Kimba to Streaky Bay

We arrived at Streaky Bay at about 3.30 p.m. this afternoon. After a bit of time on the foreshore in town we made our way to Streaky Bay Little Islands Caravan Park. We are very impressed. It is well laid out and appears to try to give everyone a view of the ocean. At the moment there are lots of free bays and we chose one away from other vans to maximise our views. All of the facilities are lovely, a beautiful campers kitchen that is like the family room of a house, all of the showers are private ensuite style (shower, toilet, basin) that would look good in any house, and the laundry even has laundry baskets and trolleys. The front loading washing machines are all new.

Of course, we didn’t just come here for the facilities, but to touch base with the ocean again after spending so long inland. We also have fond memories from our trip two years ago when we met up with Eversley. She had gone ahead of us after visiting the Eyre Bird Observatory together and arrived the day before us.

We have only booked for tonight, but may be staying another night as well.

The journey here has been through lovely farmland and small towns. A highlight was morning tea at Kyancutta Cafe, where all of the biscuits and cakes were home made. We had our hot drinks and shared a pastie, plus taking some honey crackles with us to have with our lunch.

We had our lunch at the turnoff from the Eyre Highway to Streaky Bay. When we got closer to Streaky Bay we kept expecting to see the ocean over the next rise, and kept getting disappointed until, in the end, it appeared! I had forgotten that Streaky Bay is like other towns in this area with huge grain silos, which dominate everything.

When we arrived here Stephen had a bit of difficulty with connecting to the tap, but it was eventually sorted. During the afternoon clouds had been gathering and there was even some light drizzle. It still seemed threatening to rain when we were in the town, but when we arrived here at CP it turned into a mild and sunny afternoon. Of course this meant the sunset was less scenic because of the lack of clouds.

Iron Knob to Kimba

For anyone who cares we didn’t come very far today, but the wind was very strong and was forecast to continue for the rest of the day. It wasn’t sensible to keep struggling with it. The featured photo is of the facilities at Iron Kob.

We had a look at our drain pipe this morning, even stuck a couple of things up it, without being able to release the blockage. Stephen made a couple of phone calls and found someone in Kimba willing to look at it. We decided to leave the tap open as we drove so as not to cause a flood when someone was working on the problem.

As usual, we loved the scenery on our drive, and with the wind there were interesting cloudscapes. We went to Ailen’s Cafe for lunch, ordered soup and coffee and chai latte, and realised it wasn’t the right time to be there. The place was swamped with young mums and kids, it was pickup time. They forgot our hot drinks, but we were still able to enjoy the excellent soup. We reminded them about our hot drinks and asked for them to be in takeaway containers.

Our repairman was just around the corner. He and Stephen noted that there was no water dripping from the pipe (we had a light dripping, just no flow). The mechanic said that the first thing he would dry was blowing air up the pipe, so we put plugs in plug holes and clothes over that. We then ran water through all of the outlets and it came through with no problems. We are not sure if travelling with the drain open had dislodged the blockage or whether the compressed air had done the trick. He asked for $20 which we happily paid, and we went out to the recreation reserve where we stayed on our way east to refill with water.

By this time the wind was really fierce, and we decided to stay the night here. We parked near some caravans with the hope of having some protection from the gusts and making sure our fridge was on the leeward. We have had a restful afternoon, mostly staying in the van. There are good toilets here, potable water, and one shower at $1 for 2 minutes. Stephen has already had a shower, but I like to wait until before bed. We saw the cleaners here this afternoon and everything is really clean and fresh.

Of course we have our own toilet, but we mostly use it at night, and don’t do No. 2s in it unless absolutely necessary. We also like to shower in a bit larger bathroom when we can. It’s always nice to know we can fill up on fresh water in the morning and we have a dump point close by.

I’ve requested a couple of nights at Streaky Bay, a slight diversion from our route home. There is a new caravan park on the beach a little out of town (with a courtesy car to town if needed), and it will be a chance to do some washing. We are relieved that our latest water problem has been resolved without affecting our planned return date of about the 28th August.

I’m cooking some chicken mince and veggies which will give us a couple of evening meals.

Peterborough to Iron Knob (or Horrocks Pass Rest Area Revisited)

We had a peaceful night, used lots of water, and filled up the tank this morning. But, what we hope is a minor water problem, when we tried emptying our grey tank today there appears to be a blockage, with only a trickle of water coming out. We tried at different locations, thinking that the blockage might dislodge as we drove along. Our grey water guage has a slight glitch and won’t register until it gets fuller, so we must wait a bit to be able to show a workman that we really have a problem. Possibly a mechanic could fix it, take off the hose and check the outlet for the tank and the hose for blockage.

We bought more fruit and vegetables before leaving Peterborough as we had eaten everything from our cookup.

The scenery on our drive here to Iron Knob has been just lovely. Sometimes through beautiful farmland, with hills in the distance, then going through Horrocks Pass and making a stop where we camped early on our trip, and after Port August, the sweeping landscape and skies on our drive to Iron Knob. It was a difficult drive with strong winds rocking the Winnie, but we didn’t feel tired because it was so inspiring.

Unlike our trip two years ago I am finding the journey home enjoyable. Today we reached the place where the road divides – either up to Alice Springs or crossing the Nullabour to Perth. Now were are on familiar territory. But, I think the journey has been long enough, with the time in the outback as the main focus, to leave me feeling pretty satisfied about what has been covered this trip. I’m looking forward to being home and catching up with family and friends. Still, there is a lot to interest us the rest of the way to Perth.

Cockburn to Peterborough

Today has been memorable for interesting scenery as we approached mountain ranges, crossing the border into South Australia from New South Wales and stuffing ourselves with fruit and vegetables at lunchtime because we would be going through a quarantine station late in the day. The station was closed, of course. I was hoping they would somehow know from our faces that we had been eating so much fruit and veg!

We didn’t just eat, I made a vegetable curry soup in our largest saucepan, which used up almost everything. As well as eating some fresh fruit I also cooked apples, pears, mandarin and strawberries in honey. From past experience we assumed that cooked vegetables and fruit would be OK. The good thing about that is that we have plenty left over for our tea tonight. Just need to add protein.

The featured image above shows the sign over the camper’s kitchen at Cockburn. We did indeed feel welcome in the tiny village.

Crossing the border from New South Wales to South Australia, as we were leaving Cockburn this morning.

Border Cafe

SA

We really love the wide open spaces we have been driving through. As we got closer to Peterborough we started going through passes in ranges of hills. In front of us are the Flinders Ranges, and we will be going through them on our way to Port Augusta tomorrow.

Something I forgot from the post this morning is that yesterday in Silverton we were able to get our gas bottle filled. Today in Peterborough there was a dump station and potable water tap in town. We refilled our tank and water containers with what we hope will be better tasting water than we had at Broken Hill.

Peterborough is an RV friendly town and we are staying with about four other vans in a free camping spot, fairly close to the train museum we saw two years ago. There are no hookups and no toilets within close walking distance, this site is purely for fully self contained vans, which I guess is what we are. We can’t get TV in our spot, but it is perfectly level and a bit away from the road, so we don’t want to move. We should get good morning sun.