April 27th & 28th Another bright morning and we set off to Whyalla down a largely straight road through salt bush plains to the coastal industrial town. We saw the iron ore trains testing the line to Iron Knob, and later loaded trains of ore arriving at Whyalla. Some ore is exported while One Steel uses the ore to create steel products for Australia. One thing we noted in the older part of Whyalla was how iron oxide had impregnated many buildings and particularly rooves. The small city has the steel industry plus, just a little out of town, Santos has an LPG processing site at Lowly Point, the place where we were going to camp for the weekend. But life here was really tough. Read the inscriptions quoting the words of a new bride arriving ... read more

24th and 25th Marg and I decided to have a look at both the Elder Ranges, north west of Hawker and Wilpena Pound north east of Hawker over two half day journeys. Wednesday morning, we decided to walk to town and then on up Policeman's Hill to a lookout over Hawker and the surrounding ranges. Well worth the climb to get a sense of the area. Hawker itself is rather like an oasis of green in the brown/red plain of arid farmland. On Wednesday afternoon we drove north to Parachilna at the top of the Elder Range, and as it happens, in line with the north of the Wilpena formation. The day was fine and the cruising easy along great sealed roads. There are a few lookouts and pointers to settlements long since crumbled, and to ... read more

Monday 22nd April Today we left behind the coastal waters of Spencer Gulf and headed North East inland into the Flinders Ranges. Our first stop along the way was Port Broughton, another picturesque sea side town with the jetty and marina straight off the end of the main street. Looked like a quiet holiday spot, but minimal surviving businesses. This was our departure point for heading into the Flinders Ranges. The lower Flinders Ranges has had a significant impact on South Australia. The part we drove through today to Terowie is a very productive rural cropping area. There are also large flocks of sheep. I suspect these are bough to fatten as they clear the stubble from the harvested crops areas. Again the acreage in grain is huge, and there was an interesting patchwork of colours ... read more

Friday 19th What a rough night - little sleep for anyone at Edithburgh last night as a very strong wind rose in the evening and enthusiastically rocked the motorhome, not only all night, but as we drove to Wallaroo on the west coast of Yorke Peninsular. The sun rise this morning was much brighter than the photographer felt, and seemed ominous. However, the sky brightened by afternoon. Marg drove the first leg through to Minlaton via Yorketown. Despite previously reporting the need to do further testing on the quality of Yorketown Bakery custard slice, we proceeded through to Minlaton. The Yorke Peninsular has rolling low hills, so what blows from the east is shared with those living on the west of the peninsular. There are no mountains or substantial hills to soak up the cold blast, ... read more

Wed 17th After a clear star lit night, Wednesday dawned as a bright clear and almost cloudless, so it was a great day to go exploring. One of the hazards of motor camps is over bright park lighting, and that effected us overnight. So, after Marg did a walk around, we moved to the other side of David's van and also parked at a different angle to dodge the problem for the second night. That delayed departure for half an hour, and so we set off across the southern coast of Yorke Peninsular. If you look at the map, Edinburgh is at the heel of the boot, and we were going to drive along the sole of the boot to the toe at Innes National Park, Cape West. We set out on the Scenic Drive with ... read more