Ceduna to Nyora—1650kms (Day 112 - Day 117)

Day 112—Monday, 14th October (Ceduna to Kimba 318kms)

We set off this morning under a very heavy sky, threatening something we've seen very little of these last months, rain but seriously. The landscape is grain intensive, mostly wheat but with occasional huge slashes of bright yellow canola. We stopped for a wander at the little town of Poochera. Situated on the western side of the Eyre Peninsula, Poochera is a grain belt town of some hundred people. Not much more than a roadhouse and a hotel. There's supposed to be a caravan park but we didn't notice one. What we did find, was an interesting little outdoor museum and information centre. Unfortunately part of the museum was closed and we saw not one of the hundred townsfolk.

One claim to fame, is the finding of a colony of rare Dinosaur Ants, which has apparently attracted world wide interest from entomologists. Not today though, not a soul in sight. After a wander around the information boards, we went back to the van for morning tea.

Ceduna to Kimba

The school was closed in 1976 and the museum was closed today!

A shanty made from empty kero tins, once the home of a local recluse.

By now, the sky had begun to clear and we pressed on across the peninsula to Kyancutta, by which time lunch was on the agenda. Kyancutta sits on the junction of the Eyre Highway which we're following and th C890 which runs south, down the centre of the peninsula to Port Lincoln. But, as earlier, the town, little more than a filling station, boasted a little rest area, set up to honour early residents. There were already a couple of camper trailers pulled in and taking lunch, so we found a spot and did likewise.
We had decided to check out rest area called Darkes Memorial, only another fifty or so kilometres further on, we did and it looked like a good campsite, well screened from the highway. After a look around and a visit to the memorial, we decided to push on. The call of home is now quite strong!

Darke's Memorial

Great view from the rock.

So we carried on to Kimba where there's also an overnight rest area complete with flushing toilet, a useful facility for our age group. However, on arriving and finding the area right in the middle of town, we decided instead on the caravan park. We had noticed the park on the way into town and that it was a Top Tourist park, of which we're members. I got the idea that the roadhouse had no idea when I flashed my membership card!

Top Tourist Park at Kimba!

As we were preparing dinner, a motorhome drew up alongside and spotting our vic number plates, the lady driver came over for a chat. Turns out she was travelling alone because her husband had flown back to Perth to be with an ailing brother. We didn't introduce ourselves which is a pity. Turns out our neighbour has friends in Arawata and knows South Gippsland well. Also, her father was moderator in the Presbyterian Church in the sixties! Would have been nice to know more about our fellow traveller but she turned out to be an early traveller and was gone before we knew it in the morning.

Day 113—Tuesday, 15th October (Kimba to Bolivar (Adelaide) 460kms)

Kimba to Bolivar

We had our usual unhurried start, getting on the road just after 9.15am, heading east towards Port Augusta. We travelled through more grain paddocks for a while then soon moved into saltbush country. More mining obvious at Iron Knob in really stony country. It was interesting, listening to ABC radio as we by-passed this town, to hear a film maker being interviewed about a film she'd just made at Iron Knob and which had just had a viewing at a short film festival in Adelaide. By the sound of things, we didn't miss anything in the by-pass.
In Port Augusta, we only stopped long enough to fuel up, including the LPG tank, first time since Barkly Homestead, where at $1.38 we had decided that the higher cost made the fuel savings doubtful. Mind you, we'd paid $1.45 at Camoweel! I think I said something of this at the time, so I won't dwell on it now.
At Port Augusta, we decided to head on southwards towards Adelaide, because we've previously been through both Burra and Peterborough. With after sight, that was a mistake given the climb out of Adelaide over Mt Lofty.
Carrying on though we kept looking for a stop for lunch and ended up keeping on keeping on. We thought a beachside stop at Middle Beach might be nice but the badly corrugated road from the highway to the beach soon changed our mind. It was getting quite late now and we tried another park on the highway, Virginia Gardens but it was not really a travellers park, in fact I didn't see anything but permanents. That's why it's called a residential park!!
Another five kilometres down the highway we came across the Highway One Caravan Park and they were able to offer us a drive through that didn't need us to unhitch. This turned out to be a very big park, with over eighty cabins and about hundred site powered and unpowered. Situated on the Port Wakfield Road, only about twenty minutes from Adelaide. We were very comfortable.

