Friday 22nd February
Rang the cooker people this morning, possibly the elctro-magnet, did you know there were electro-magnets in gas taps? They will send some more spares but it sounds a bit harder to replace the EMs than it was the thermocouples, so will think about it. We decided to leave town for a few days to wait the arrival of the replacement inverter and went to look at a place called Laura Bay but the designated camping area was a couple of ks from the sea, not good at at all. We retraced our steps to Decres Bay and recce’d potential spots, none were particularly good but there was better (though still not brilliant) access to the sea.
Whilst trying to negotiate a bend (remember this rig is 13m long) I managed to get the caravan stuck on a mallee root. Not good, it took about 4 hours and a lot of chain sawing to extricate ourselves.
So being mobile again we moved the 30m or so to our preferred campsite (which ironically is only a few metres from the access track!!) and settled in for a few days. Pat had woken up with a bad rash and went to the doctor and pharmacist and been given something for it (we were warned that it might make her drowsy) which it didn’t. However, at 4 o’clock the next morning, she was shaking quite violently and I decided she needed to see a doctor again. So I packed up the gear/van and we drove to the hospital in Ceduna, where it was considered to be a reaction to the pills she’d been prescribed for the hives. There was not much we could do until the morning, when we could attend the Aboriginal Health surgery to see the doctor, “get there early, it’s first come first served”. So we had to find somewhere to park for the rest of the night and then breakfast in the morning. We arrived at the surgery at 0930 and were still third in the queue for a 1000 start, Pat eventually got seen at about 1140! We got another prescription and went to chemist, fingers crossed!
This picture, taken outside the Aboriginal Health Service, it is very politically incorrect so don’t use it for any other nefarious purposes, please.
Saturday 23rd February
We returned to Decres Bay, to a slightly different spot and settled in again. Poor Pat although the treatment seems to be working, the rash keeps coming and going and itches like mad, there’s nothing we can do to make it less painful.
Sunday 24th February
Pat had a good night but as soon as she got up it was itchy again, one of the tablets (antihistamine) seemed to ease it for a while but it still keeps coming and going and her feet are quite swollen, there’s not much we can do today but we may have to go to the doctor again tomorrow.
I’ve had a fairly leisurely day, mostly fishing, catching quite a few fish but they really weren’t big enough to eat and they live to bite another day! I’m not totally au fait with the fish here, so having checked on the web, I think some of the ones I put back were ‘introduced’ species which you are not supposed to put back as they are trying to eradicate them.
The camp site is a nice location but the wind is incessant hopefully we’ll be expecting better as we move down the coast.
Wednesday 27th February
Yesterday we made our way back into Ceduna, hopefully to pick up the inverter, get it fitted and move on. Unfortunately, it hadn’t arrived so we’re committed to another day here which is reducing our time on the peninsula. On top of that it rained all night and was quite cool.
Today the inverter had still not arrived but the spare for the gas oven had arrived. It took an hour or so to fit the electro-magnet – sadly the grill still doesn’t work! Back to drawing board.
Having just finished that we had a phone call from a freight office across the road to say that the inverter had turned up!!! The question now is, do I fit it myself or try and get a leccy to come and do it? I decided to do it myself and an hour or so later I very, very tentatively turned on the inverter – it works! Now all we had to do was check that it works with the external AC connected – again OK! I’m really pleased that I could do it myself, quite an achievement for a mechanical engineer!
So now we’re ready to head off tomorrow, although the weather is not looking particularly good.
Thursday 28th February
We had a good run today, although the wind didn’t help the fuel usage, our general heading being south east we were driving directly into it. We thought it would be a long day and it got a bit longer as we could not find Lipson Cove, our intended destination. Eventually we realised that some kind person had removed the signpost! Having worked that out we soon found the spot but, as we suspected it was pretty exposed to the wind and there was little shelter, we decided to stay for the night anyway. We had the choice of spots.
Friday 1st March
We had a fairly noisy night but didn’t lose too much sleep. It was still grey and windy the following morning so we decided to move on.
This meant heading south through Tumby Bay to Port Lincoln, which is a large town right at the southern tip of the Eyre Peninsula. We suddenly encountered traffic which we had been devoid of for a couple of weeks and negotiating some narrow roads and small roundabouts with the caravan was exciting. Fortunately, they had a street which had long parking spaces for caravans so we parked there and went to the Tourist Information Office to find where we could get out of the wind! Got some ideas, did some shopping and found the Shell service station for future reference.
We had been directed to the Lincoln NP which is about half an hour’s drive from Port Lincoln. It is a very large park with lots of bush camping, some on properly and well laid out sites, with lots of options for just parking and doing your thing. We chose one of the latter at a place called Engine Point and got ourselves set up, just a short walk from the beach.
This turned out to be a beautiful spot!
Saturday 2nd March
A lovely morning, still a stiff breeze but we are protected from the worst of it and the sun is shining making the prospects for the day really good.
We decided to go for a drive round the park, particularly the windward side and discovered some very good campsites (at least they would be when there was less wind), at September Bay (below left).
We also visited Cape Donnington (above right), Spalding and Surfleet Bays. Close by there is also Stamford Hill and Sleaford Mere. For the UK readers it will be pretty obvious where the original settlers in this area came from. Also in the park is an area called Memory Cove Wilderness Protection Area. This was so named because when Flinders was charting this coastline in 1802, he sent a boat ashore to find fresh water but the boat was wrecked with the loss of all on board. As a consequence, he named the point Cape Catastrophe and named the islands after the lost crew members, Taylor, Grindal, Little, Lewis, Hopkins and Smith.
Roger went fishing on the rising tide but as you can see the fish didn’t keep him very busy, also annoying was a local who stopped by to tell him he had just caught a feed of herring 200 metres up the beach!
He tried again on the rising tide without success, nothing big enough to eat, so we had to resort to lamb chops, reading and the Times cryptic – such is life!
Alloveroz 