Melbourne - Ceduna
Our rental van from Kea Campers
Leaving Melbourne on ANZAC Day, we made it to Horsham on the first night, wondering what we’d let ourselves in for. Although the morning in Melbourne had been pleasant, an enormous rainfront was sweeping through further west so we’d been forced off the road at Ballarat when the windscreen wipers couldn’t keep up. By the time we got to Horsham the caravan park was very wet with massive puddles everywhere and it got down to 1 degree Celsius overnight according to the campsite manager. Lovely. And we’re in a van with another month of this to get through? Quite the baptism for the first day on the road…
The completely harmless lead smelter in Port Pirie
Our first night in the van revealed a problem with the bed we’d not considered. As part of the challenge of finding a van I could stand upright in (many have internal heights of 1.82m which is fine for short people but not me!), the van we chose had a bed length of 2.0m. Unfortunately, since it was a back seat that folded down to become a bed, it turned out to have two bars located across the bed - one exactly where you rest your hips and the other where you rest your knees. This meant that as soon as you rolled over in the bed, you ground two joints into metal bars. Not pleasant! Ultimately (when we got to warmer territory) I found it easier to sleep further down the bed so my feet hung off the end of the bed and rested against the fridge but in the cold weather I wasn’t sticking my feet out the end of the doona and unfamiliar with this alternate positioning, both of us woke in the morning somewhat bruised on the hips from the bed. I should note that over the course of the month, the bed foam also compressed substantially so no matter where we slept, much of our body was on wooden boards (although there was a thin layer of cushioning, we could easily feel the boards). We don’t recommend hiring or buying this van. Or dealing with Kea Campers, for that matter. But more on that later…
Sea lions at Pt Labatt Conservation Park
It ultimately didn’t stop raining until we past Port Augusta in South Australia so the first 1000 kms was basically a massive headwind with sleet. We stopped at the Monarto Zoo on the way through, expecting we could at least get out and go for a walk but it was raining when we got there so - after sitting in the carpark for 15 mins to see if it would abate and figuring out it wouldn’t - we left again without seeing any animals other than the camels next to the driveway. No matter - we’d been to that zoo before so it wasn’t a terrible loss. Note that we saw camels. This is important if you’re reading the travelogue from start to finish. We saw camels today!
Murphy's Haystacks
We stopped in Port Pirie for the night (possible town motto: “there is no connection between the lead smelter in the centre of town and the entirely coincidental health problems our children are experiencing“) and the next morning found everything in town appeared to be closed so didn’t really see much there other than a brief loop around the streets. It was still too cold to do much anyway though we were hoping for the weather to improve. By Port Augusta we knew we had to cancel the planned swim with sea lions at Baird Bay. There was simply no way either of us could see enjoyment in swimming with sea lions in the southern ocean when the weather was so bitter. We rang and cancelled our booking, after which the weather slightly improved but not enough we wanted to un-cancel. We instead decided to just stand on the clifftop at Point Labatt Conservation Park and look down on them. It was astonishing to find that there had been problems in the past with people standing on the lookout above the seals and shooting at them - what enjoyment some people could derive from such an activity is beyond my comprehension.
Murphy's Haystacks
En route to the sea lions we passed the Big Galah in Kimba, and stopped at Murphy’s Haystacks - interesting granite formations near the village of Calca. These pink bulbous rocks have been weathered over the past 100,000 years and stand atop a hill in the middle of a sheep paddock. The landowners have allowed tourist access to them which is fortunate (donation box at site for maintenance of paths/fences/etc). It was our first bit of blue sky (hurrah!) which was fortunate as the colours were far more interesting than they would have been under a grey sky.
Big Galah in Kimba, SA
We’d heard on the radio forecast that the weather was better in Western Australia so made the decision to drive there ASAP, so ended up in Ceduna for the night. As we wandered around the township of Ceduna that evening, we couldn’t find much reason to be there. The local tourist information office had a touchscreen device for after-hours queries. When we pressed the icons to find out what there was to do in town, a local attraction was a fish ‘n’ chip shop. Asking for tourist information on the surrounding area just gave us an advertisement to buy a touchscreen device. Evidently those who work in the tourist office have never bothered checking to make sure the information they expect to be there is actually there…