Postie & Sue doing the "mail run".

Thanks for dropping in to visit us on our blogspot as we go off to explore this wonderful country of ours. We would be very happy to have your comments if you want to post them.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Louth Bay

Louth Bay was home for 6 days, just a little town with no shops, just a golf club.
The surrounding scenery is awesome with the rolling hills.
Went up to the club one night for drinks and a chat with the locals.
For the person who posted asking about the size of our van, it is 21' inside and about 30' in length from back to tow ball!.
We are loving the caravan life and get quite inventive to solve so minor problems! I was wanting to iron two pieces of patchwork fabric I bought in Port Lincoln and found out very quick that our new jenny wont run an iron and as I was wanting to chop up this fabric I took a little stroll up to the golf club which was closed being a Monday and found an outside power point. I hot footed it back to the van and armed with miny ironing board, iron and fabric, back I went and plugged into there for the 5 minutes it took to iron my bits! Mind you it must have been a funny sight due to me swiping with the iron and smacking mozzies at the same time!
Looking back towards the town from the jetty. We didn't do any fishing this stop, but as we had visited the Seafood Warehouse in Port Lincoln we are still having yummy meals.
The jetty at low tide. every little place seems to have a jetty!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Koppia Museum

This photo is supposed to be with the tank but I couldn't get it to shift.
This is the most incredible museum at Koppia, we spent several hours here but could easy spend days looking through here, can only show such a small amount of the contents, but we went around saying "look at that", "do you remember this", "that's amazing" etc! Well worth the $20 we spent to get in.
Just some of the old cars on display
plus lots of buggys
Tractors galore!
Bryon says they used to have one just like this on his nana's farm.
Lots of more motors
Old patchwork quilt done in hexagons, the pattern is called Grandma's Garden.
For Kevin to drool over
more for Kevin as he collects these.
More in the telegraph hut
Wattle hut with thatched roof and jsut stuffed full of things to ponder over.
The blacksmiths hut
instrument of torture, the old dentists chair.
hmm, an old portable camera
barb wire collection, just one board out of a huge collection of thousands! incredible that there could be soo many!
one of many old projectors
the old tank that goes with the first picture.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Port Lincoln

This fabulous old building use to be the railway station and is now the railway museum.
We stayed three nights at the Port Lincoln Tourist Park which is rated 4 star, the toilet & camp kitchen facilities were very good, but everyone was squeezed in like sardines on the sites, if you put your awning out you were touching the van next door and the first site they tried to put us on was one big puddle of water and the one we ended up on was so uneven we had to jack the van up on two sides. The weather again was not nice, rainy & very windy. The up side was we met two couples with Retreat vans but different models to ours, one of the couples originally come from John's home town of Alexandria in New Zealand. We are finding the more we talk to people just how small the world is!
Our power problems are still ongoing, but may be a warranty job so lots of phone calls and emails are being exchanged. We have weakened and are in the process of buying a 2 kva generator, which hopefully should arrive Friday or Saturday. We have now moved onto Louth Bay.

Three times Melbourne Cup winner "Makybe Diva" statue over looking Boston Bay.
Very life like and accurate down to all the veins etc.

The big grain terminal leading to the main wharf in Boston Bay. Out in the bay there are lots of big circular tuna farms.
Had the Nissan in for another wheel alignment, balance and tyre rotations. I visited the patchwork shop again for another fix and chat to the ladies, and yes, I weakened  and bought some things.
We went to Pier Hotel Restaurant for Bryon's birthday lunch and had another fabulous feed, seafood for me & steak for Bryon. 
At the fisherman's wharf watching one of the fishing boat coming up the canal leading to the wharf.
Again at the fisherman's wharf with dozens of fishing ships lined up, masts as far as you can see.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Farm Beach

March 15th to 20th.
Stayed at Farm Beach Bush camp for 5 nights, a big camp that was nearly full resulting in about 50 people at happy hour each night!(too many) . I caught the only fish while we were there, a herring but it had to go back, Bryon was very patient teaching me how to cast with the new rod we just bought. Had a couple feeds again of oysters and Bryon has the stab wounds in his hands from the shells to prove it! The seafood over here is wonderful & we can't get enough of it. Those with boats were having a field day catching squid, some up to 15 in a day.
The only facilities were basic flushing toilets and 1 tap with water that was not drinkable but could be used for showering & washing etc, which had to be carried in by buckets. Did a day trip to Coffin Bay on Friday for a bit of a look around, the coastline in South Australia is just amazing, beautiful beaches, rugged cliffs and lots of amazing bays and inlets.Was very windy & dusty for several days of our stay and then on the morning we were to leave it started raining at about 3am and continued until we were set up at Port Lincoln, Bryon got absolutely drenched packing up & hitching up, but as we are having power problems we had to go.
On the edge of the camp were all these tractors,used to launch the boats on the soft beach. many I think will never see the beach again.

Gallipoli Beach

This is the beach that the movie Gallipoli with Mel Gibson was filmed on.
We had to slowly pick our way along 4k of cliff top tracks to get to this beach, we didn't climb down ( chickened out!) but you can see the track up that featured in the film. Really rough & barren & gives you a small insite into what it was actully like at Gallipoli.
Track up from the beach! very steep!
More of the track up the cliff.
looking at the sea right on the point of Gallipoli Beach.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Woolshed Cave

Visited this awesome cave just out from Venus Bay, the sea was flat calm, would be horrendous when the sea was rough. The surounding rocks were very interesting and a soft shade of pink which doesn't really show up in the photos.
Bryon walked part of the way in to the cave  but I was a chicken and stayed outside, he even said it was a bit nerve racking so he didnt go all the way in.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Venus Bay

The jetty at Venus Bay, South Australia taken at low tide, fishing is the main pass time here with a fleet of large ships operating from here catching pilchards & prawns. The pilchards are all destined for the tuna farms off the coast from Adelaide and if you are around when the boat is unloading you can pick up fresh pilchards for bait from the overflows onto the jetty.
This is the ocean side of Venus Bay, looks very desolate with all the cliffs from this side but looks are deceiving.
We did the walk around the point this morning, a nice 45 minute stroll with awesome views. If you haven't already discovered it, you can click on any photo to see it enlarged.
nearly got it!

My first fish!

5 herring & 2 skippy! not huge fish but I am still pretty happy about catching them. We went out to the jetty & I used Bryon's rod & he did the baiting up for me. Going to look for a new rod for Bryon when we get to Port Lincoln & I will inherit his old one. A new hobby for me (maybe) :). We have had several feeds of King George Whiting with  more in the freezer for later.
No, I didn't clean them!
Lots of company at the fish cleaning hut, very clean with no smells as the pelicans & gulls clean every scrap up.
This is home for 11 days as we decided to stay here over the long weekend.
For those who haven't seen the back of the Nissan, this is the drawer set up where Bryon keeps all the secret men's business stuff. amazing what you can fit in there.