Good Morning Paruna!
Low 9°c (48°F)
– High 23°c (73°F)
357km
With a low overnight of 9 degrees, we were glad to have PJs for Miss Kitty and a heater to take the chill off the air in the van this morning. Nothing spectacular about the sunrise that Rory the Rooster started crowing about at 5.30am, but it was none the less a sunrise in a new surroundings making it special.
With a sad end to last night’s NRL match (a 26 point loss) there was a need for some cheering up for the disappointed supporter (I keep telling him “you can’t win them all!”). With not a cloud in the sky we set off to our next stop – Port Pirie. It was a beautiful sunny day and the warmth through the windscreen was so nice. At one point we even had to turn on the air conditioner as our Miss Kitty isn’t such a fan of the heat.
The roads through this part of our trip are full of long straight stretches, the bush land changes to a Mallee scrub and we start to see more red soil. It was lovely to see the beautiful autumn colours in the trees in gardens of the various towns we passed through as well as colourful Bougainvilleas that feature in many places throughout the northern states. Usually we have left on our trips north in mid June when winter is really taking hold and the trees are usually bare by then. We crossed the mighty Murray River today and followed the 358km long Morgan-Whyalla Water Pipeline which was built in 1940, for much of the trip from Morgan to Port Pirie.
We’ve been surprised with how little caravan traffic there has been heading our way, lots of vans heading back the way we’ve come from and a lot of those have had Queensland number plates. Things are bad if the weather in Qld makes you head south for the winter! We have probably only had about 4 vans heading this way. The trip was not pleasant for the 5 of us with strong head and side winds pretty much all the way making the going slow and tiring.
We stopped in Morgan for a coffee and some fruit cake and to give Kitty a walk and then continued our journey through the Southern Flinders Ranges to Port Pirie. There was some temptation to do a drive through Burra, one of our favourite places to visit and take photos, but we plan to come back to this area again another time to do just that so we ventured on.
We finally reached the A1 highway, made a right turn and were soon at our destination for the day. We have stayed at the Port Pirie Beach caravan park about 4 times previously and really like it, easy access and some really lovely views over the water and of the ranges. We’ve taken lots of shots of the water on previous trips as we’ve been fortunate to obtain a site on the fence overlooking that view. This time we had a drive-through site one row over, and while the view wasn’t quite as good, the park itself didn’t disappoint.
After setting up with pens out so Kitty could have some time to sit in the sun, Shane headed off to get groceries and refill the car while I set about trying to get a bit of the mud off the van. After a long day of driving, washing down a van with a bucket of water and a cloth was pretty taxing on the shoulders. I managed to get the front (which was the worst) and one side done before Shane arrived back. Due to not being able to take fruit and veggies over the border from Victoria to South Australia, we don’t generally buy anything until we get into SA. So it was nice to have some fresh salad veggies with our Lasagne for dinner tonight. It’s been a long day – a wine awaits!
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