family game of chasey!

Kimba has also taken the opportunity to paint some pretty amazing murals on their old wheat silos. I'm not sure if they're still in use but we've seen several places now where the town's big white silos have been adorned with artwork.

The Kimba playground

Pretty impressive silo art in Kimba!

Heading through the grain-growing areas of upper Eyre Peninsula

We carried on for the rest of the afternoon through the grain growing areas of upper Eyre Peninsula. It's pretty amazing seeing wheat growing as far as the eye can see!

We stopped for the night at Wudinna. There's a donation place next to their oval, I think it was $5 for the night which was pretty reasonable considering they had some pretty good public toilets there too. There was only one other van about 100m away so it was nice and private, and we had exclusive use of the toilet block! We made use of the cricket nets during the evening. My shoulder's been sore from whip cracking and some other things so I'm having to learn to bowl left-handed now!

After doing our readings it was still quite warm so we all went for a run around the oval where the kids thought it would be a fun idea to run under the big sprinkler that was on. The boys particularly came back sopping wet whereas Bek was only a little damp.

Tuesday 10 November

Wudinna

Today we were woken by very strong winds beating against the van. It was so strong and the weather forecast seemed to suggest that it would continue for a while into the afternoon. It wasn't ideal - we didn't want to be stuck here where it was hot and windy, but nor did we want to be travelling at high speed in blustery conditions. In the end the temperature prevailed so we decided to move on and just take it slowly, which worked out fine.

After regrettably finding the Wudinna Bakery was closed for renovations, we grabbed some fuel for our tummies from the local service station who apparently sold the bakery's goods anyway.

On the Eyre Highway in Wudinna

The drive to Ceduna was pretty uneventful and not as blowy on the car as we thought. We still dropped our speed and took it easy as it was still pretty windy but we were glad we had decided to move (we don't have air conditioning in the caravan so on a hot day it's much nicer being in the car).

Arriving at the Ceduna Airport Caravan Park

The interesting thing about this drive is that the last time we did it in this direction was nearly 14 years ago at the start of 2007, when we moved over to Perth when Bek was just 18 months old! Last year of course we drove east on this road, but nothing really rang much in the way of bells. But this time travelling in the same direction (west), all sorts of things came back to us!

One such example was our decision to stay at the same caravan park for the night we stayed in 14 years ago - the Ceduna Airport Caravan Park!

It was amazing how little had changed in those 14 years! To be honest it needed a bit of love, but for us it was great seeing how identical everything was, and we had a lovely afternoon reminiscing on old times, looking at photos and videos of our first trip over to Perth and watching Bek when she was younger. Boy have the years flown by!

We recreated this old photo from our first trip -
same caravan park, same pool, same people!

Wednesday 11 November

This morning over coffee we made a bit of plan of how to run the next few months (all Godwilling of course) and then be able to let family know our rough arrival in Perth and when we would be needing to be making our way back across to Adelaide. Then we packed up and got ready to head off, not knowing the few little problems which would all conspire against us this morning!

As we left the caravan park, unfortunately one of the legs of the van had either swung down or it had been forgotten to put up out of the way either way it got a bit damaged and bent enough to need to take it off and get it replaced when we can next. So we made our way into town where we were getting some new tyres put on the Pajero. We'd gotten them checked in Alice Springs as they were getting a little low, but since then we'd done the Birdsville Track and they had really taken some punishment, some cuts in the tread, a bit in the sidewall and the tread level had dropped noticeably too. So we parked up, unhitched the van off and put the jockey wheel in place to support the front, and lo and behold the bolt on the jockey wheel clamp picked that very moment to finally strip out again! You may remember we had that problem at Coen and the bush mechanic there made up a replacement bolt for us, but the problem really was with the thread in the nut that's welded onto the other side of the clamp, which is in turn welded onto the drawbar. Normally of course we could just drop the front legs down but... hmmm we have one leg missing at the front just when we need it 'cos it got damaged half an hour ago!!! Fortunately a car parts place across the road had a replacement jockey wheel clamp so we got that, but of course it needed to be welded on, and we didn't have a welder! The bolt was staying in place for now but at any moment it could let go.

Doing a leg transplant on the caravan!

In the end, I took one of the legs off the back of the caravan and put that on the front so we could safely remove the jockey wheel clamp and do something about getting it fixed.

Just as it happened a lovely gentleman came walking past and asked if everything was OK and once we had explained he gave me a number of someone who could possibly help. Unfortunately the guy was away in Adelaide, but he provided a number of someone else who was able to do it for us once the tyres were done. What a relief!

