Caravan Trip Week 6



The main reason we stopped in Quorn was so that Dad could go for a ride on the Pichi Richi railway steam train. Peter had to miss out and doggie sit while I went with Dad. We left Quorn and puffed our way through the Flinder's Ranges to the siding named Woolshed Flat. It is a 32km round trip. The carriages we travelled in date back to the early 1900's... 

  

 

We all got off here and they had a canteen set up with cups of tea and hot food available. We watched on while they changed the engine around...

 

Then it was all aboard for the journey back. It was a great ride through the countryside and I enjoyed the clickity clack of the old carriages and the sound of the steam engine... 

 

Later in the afternoon we went to Emily's Bistro which is a "step back in time" café! We enjoyed lovely scones and a cuppa... 

Dad was taken by this "machine" or contraption that sends dockets or money back to the front counter...

If only things were still this cheap!

We didn't have any trouble getting a parking spot in the main street!...

 

Next morning before leaving Quorn we had another look at the departing steam train... 

We headed towards Port Augusta and this time decided to stop and have a quick look around...

The tourist info centre was fanastic but the rest of the town is very industrial looking...

As Port Augusta is known as a "junction" city it was interesting to see this sign on the way out ~ strange to see Perth and Darwin on the same sign post in South Australia when they are over 4000 km apart! It was very tempting to take the Darwin route instead of Perth!...

We were back in the outback country and called into Iron Knob. Iron Knob gets it name from the large amount of iron ore it used to mine. Even though the population is very low now mining on a much smaller scale is still done. It was like a ghost town when we drove through to find a museum and tourist center...

 

We had our lunch with the dust and flies and were fortunate to see a mine blast as well... 

Keeping the dogs out of the dirt

The people who ran the museum were real characters and told us they only turn the fan on when it gets to 46 degress and the air con on when it gets to 50!...

We continued onto Kimba and officially reached the half way point across Australia,,,

 

And met the Big Galah... 

We set up for the night in a little town called Wudinna. It is an area known as the granite country for all its deposits of granite in the area.  The granite was used to construct the 8 meter statue "The Australian Farmer" to commemorate the early settlers...

It was just on sunset when I was taking these photos...

Setup in Wudinna

Next day we arrived back in Streaky Bay and Bella was so happy to be back on the coast and in the water. They had got so dirty with all the red dust!...

 

Peter was happy to be back at the Streaky Bay bakery and stocking up on Cornish pasties and doughnuts...

Peter and Dad did a spot of fishing off the jetty and caught a few little fishies. The pelicans love waiting for the scraps at the cleaning station...

We parked one row back from the waters edge this time...

As it was very windy when we were here 5 weeks ago we decided to go back out to Cape Bauer for another look. It didn't disappoint and we got to see the blow holes as well as there was a larger swell...

 

With so many people coming and going we had a small amount of time where we had water views without other vans in the way...

We were all packed and hooked up ready to leave Streaky Bay when Dad got a flat battery so had to jump start his car...

First stop for the day was Ceduna where we went for a walk out the jetty in the freezing wind..

Then stopped at Penong ~ home to many windmills which pump water from the Anjutabie water basin which is then supplemented by rain water...

 

Moving on and we see Perth on the road sign!... 

And just like that back out on the Nullarbor for the big trip across Australia...

And this view for so many hundreds of kilometers...

We decided to stay at Nullarbor Roadhouse for the night...

 

We found a track along side the highway and took the dogs for a walk... 

Last to leave in the morning again...

Once again we called in the cliffs to enjoy the amazing views. Our 2 cars and caravan look so tiny parked on the cliffs...

 

We eventually made it to the WA/SA border and quarantine checkpoint. We had eaten or frozen all our fruit and veg but they still went through the van and car and even made Dad set up his van for inspection...

We were going to stay at Eucla but with the time gains from the time zone changes we decided just to take the dogs for a walk down the beach and keep going...

It was a long day of driving doing 500kms but we made it to Cocklebiddy.