5th issue

Issue 5 Oct 2017

Brodie’s next 15,000 klm

On th e road again

Lak We left Coober Pedy about 8am, although first we had to drive to the public dump/water point where I proceeded to empty 16 litres of wee and take on about 12 litres of water, you pay $1.00 for 30 litres but most of it went on the ground as the tanks were fairly full.

Once again the desert scenery gave no new suprises just subtle changes ... until .... Lake Hart came into view, glistening white as far as the eye could see, probably the largest salt lake we have ever seen.

Missing the first turn off, where it was only a short walk to the edge of the lake, we drove a another kilometre and entered the rest area. There was so many people I thought I missed seeing the tour bus, but they all crammed in to 3 vehicles, must have been really squashy.

ke Hart We walked down to the railway line, and then had to clamber up and over the embankment and on to the salt, there were already a lot of lot of foot prints from the heaps of visitors so we walked a bit further out on to virgin salt. Jan decided to taste it and YES! it did taste like salt.

We made our way back to the car park which was now empty and I decided to try for a drone shot. I managed the shot on this page, with continual high wind warnings and extreme bueting when trying to land.

I know Gary and Kerry free camped here earlier on, but now it was so windy and hot you wouldn’t be able to sit out side without getting blown away

Woomera We pulled into the Woomera Caravan park around 2pm, just behind Ron and Toni, who were next to us in the park at Coober Pedy.

Woomera was established just after WWII by a joint British / Australian government for rocket research, this progressed so well that Australia became the fourth country in the world to launch a satellite. I think in its heyday it had a pop. of over 10,000..... it now has a pop. of 120 and streets and streets of empty houses.

There was an interesting outdoor display of rockets but the museum was closed as the lady who runs it was ill. We rode around the streets of picking out the occasional house that was lived in ... about 1 every housing block, and was suprised to see it had a big pool, a theatre and a bowling alley.

The caravan park appeared to have been built on the old parade ground as it was surrounded by barracks and had a transportable ablution block.

I was pleased that we had taken the time to visit this modern day ghost town

Port Augusta and Whyalla From a quick search of the internet it seemed Port Augusta had little to offer us so we decided Whyalla would be the go. On arrival in Port Augusta we were pleasantly surprised, it is a quaint town with quite few impressive buildings, if I hadn’t decided to do the Whyalla Steel tour I’m sure we would have changed our plans and stayed in Port Augusta ... oh well there will be other times.

Whyalla was only 70 odd ks down the road, so after a walk round Port Augusta and 50 minutes driving we found ourselves parked on a loverly beachside park and with Jan having a sore back, an appointment at a chiroprator (who turned out to be very good, fixing my back as well.

Jan found a friend to socialise with

Historic buildings in Port Augusta

Whyalla Steel Works The last time I visited a steel works was when I was a kid, then we were allowed on to the casting floor, we got to see the blast furnance emptied with all the heat and fire and other exiting stuff. ... Did this happen this time? Sadly no! ... as the tour guide so clearly explained the “health and safety” section is so strict that if you want to scratch your bum you need an observer.!

The tour was still interesting, we were driven around the old part of Whyalla and shown the changes as technology developed., then we drove into the steel plant, we were not allowed to leave the bus so it was a drive by with the driver handing out photo’s of what went on inside, with the occasional glimpse of molten metal and flames, all in all a bit like going to a strip tease show where it was no strip and all tease.

After the tour we visited the largest regional Shopping centre in SA, it was about the size of Coffs Harbour Plaza and unfortunatly suffering from the small town syndrome of empty shops. They are hopeful that now an Indian company has bought the steel works it will inject confidence in to the town and it is a lovely town ...... housing prices (for reasonable houses) seem to go from 100 grand to 400 grand ..quite affordable.

We are sitting in the MH with it rocking with the wind.

A huge low pressure is moving through and the wind gusts are huge, everyone was putting everything away when the wind slammed our door, jamming it closed against the flyscreen, I managed to get in through the drivers door and found the flyscreen had been popped out jamming the door.

I managed to free it and suprising the flyscreen clipped back in without any damage.

Just amazing how the weather went from idyllic to gale force while still being hot.

Off to the Clare Valley via Port Pirie Whyalla gave me an opportunity for another Maccas breakfast before we backtracked through Port Augusta with the next stop being Port Pirie. The highway was bordered by the flinders ranges to the north east with and Spencers Gulf on our right.

Port Pirie was basically another town developed

by BHP with the processing of silver, lead and zinc. The National Trust had turned the Railway station into a museum, and we being members enjoyed free entry.

The muesum with views from clocktower

The museum gave an interesting look at Port Pirie’s history and a bit of exercise climbing up into the clocktower (which never got a clock). I had to remind Jan that next time she climbs a ladder a dress isn’t the best climbing gear, some of the oldies saw exhibits they weren’t expecting lol

A room with a view

A walk and a drive around the town was next in store and some of the streets of “workman” cottages reminded, me of Broken Hill, not surprisingly it also being a BHP town. A look in the real estate agents showed you could buy a cottage from $89,000 and they had a McDonalds..bargain!

We headed inland towards the Clare Valley, driving through some pretty little villages, lots of little stone cottages,and some huge wind farms.

I tried to use the drone to get a good shot of the wind turbines but the wind was really gusting and I didn’t think it was safe.

We finally arrived at Leasingham Caravan Park and got the bike’s out, as Leasingham is in the middle of the Reisling Trail, but first we thought we would walk around the village. Out the gate and down the road ..... there was no village, except for a couple of houses and the park, that was it, Oh well it's a nice park.