Once our tyres had been done we drove the van down to the workshop and left the van there while we got some lunch. We zapped down to the shops to see if there was anything we could get for lunch as we were feeling rather hungry by this stage. The kids and Mim spotted the pie warmer and noticed that they had been reduced (probably because they had been sitting there for 30 mins too long for what they deem the right time or something) anyway we were able to get a few pies, a few sausage rolls and some other delectables for lunch while we waited.

Not long after getting into the car we got a message to say the van was all finished. Oh the job gets done so quickly when you have all the right tools! I've certainly got plenty of tools and bits and pieces that have been so handy to fix up things, but sometimes when some welding or other slightly bigger jobs need doing you have to call on someone else or it could have easily been done if at home with all the other bigger equipment. The joys and fun of being on the road hey.

On our way our we took the slightly scenic route via the ocean. It was a beautifully warm day with not many clouds about. While we reminisced we remembered this was the place where we had come on our way back from Perth while Jude was still on his crutches. Very thankful that all healed up and he's doing fine. Just needs to have the rod taken out once we get back.

As we traveled we passed through a town called Penong where there is supposed to be the biggest windmill in Australia.

Well it's safe to say it was pretty huge and a pretty fascinating to say the least compared to the other smaller windmills nearby.

As we've travelled out towards the border we have mostly seen road trains and very long trucks. Very few cars coming out towards the border and only a handful coming the other way. The trucks always seemed to pass us as we were sitting on around 80-85 to get the best economy. They have all been great truck drivers and indicated in some way to say thank you which is lovely. We do try to have our CB radios charged so that we can talk to anyone else with a CB or trucks to chat to them and let other cars and trucks passed. But on this particular stretch we hadn't been able to do that so couldn't chat.

Being passed by a road train, keeping well to the left!

Somewhere between Penong and Nundroo we spotted this little bobtail / stumpy lizard on the road. We had originally driven passed him but then turned around and rescued him off the road so he didn't get run over. We did see quite a few that weren't so lucky before and after this. He/she was quite a feisty little thing and would open it's mouth and hiss at any sort of movement which we all thought was quite amusing.

Since Stumps was acting up for the camera,
we thought, why can't we? :)

Our plan is to get as close to the border so that in the next few days in the lead up to it opening we are close enough to be able to pack up as quickly as possible and be down there and ready to cross when it's open. We found a lovely spot along the Great Australian Bight about 10km away from Border village near the beach. Well it was actually about 1km away from the beach but it had a beautiful view.

This was taken the next morning but it's pretty spectacular hey?

Thursday 12 November

A pretty quiet day today just enjoying the local area and waiting for the border to open. We'd thought we'd just walk down to the water, but found it was quite a bit further than we'd expected. That might sound silly on the Bight but this particular section wasn't sitting on a 100m high cliff!

Lovely view out the back of the van!

Still about 1km to that water!

So we took the Pajero along some tracks in the hope we might be able to get down to the beach. When these ran out we checked the Google Maps satellite map to try to find any unmarked tracks. Once these were exhausted, it was using the satellite map to see where the biggest gaps between bushes were. In the end we got as close as we could realistically hope for, locked the car and then walked about a kilometre towards the beach.

Each time you thought you were nearly at the water, you'd come across another giant sandhill!

But eventually we got there!

The Great Southern Ocean!

The water was surprisingly pleasant! We'd expected it to be icy cold but it was not a whole lot colder than the ocean at Woodgate - which reminded us that Woodgate was the last time we'd swum in the ocean, right back in May!

We all had plenty of fun in the sand. The sand was probably the best sandcastle sand we'd come across in our whole trip! It was almost like that kinetic sand! Fairly fine, smooth and almost a little clay-like which allowed it to be very easily carved and moulded like clay, but without leaving residue on your skin.

The trip back was a bit harder as we now had to climb UP all the sandhills!

How's that for a sandhill!?

Bek found this amazingly coloured dead fly!

After we'd finished we drove down to the border just to see what everything was looking like. It was all pretty normal other than cops at the border wearing masks. Everything looked pretty quiet. So we headed back to camp.

Just after sunset!

Friday 13 November

We packed up our site around midday and headed towards Border Village to make sure we got there before the rush. We really weren't sure when to arrive but a couple of other caravans had appeared within a few hundred metres of us so we were getting a bit edgy. One of these people told us on the way out there were people squirrelled into all sorts of spots along the way.