WEDNESDAY – A LAZY DAY

Today was yet another quiet day meandering down the Coast. We are now at Burners Beach right on the water on what you might call the northern coast of the “foot” of the peninsula.

I had to spend some time on the phone and computer this morning so we got away to a slow start.

Last night we had some beautiful snapper and prawns we found at Port Pirie. Tonight we are having flathead and snapper from the fish outlet at Port Victoria.

We are told that the area will become busy over Easter but, at the moment, it continues to be delightfully quiet.

TUESDAY – FROM THE BUSH TO THE BEACH

We have started the process of meandering down the western side of the Yorke Peninsula. Once again, we have bypassed the nicely manicured caravan parks for a camp site at The Gap being a beach south of Moonta Bay. The camp is between a very large lucerne paddock and the sand dunes with only distant neighbours.

We came here via Port Pirie, Port Broughton, Wallaroo and Moonta, a mixture of modern beachside houses, historic workers cottages, modern industry and the relics of past industrial activity.

The weather has improved dramatically. It got up to 30 degrees today and even the water felt palatable as we went for our afternoon walk along the beach.

As I type this, the peaceful sound of gentle rolling waves provides the background.

 

Sorry I haven't included more pictures but the signal is very weak and they take a long time to load.

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL

Thank you for all the birthday messages received today. Facebook certainly tells the world when your birthday is.

Just to prove what an old bloke can do, we had a very active day today – an 8km walk this morning and a 6km walk this afternoon. In both cases we walked along Mambray Creek being a water course which only flows in heavy rain but there is the occasional wet spot so there is enough water for the numerous birds and animals which frequent the area.

 

 

 Its claim to fame is that the water course is home to numerous very large and very old river gums which are very different to those which line the Murray River in that the old ones are very large and have hollow trunks. They are supported by what is virtually a tripod of outer trunk. They drop very large branches so one doesn't spend too much time under them.

We are not the only campers in the camp ground but we might as well be in that the other campers are congregated around the amenities block about 150 metres away and we have this end of the camp ground to ourselves – very peaceful.

Tomorrow we head south along the western edge of the York Peninsula for some coastal scenery.

Perhaps I might have an extra glass of wine tonight given that we don't have any cake or candles. That can wait until we get home.

BACK IN THE BUSH

We left Adelaide this morning and headed north via the Clare Valley, another wine growing district and are now very comfortably settled in our preferred environment among (but not under) the river gums at the Mambray Creek Campground in the Mount Remarkable National Park. We will be here for at least two nights. 

 

 

We are a little way north east of Port Pirie at the southern end of the Flinders Ranges There are a number of interesting walks, a short one of which we did this afternoon. We will do more of them tomorrow.

 

 

As the photos show, the locals were happy to welcome us.

THE BLOG HAS RECOMMENCED

What you see above and below is our campsite for the last week. It was very different to our normal campsites but very pleasant.

Some of the golf was good. The "non golfing ladies" did lots of sight seeing and a good time was had by all.

We now return to the real world. We will be heading for the Mt. Remarkable National Park via the Clare Valley tomorrow and will probably be celebrating my 65th birthday there on Monday.

ADELAIDE

We are now here for our week of luxury and golf. If I have anything exciting to report, I will do a blog otherwise it will resume next Sunday when we head off for another two weeks of travelling and national park camping.

THURSDAY / FRIDAY– ALMOST AT ADELAIDE

Today was quite boring really until we got to our campsite for tonight. We are in the Coorong National Park on the shore of Lake Coorong which meets Lake Alexandrina near the mouth of the Murray River. The temperature is somewhat cooler than we are used to but we don't have any flies or bees to keep us company.

 

 

We have swapped the inland birds for pelicans, ducks and swans, more of the latter than I can count.

 

Tomorrow we will explore the area and probably stay here tomorrow night before heading for the high life of Adelaide on Saturday.

I was expecting to be able to send this tonight but, although we have some signal, there isn't enough so hopefully, I can find somewhere with sufficient signal tomorrow.

As it happened, we didn't find enough signal on Friday so this is being posted from the bank of the Murray at Tailem Bend where we have stopped for morning tea en route to Adelaide on Saturday The temperature is 19 degrees but that hasn't stopped an intrepid water skier in the river.