Drive through at Highway One

Day 114—Wednesday, 16th October (Bolivar to Naracoorte 362kms)

Bolivar to Naracoorte

The Highway One park exits straight onto the forecourt of a major Caltex roadhouse service station, so that was our first stop. Filling up with two different fuels can be tricky in some service stations, especially with a big van on tow. This one did have diesel and gas in the same lane but the unleaded pump was being serviced so the lane was blocked off. Another issue with forecourt design and the van occurs when the lanes all point to the shop, meaning a very tight turn out of the lane to exit. Usually this is solved by using the outside lanes, one of which was blocked as mentioned above. That left the other outside lane for us, which was fine except only diesel was available. After filling and going inside to pay the bill, I mentioned this to the attendant and very helpfully he suggested I reverse out of the lane and pull into another which had LPG available. The station was very quiet and I was able to get away with the manoeuvre. At Port Augusta, I'd managed the lane change by exiting and driving round the block to enter the gas lane. You have to keep the 20% diesel saving in mind to put up with all that! Anyway we got filled and were off.
Today, was to be our day of reckoning for the earlier decision to take the Adelaide route rather than Burra as mentioned earlier. Of course, before that, we had to negotiate the traffic of the outer suburbs of Adelaide, all of which were two or three lane double highway. This is where a rear view camera really helps and we negotiated this section without any drama at all.

The twin portals of the Heysen Tunnels

After passing through Glen Osmond, a ten kilometre climb brings you to the twin tunnels, which are named after Sir Hans Heysen. Along the way, names like Glen Osmond, Eagle on the Hill and Devil's Elbow are a bit intimidating. The tunnels western entrance are at 390m and the climb continues, exiting at 420m. So, you climb another 500m in the tunnel, which actually takes you through Eagle on the Hill, part of the Mt Lofty Ranges. The climb continues and by the time the Crafers Interchange at Mt Lofty is reached, we were 565m above sea level. Quite a climb which the Patrol managed well but slowly.
From here, the South Eastern Freeway continues, some fifty kilometres to Murray Bridge. The freeway now drops gradually, in some places quite undulating until at the river crossing, almost sea level. After all that stress, we stopped at a rest area between Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend for a well deserved cup of tea. All Helen could say was "it was a nice drive"!
Just beyond Tailem Bend the Malle Highway branches off towards Pinaroo but we stuck with the Princes Highway heading for Naracoorte. In the meantime, we paused at Keith for a quick visit to IGA and lunch in the park.
When we arrived at Naracoorte, we soon found the Caravan Park and took a powered site for the night and again managed to find a corner site where we didn't have to unhitch.

A nice big corner site, no need to un-hitch

Interesting company at Naracoorte Holiday Park

Day 115—Thursday, 17th October (Naracoorte to Harrow 274kms)

Naracoorte to Harrow

We woke to showers and windy gusts and a sense that we must be nearly home because we'd been hearing about Nyora weather for a week now. No turning back now though, just have to grin and bare it!

First up this morning, a visit into Naracoorte for a wander around the shopping centre and a visit to the Information Centre. We found a park for car and van opposite the pub and from our observations, caravan parkings are few and far between in Naracoorte. We had our wander, Helen finding some postcards in the news agency and me finding a newly released book on the Sydney Swans—The Rise of the Swans, a Decade of Success, 2003 to 2012. Well I bought it for Helen, didn't I?

