Eyre Peninsula – Feb 2021 – Port Augusta

Hi all, long time, no post. Such is life in this COVID-19 world. Sadly, one of the reasons I haven’t been posting is that my father passed away in June last year. Between that and various lock downs due to the pandemic, we haven’t travelled. But we are back out there now. Along with a couple of business contacts, Megan is conducting a Gut Health and Weight Loss seminar in Port Lincoln, so we decided to take the caravan across, and then explore the Eyre Peninsula a little before taking our time going home.

Day 1 wasn’t very exciting, but we are out of the house with the Kingsman in tow. As always, we leave from our home in Adelaide which is the traditional home of the Kaurna people.

First stop was Marion Sand and Metal for a weigh-in. All the numbers were good, but we are sailing close to the limit in terms of the van weight at 3,480 kgs, just 20 kgs under the allowable maximum. We wouldn’t normally pay for a weight certificate, but thought we had better, as heavy as we were. The car, including tow ball weight, was a good 200 kg below it’s limit. The best news however, was a tow ball weight of 270 kgs, which is almost perfect.

Our second stop was at Pet Barn on the way through the city. Jack Jack has put on a bit of weight since our last trip and had outgrown his harness, making this stop necessary. We chose an empty part of the carpark but this didn’t stop some tool parking right in front of us while we were in the shop. It’s not like there weren’t other empty spaces in the immediate vicinity, but no, they had to have that one spot that would make it difficult for us to get out. Fortunately, we had left enough space behind us, and we could reverse a little to get around them. Still…

Next stop was Port Wakefield for a bit of lunch and to stretch our legs. At some point we will tour the York Peninsular too, but not this trip.

Onwards then to Port Augusta, traditional home of the Barngala people, and our overnight stop. The first thing you notice coming into town is the solar tower at Sundrop Farms. It’s like a beacon during daylight hours, visible for many miles.

We arrived at our overnight stop, the Port Augusta Sports Club RV Park, at around five in the evening… and it was HOT! The sun was hot. The wind was hot. And the van was hot. Consequently, Megan was hot, Darren was hot, and Jack was hot. This is a $7 per night, unpowered parking facility for self-contained RVs. Megan wanted to go to a caravan park with power, so we could run the A/C, but we persisted. Eventually we managed to sleep OK, but Jack did not enjoy the heat one little bit.

So, aside from a quick trip to fuel up and grab some ice cream with which to cool down a little, this was the end of our first day “back in the saddle“. Further exploration of the Eyre Peninsula to come.