Week 8

Day 50: After last night's action, we decided to set up camp at The Gums in Robe via the main road. It's a nice little town with a good feeling about it. Nice old buildings that are very well looked after. It was raining today so did some laundry and drove around the coast line. There is an Obelisk out on one point that was built in the 1800s to warn ships off the cliffs. A rock just off the coast that is called doorway rock was also an attraction.

Day 51: Today wasn't raining so we went out to look at the Granites. We weren't real sure of what the Granites were but we were told that driving on this beach would be ok as it was as hard as any road. The sand was very hard but we still couldn't work out what the granites were. There was three big rocks close to were we got on the beach that we thought could possibly be it, but we were expecting something more. We stopped at Kingston for lunch and found out that those rocks were in fact the Granites. They are the only rocks that are along this 180km stretch of beach.

Squint your eyes and you'll see the Granites

Day 52: Heading towards Mt Barker in the Adelaide Hills. Mt Barker was a lovely town. We parked our camper on our camping spot and headed to the local sports ground to watch The Scottish Highlander Games. This included the Caber Toss, bag pipe bands, dancing and a Strongman comp. It was all very interesting to watch. Then we went into Hahndorf which is the oldest German town in Australia and is a declared State Heritage area. We walked along the main street looking at what was on offer. We had an early dinner at the Hahndorf Inn. Housie had the 3 sausage special (he loves the sausage)- bratwurst, masswurst and dusslewurst. Al tried bratwurst but didn't particularly like it. Beer was pretty expensive, with the half litre at $13 and $9 for 300ml, so we were lucky to have only had one each!

Strong Man Comp

Hahndorf main street

 

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Day 53: We drove into Adelaide and parked the car so we could catch the tram to Glenelg. We ate our lunch on the foreshore enjoying the warm sun and then checked out the shops. When we arrived back in Adelaide we went and had a look at Rundle Mall. Housie wasn't very impressed as it was just more shops!

Day 54: Today we drove to Marion to catch a movie, as the kids had been given a voucher for xmas. We saw Frozen which we all enjoyed, although Housie thought it was a bit to girly. That night we packed up most of our things as the forecast for the next day was for rain.

Day 55: On to Whyalla for the next couple of nights. All things were going along fine, we stopped at a roadhouse for breakfast and a little town for lunch and making pretty good time, then just 10ks from Whyalla the car tells us that it's going into low power mode! The car starts to slow right down so Housie pulls over and decides to turn the car off to see if that helps. After a few attempts at restarting the car Housie thinks that maybe we have run out of fuel, as the fuel light came on about 30kms back. NRMA organised for a tow truck and another car so we could tow the camper into town. After waiting a couple of hrs on the side of the HWY the tow truck finally arrives. The young kid puts Colin up onto the ramp. When it's time to lift the ramp up nothing happens - Colin is to heavy for it!!! We then have to wait another hour for another guy to turn up with some diesel.

 

 

 

When we arrived into town and fuelled up, we found some cheap camp accommodation at the Weeroona Bay Tigers Football Club. Al was invited to join in the local Bingo that was going to be held there that night. So we all went over for some fun. As soon as we walked in all the old locals were staring at us, we didn't know if it was because they thought "I'm going to get their money" or "how dare they come and take our money". This game was serious! It didn't help that Housie held the whole thing up by going to the bar for a beer just as they were about to start. Thirty 80yr olds just staring Housie down, then the Bingo caller asking him if he was ok to get the game started. We were seated with a family who took this shit very serious, they helped us out with how the games are played and also told us numbers we had missed marking off. At the end we hadn't won anything, but realised this game should be in the Olympics. It was hardcore!

56: Today we went for a look around this town, seeing front yards of almost every home just red dirt, and the streets and buildings had a red tinge from dust that had blown onto them. We checked out Hummock Hill Lookout, this is the sight of the first settlement in this area at the turn of the century. This hill was used during WW11 as a gun battery with 4 guns and signal posts. We walked along the foreshore where the kids played on the playground and exercise equipment. We relaxed back at camp for the afternoon.