The Road to Port Augusta

The Road to Port Augusta. (2 videos)

At last a sunny morning to wake up to. Not much to pack away from the night before and off we go. a severe headwind has us held at 60-70kms on our journey and this is really bad for fuel consumption. Very frustrating driving indeed. We lock a town called Snowtown into our GPS and push forward. Every 5 kms or so the GPS wants us to take an unsealed road but we don't follow its advice and drive straight ahead on the bitumen surface hoping we will end up on the A1 main road, and slowly but surely we were right in our judgement. Snowtown is just around the corner for us. We pass a very tiny town called Lochiel which is located by the Bumbunga lake. At this present moment Bumbunga lake is a dries up salt flat for as far as the eye can see. Quite blinding the sun bouncing of it but awesome to see by the side of the road we are travelling on. I notice a loch Ness monster that someone has created for when the lake is wet and it would look cool if there was any water. It still looks pretty funky even in the sand so we stop to take a shot. The wind nearly blowing us of our feet all four of us wonder out in the middle of the salt bed. ( see photos and video)

Bumbunga Lake

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This will be printed when we get home

Mum & the girls fight the windy conditions

Fake Loch Ness Monster

There is one extra cool photo begging me to snap so i capture it and will be a print for sure. Old fence posts running off into the salt sand. Something from a postcard style of thing.     Once back in the car we bypass Snowtown because our fuel is still holding and press on for Crystal Brook. I try to keep as little fuel in the tank at this stage because of the headwind and i am trying to minimise the weight of our rig. Crystal Brook is not what the name suggests. Most of these out of the way towns are only famous for some early explorers and hold very little unless you like early architecture or buildings, but when you've seen a couple of late 1800's building you feel like you've seen them all. Time for a little shopping in the local supermarket and its time to start thinking about where we will be spending the night.

Crystal Brook township

Crystal Brook pub

 Port Pirie soon appears and we pull up right by the main inlet for some lunch. the girls feed some seagulls while Heather bakes an apple buy that we bought earlier at Hahndorf. Coffee and apple pie for lunch. mmmmm...    We cannot seem to find a camp site that is for big rigs but one appears on the map search up another 25kms further ahead. Its called the Baroota Rodeo camping grounds. I call the phone number attached as it says "permit required"  I chat with the previous owner of this site and he tells us that it has been closed for 6 months due to renovations, "but" he owns the land opposite and has just bulldozed it to make some space for travellers that keep turning up at the closed camping grounds. At $5 a night we take the plunge and drive there. he meets us at the gate and shows us around his new venture. Nothing but dust and dirt but off the main road which is always better than near it. we are the first van he has let in because he only pushed over the bush a day or so ago. Firewood everywhere and this place is as warm as toast compared with earlier grounds we've been staying at. The Flinders Ranges are just a couple of kms away and sit in the background for us. Beautiful to watch the sun set on these great Mountain ranges.

Flinders Rangers

Baroota Rodeo camping ground view

The setting sun behind the trees

 I build a big fire and we settle down for a night stop. We soon see another van trying to get into the Rodeo camping ground and so i flag them down and offer the new dusty spot to them. they love the idea of $5 per night and in they come. Nice to have some company too. There names are John & Helen and they are on their maiden voyage in their new van as well. campfire chats went on most of the evening and it was a nice little town of our own created. Its funny how the most crappy looking things can soon become well remembered times for us all.  Tomorrow we will land at Port Augusta to set up for the long dry dusty journey up through the middle of Australia. Cooper Pedy, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek will soon be in our sights.

The moon rises as we sit by the fire

Long exposure photo of the road trains passing in the night

In the morning we had a visitor.      Can you spot him?

Morning Visitor

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