It turned out that the Information Centre was a little way out of the retail area and included a museum. So back to the van and off back out the road to the quite easy to find Information Centre and Museum, complete with caravan parking but only for one, maybe two at a squeeze. The parking was off the highway but a nasty U-turn to get back out onto the highway was not noticeable until it was too late. We're good at nasty U-turns though.
We forgot all about U-turns after five minutes in the Sheeps Back Museum. Housed in an old three storey mill, built in 1860 the museum shows life as it was for the sheep breeders in the region. One mind blowing exhibit details a robotic shearing machine that does everything from imobilising the sheep to sorting the fleece. A must see attraction in this picturesque little town.
Next year, the Australian Caravan Club's annual muster is to be held at Lucendale, hosted by the South Australian branch. This is about 45kms west of Naracoorte, so being so close, we decided to check it out.
We were impressed by the tidy little town, which will host our national muster next year on the showgrounds caravan park and from our short time in the area, we're sure that there will be plenty of attractions for the club members.
A backtrack through Naracoorte and we soon crossed into Victoria heading towards Edenhope, where we left the Wimmera Highway. About thirty kilometres later on the C208 we arrived at Harrow, where we obtained the keys for the facilities at the town's camp ground at the cafe. Here we were told about the pub's $10.00 schnitzel night, so we soon got settled at the campground and went back into town for dinner. Not a bad meal for ten bucks, huge schnitzel, chicken or beef, with chips and salad and a beer or glass of wine.

Camping Ground at Harrow

Glenelg River

Day 116—Friday, 18th October (Harrow to Ballarat 257kms)

Harrow to Ballarat

We're beginning to feel the difference in the weather now, it was definitely cool this morning. We were not alone in the campground, having the company of a bloke, who looked like he was a trade doing some work in the town or nearby. No bother, he must work long hours, getting back to his van, a little Avan popper, as we were leaving for the pub last night and was gone before we got out of bed this  morning. Maybe he's acclimatised!
The town sits on the Glenelg River and the campground consists of two power outlet posts and a locked amenities block. All this squeezed in between the river and the footy oval. Heln went for a walk while I fussed with the hitching and reported plenty of birdlife, including Swamp Hens, Crested Cockatoos, Kookaburras and Wattlebirds. There was a nervous little wallaby too, who came quite close but didn't like the look of us a bounded off into the bush.
Harrow is famous, as the home of the first Aboriginal cricket team which toured England in 1869. So of course, there's the mandatory museum. The museum, is a mixture of cricket and war memorabilia. We sat down and watched an interesting short film on the tour. There's also a substantial Bradman exhibit, featuring more than fifty pieces, ranging from bats to books and photographs.
On the road again, we crossed the Glenelg and headed for Ballarat. The difference in the landscape has been obvious for the last couple of days but here in Victoria the word that comes to mind is, lush greenery!

Lush greenery and avenues of Gum Trees

There's still plenty of grain, wheat, oats and the dazzling yellow of canola but the sheep and fat lambs tell the stoty of plenty of feed without wandering dozens of miles to get it.
We stopped in Balmoral by the bowling green for morning tea then pushed on to Lake Bolac, where we had lunch down by the lakeside. Lake Bolac, looked worthy of a longer stay and has two camp areas plus a caravan park. Fishing would be the attraction or just sit back and watch the Pelicans sailing by.

Watching the Pelicans sail by on Lake Bolac.

After lunch, we were off again and arrived in Ballarat and the Eureka Holiday Park. The ACC Gippsland Gypsies will hold their final muster for the year at this park, next month. The meeting which includes the branch AGM is usually well attended so we thought we'd check it out. We needed a site anyway.
As it turned out, some twenty vans will be here and we had some reservations about being able to hold our AGM in the games room. Also, we noted that the sites are quite small and difficult to get into. In fairness, part of the park had been roped off and the sites top-dressed. We were able to select our site for the muster so that was a bonus.

Tight sites at Ballarat

Day 117—Saturday, 19th October (Ballarat to Nyora 215kms)

Ballarat to Nyora, Home Sweet Home

Today's our last day on the road and we set off down the highway in expectation. The drive from Ballarat is an eay one, with just a couple of hills to climb but with a good clear approach to keep the revs up and all freeway until Pakenham. We stopped at the Service Centre at Deer Park for a rest and morning tea, before tackling the Westgate Bridge and the Monash Freeway. In the end, the traffic on both was light and we were soon through to the eastern suburbs, It helps, being familiar with the area, being able to pick the correct lane and not have to make a lane change. I no time, we were exiting the Freeway at Pakenham, through Koo-Wee-Rup and down the Gippsland Highway to Nyora, arriving home about 1.00pm.