Day 1: 25th Aug 2014

Here we are again, off on another trip to see a bit more of this great country of ours. This time it’s over to Perth so I finally get to tick off the last of the States and Territories off my “to visit” list.

Although Sharon, Laura and I left on Saturday, the trip has only begun proper today on leaving Port Augusta after meeting up with Di, Dave and Wendy last night. Up to this point, we’ve been travelling through countryside that we’ve now become fairly familiar with, having been this way three times in a little over twelve months.

Lunch break at Morgan overlooking the mighty Murray.

We rose to a fairly crisp morning, packed up the vans and tents and headed out of Port Augusta in the direction of Perth.

Even though the sun was out, there were thick layers of low cloud hanging around the foot of the ranges and before long we were driving into it. Thankfully it wasn’t too dense and visibility was pretty good, still, I can’t fathom why some people don’t bother to put their headlights on in such conditions.

A thick layer of cloud hanging at the base of the range.

To my surprise, the surroundings, for a lot of the time, are fertile and green, with huge expanses of crops stretching off as far as you can see. Occasionally, the landscape is painted bright yellow with huge fields of Canola in flower. Then, within kilometres, everything will look totally different with low growing trees and salt bush.

Peter's Humpy

Laura found a comfy place to chill.

 

Our choice of location for our lunch stop produced a pleasant little diversion in an all-but-deserted town called Poochera. The little picnic grounds were well maintained with separate His and Hers’ toilets, electric BBQ, and a historic “humpy” built in the early 1900’s by a local character name Peter, out of flattened oil tins. Poochera, like many of the towns we’ve seen so far along the Eyre Highway, seems to exist only to support the grain silos that stand next to the rail line that links them.

Later in the afternoon we pulled in at Ceduna, where we fuelled up and headed on out again without really spending any time. Maybe on the way back.

Tonight we’ve set up camp in the Caravan Park adjacent to the Roadhouse at Nundroo. Facilities are pretty primitive, but we’ve got power, a toilet, and passable showers, but they’re not charging the earth so we can’t complain.

An early morning scene at Nundroo