In Adelaide

We have been in Adelaide for 2 nights already.
We arrived on Tuesday evening at George and Kirsty's. Ciara was absolutely wrapped with having more than just an evening out of the car, though she has had a funny day today.
On the trip from Port Lincoln to Adelaide we were going to use the Ferry from Lucky Bay across and save driving about 350 kms via Port Augusta. WEhilst waiting for the ferry, I asked what time can we check in, we were early though and was told that it was in for its annual service until Friday. Just our luck the week we want to use it.
So we had to drive all the way around the gulf, we decided to do it and get it done instead of staying in a hotel for another night.
We arrived at George and Kirsty's by about 5;30pm, Kirsty warned us about traffic, but if that was traffic and for Adelaide apparently it is, I wish I was always in that little traffic, but then we are in Adelaide and the "heavy" traffic was still flowing at the allowed speed limit.
Yesterday we had a walk around the foreshore of Glenelg North, where Kirsty lives and it seems very nice area to live.
Today we went in to Rundell Mall and had a look around, we ended up buying a new camera, my birthday present, and I am very happy with the limited time I have had to play with it so far. It is a Lumix (Panasonic) DMC-TZ6. With 12x optical zoom and 10.1 megapixels.
Also tonight we went out for dinner to the Glenelg Surf Club, I had an extra hot beef vindaloo, but it wasn't that hot but still nice.

Streaky Bay to Port Lincoln

We left Streaky Bay to drive down the coast, the map showed a 4wd track but when got on it it was more like an unsealed road. This road went Point La Batt, which has a sea lion colony but binoculars would be good to be able to see them better.
We had to then back track a bit get to the road Port Lincoln. Then passed Murphy's Haystacks, something about an Irish man saying they look like good stacks of hay, they are in fact granite boulders and inselbergs (look it up).
On to Port Lincoln again, but 45km from town Peanut decided she had had enough of the car seat and wanted out. It took another 20km to find a place to stop, 10 minutes play and she was right to go again.
We booked into a nice caravan park with a 2 bedroom cabin, was pretty good, but the place reception sent us to for fish and chips, King Neptune's, the fish was pretty average.
Ciara also decided to rearrange her bag tonight and took everything out, then got bored of this and found something else to do. Mummy had to repack it all . :)
Now to bed, tomorrow to Adelaide.

Regards,
Mike Gentile

Border Village to streaky Bay

Left Border Village bright and early, but it pretty cool. We stopped at 4 lookouts along the next stretch which look over the Bite, also known as The Bunda Cliffs.
Also stopped at the Head of the Bite. Which is the northern most point of the bite and usually a good place to whale watch, but we didn't see any.
There was not much else to see today. We had our luch at Penong, passed through thefruit/veg checks and then decided to call it quits for day and stay at Streaky Bay.

Regards,
Mike Gentile

Cocklebiddy to Border Village 23/5

We departed Cocklebiddy just after 8am. With the Eyre Bird Observatory as our destination, the turn off is supposed to be 11km from Cocklebiddy. By the time we had traveled 13km all we had seen was a track without signs and thought that must be it, so we tuned back and followed it south to the coast. It is only a track, we thought they had exagerated the meaning of unsealed road. :)
After following this track quite some distance, passing a couple of caves and the trees narrowing in on the track, we were wondering how people would get there caravans down to where the 4wd track starts. Then all of a sudden we come out on to an unsealed road, :) ,a sign saying "Eyre 17km", 12km of that is to be sandy 4wd track.
We got to the sand track and let the tyres down to the resquested to 20 psi.
We follow this track to the beach, knowing the caretakers to be out. We were mainly going to see the ocean, which cold and messy. The observatory is one of the original telegraph huts.We followed the correct unsealed road back to the highway.Next onto Madura Pass, somehow we were on the tableland which descends onto the plain that reach to the Southern Ocean.We then carried onto Mundrabilla, where we stopped for a late lunch.Off Eucla,where went down to the beach side ruins of another telegraph hut.We finally carried on to Border Village, to stop and sleep. Here obviously pass into SA and we have to put watches forward another 45mins to make up to SA time.

Tomorrow off to Ceduna.

Kal To Cocklebiddy 22/5

We departed Kal for Cocklebiddy early this morning (22/5). We saw something very disturbing for someone of Peanuts age, just as well she was asleep so that she won't be scarred for years to come. Along the roadside between Kalgoorlie and Kambalda,we saw the blatant torture and violence against more than 20 stuffed toys, teddys and dolls as they were tied to tree trunks along the road. It was very disturbing. :(
We then made it to Norseman, as I had worked here about 14 years earlier, I gave Ang the 50¢ tour, not much had really changed, though it does have an ATM now.
Back to the highway, we are now onto Eyre highway, highway number 1. We are to go another 430kms to Cocklebiddy, past Balladonia and Caiguna and includes the longest straight stretch of road in Australia, 146.6kms. It was long and quite boring with no bends.
We have now passed into first time zone change, Central Western +45mins from Perth.

Time for bed, another early start tomorrow and we will do a little 4wd to get to a bird observatory.

Regards,
Mike Gentile

A day in Kalgoorlie

Today we stayed around the town of Kal.
First, I took Ang to see Hay st. this is the famous street where Kal has it's brothels, there wasn't much to see, it was a bit early.
We went to the Mt Charlotte lookout, which looks out over the town and is also where the towns water supply is pumped from. This is the storage tank where the water pipe line from Perth finishes.
Then we were off to Hammond Park, where we had a sandwich for and also let peanut have a crawl around. There was also a miniture Bavarian castle to and some parrots in avery cages.
Lastly we went to Hannans North tourists mine, it was once a working mine. It also miners and prospectors hall of fame. Ang and I also had a crack at panning for gold in their little man made stream, which they salt with little flecks of gold. I actually managed to find some, we tried it again before leaving and I found a couple more flecks.
There is also an underground tour of the mine, about 36m down, the first level of 13. We had to go seperately, as peanut is too young to go down.
We also saw a gold pour, well it was really silver and bronze but we got to watch the process.
Peanut grabbed a custard tin and her finger and there was lots of blood and it seemed annoy her all night.
Finally we retired to our cabin at the caravan park for dinner and to prepare for the next section, the drive to Cocklebiddy, approximately 628kms.
I may not be able to send much in for a couple of days, possibly no phone service.

Regards,
Mike Gentile

Arrival in Kal

We arrived about 5pm. Staying in a caravan park, seems ok. We bought some oven chips, but when got back to chalet, we found there was no oven in the chalet or camp kitchen. We had to cook them in a fry pan :)
Tomorrow will be an easy day around Kal, doing tourist things around here.
Ciara went well with the first day of sitting in her car, she only got stroppy in the last half hour.
Bye until tomorrow.

Regards,
Mike Gentile