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Week 2
28/5/2011 It’s been a long week. Into the car, out of the car. We’ve travelled a fair distance. From Adelaide to across the border, to Western Australia. The week started when we left the Adelaide Beachfront Caravan Park, and made our way to Port Augusta. On the way we stopped off at Snowtown, and would you believe what their football club was called. They were the Snowtown Cats. I wouldn’t have minded that if they didn’t have the exact same cartoon cat as we do. They had an attraction, a ‘big’ one too. It was the big blade. So, we were back on the road and finally we reached Port Augusta. We checked in at Shoreline Caravan Park, right next to the beach. When we were settled we booked a tour to the OneSteel smelter. So we left Port Augusta for the day and headed off to Whyalla. On the way, we found the old town supply water tank that had been converted into a lookout. It was very clever actually. The people who had made it into a lookout had put a metal staircase leading up to the place where they used to store the water. They had put holes in the sides so that you could see all of Port Augusta and the Flinders Ranges. Unfortunately there was lots of graffiti everywhere, and it was very windy. Anyway, we headed to Whyalla to go on our tour. It turned out that James (my little brother) wasn’t allowed to come. That of course, meant that Mum wouldn’t be able to come either. We got to the information centre early. In fact, so early that we saw the tour group before us leave. While we were waiting, Alistair and Dad went on a short tour of the warship that was right next to the centre. When they came back, the tour van was ready. Dad, Ali and I, hopped on and off we went. We were all disappointed though. Dad was because we didn’t see as much as he did when he was last there, and I was because I was expecting to see more. I guess we had very similar reasons for being disappointed with the tour. So we went back to Port Augusta, after a quick visit to a nearby Coles. At Coles, apart from shopping, we organized another tour. This time, it would be at Iron Knob. A company called Broken Hill Proprietary, or BHP for short. From this area the company was the founder of the Australian steel industry. So the next day, we packed up camp and made our way to Iron Knob. First of all, we saw a quick video about the mining tools, men and where they lived. We learnt that the mine had closed, but is now going to reopen, this time, with modern technology. Most of the tour was actually in the town, not the quarry. Although, there wasn’t much to see in the quarry. | The next day, we set off again. This time, to Ceduna, where we tried out a caravan park called A1 Cabins. It was late in the day and raining so we decided to get a cabin. Let’s just say, we got out of there pretty quickly and headed off somewhere else. None of us could figure out why Dad was laughing when he got back in the car after handing the keys back from the cabin. He said the man out the counter had the money at the counter waiting for him. The man said that he thought we mightn’t like it. So we went to another caravan park near the airport. Once again, we got a cabin. This time, it was pretty good, four beds, a shower, a working tap, all the essentials. Compared to the last place, that was heaven. The next day, we started to cross the Nullabor, ‘the treeless plains.’ Well, that’s what is was like at first, but I was disappointed to find a lot of trees further down the road. We went down to Fowlers Bay, it had massive sand dunes, well, compared to what I’m used to. Near the beach, there were a couple of signs talking about the area. On one of the signs, it talked about one of our ancestors, Ernest Giles an explorer that passed through the area. Of course I shouldn’t be too proud, because he is an ancestor to a lot of people. Apart from that, there wasn’t much to see. Our next stop was the Great Australian Bight. Some say it looks like a ‘giant’ has taken a bite out of the bottom of Australia. Luckily for us, we got to see some whales, they were a couple of kilometers off but with a zoom lens we could see them fairly well. That night, was our first night on the trip camping in the bush. We just turned off the highway and found a spot in the bush. One of the highlights was the fire, and the toasted marshmallows. I don’t like to eat them but I like to cook them, I prefer uncooked marshmallows, but everyone else loves them toasted. I was amazed by how good James was around the fire. He didn’t even go near it, as if he knew of the danger. And that was week two.. Cameron |