The wind still hadn’t stopped and at that time the mh was rocking from the wind.

We were very careful not to have the flyscreen closed during high winds after the incident at Whyalla, but while we were having breakfast there was a huge gust of wind and a big bang, we raced outside to find the awning hanging loose. Fearing the worst we rolled it in but it appears to be ok!

We headed off on the Reisling Trail towards Clare (about 15k away) I hadn’t realised a 1 to 1.5% climb was very steep but when it continues for 7 klms with a head wind gusting up to 65kph it's a fair bit of pedalling even with the batteries. We decide our first stop would be a wine tasting bakery, when we got through their doors totally windswept, they told us the wind had caused a power outage so they could do nothing for us..... back on the bikes and into the wind.

When we got to Clare we parked the bikes, had fish and chips and a wander round. The old stone buildings mixed in with the modern but there was no Maccas, so we headed back to park with a tail wind and mostly downhill or so we thought! The wind had changed direction, I was coasting down a hill at 22ks when a wind gust virtually stopped me .. we were worn out by the time we got back.

The Rei and the things

isling Trail we shared it with

Welcome to the

Bring your

It poured and blew all night but the fortunately had stopped by the time we were packing up.

Unfortunately as we drove into the Barossa Valley we were met with intermittant showers so it was a quick walk around Tanundfa dodging the showers and then o to the Natioina Motor Museum at Birdwood

Barossa Valley

r brolly!

Barossa, Birdswood and off to Adelaide

W

ith showers expected and happening we decided to do some indoor stuff. First on the list was Chateau Tanunda, just as we pulled into the driveway it started to pour down, there was no one esle there, Jan thought it was a bit early in the morning to start drinking so a few photos and we were off.

T

he National Motor Museum was next on our list and Google soon had us in Birdswood. The musuem is housed in a combination of old and new , although all the exhibits we saw were in the new section.

Once again we received admission at the old peoples rate without even asking for it .... I’m getting worried that I’m the only one who doesn’t think I’m old.

The collection of cars and bikes covered the whole history of motoring but those of my generation generated the most memories.

Birdwood was a small quaint village where even the pub got into the motoring theme. Heading towards Adelaide from Birdswood it was certainly a “drivers” road, although in a 4.5 ton motorhome it was just twisty and scenic.

The closer we got to Adelaide the heavier the traffic, probably in the hour drive to the caravan park we saw more cars and trucks than we had seen in the previous 5 weeks.

We decided to stay at the Windsor Gardens Caravan Park, it was about 8k from the city centre with a bike track following the Torrens River right behind it.

After we setup it was time to restock so on the bikes and off to Coles, sounds easy, but riding down the side of a 6 lane highway in peak hour left a lot to be desired in the fun stakes even with a bike lane.

The next morning Jan decided she wanted to see Maggie Beers Farmhouse Kitchen, This was back in the Barossa but at least the sun was shining. We found the place eventually, fortunately it wasn’t crowded and although the shop was full of weird stuff (to me ), condiments and relishes, olive oil products, Jan was in her element.

Fortunatly they had a lot of tasting dishes of all her products and I tried most of them, who said I wasn’t adventurous.

I had decided the olive oil dip was the go and probably had far more than my share but just as I was enjoying another piece Jan starting calling my name from the other side of the shop, startled I looked in the direction she pointed ( as did everyone else) at a group of older women coming through a door, one of them beaming at the sudden attention she was getting from the starstruck Jan. The guy next to me echoed my thoughts “Who’s that?

Of course it was Maggie Beer! ... being such an experienced celebrity watcher she didn’t even ask for a photo ... still kicking her self over that!

Now the excitement was over we decide to get some lunch, do you know chips are really hard to find in the Barossa villages, so with no chips we realised the cooking demonstration was about to start at Maggie’s (we can use that term because we have seen her,) so back we went.

There were about 15 people at the demo and it consisted of cooking veggies soaked in verjuice. I must admit they were very nice and by the time we tried everything lunch was almost taken care of.

The cook (not Maggie) was very entertaining but still managed to put a plug in for Maggie’s products about every 3 minutes, well it was her kitchen, She even made it look like I could cook the stuff .. which is very unlikely.

With not quite enough for lunch and they had hidden the olive oil and bread dip we headed back to the park via McDonalds ..as you would expect.

Starstruck Starstruck Jan Jan look look

king king for for aa new new gig! gig!

Mt Lofty and Hahndorf We were going to have a late morning bike ride into the city but by the time we were ready the weather looked like rain so we went for a drive instead.

First stop was Mt Lofty for a view of Adelaide, we were fortunate enough to share the view with 3 bus loads of tourists .. we weren’t there very long.

We decided to take the back roads around the Adelaide Hills (we were lost) on our way to Melbas Chocolate Factory, There is some really nice little villages on the narrow back roads, lots of large and small stone cottages ... sometimes mansions and some strange gateways. I may start an album of different gateways if I get enough.

Unfortunately the factory side of Melbas wasn’t doing much so I consoled myself by eating their samples, next door was a cheese factory so Jan had her jollies trying out the different cheeses and finally bought some goat curd.

Hahndorf was next on the agenda and we found the 3 bus loads from Mt Lofty and another 5 or 6 loads had also decided to join us .... there was a 20 metre line for the toilet ...Jan has to learn to cross her legs.

We wandered up and down the main street, checked out a few shops and had some heart burn inducing German fare for lunch .. something we can eat over and over again. Hahndorf is a really pretty town, similar if not bigger than Montville in Qld.