Clare to Ceduna

---

---

Desert Ship Territory Log Day 16

It was a pretty cold morning in Clare as it would've been about one degree. I really wanted to see the historic town of Mintaro just out of Clare and to see if I could catch a glimpse of Martindale Hall since we are going to miss opening time. All I got to see was some outbuildings through the bush. After stopping briefly back in Clare I couldn't stop photographing all of the old buildings. Clare is also a wine growing area but the minute you leave the valley it quickly reverts to rolling agricultural plains and we were surprised to see how advanced the already flowering canola crops were. We were approaching the Southern Flinders Ranges area again and the landscape got quite hilly again. If you have a farm here, you will invariably live in an old stone house. There is such an abundance of them and we rarely see a modern farm house. Little towns long the way were common place and all of them are historic and streetscapes of shops lined with quintessential bull nosed verandahs. Most of the time the only give away that we are in the twenty first century are the vehicles on angle parking down the wide main streets. Once we exited the ranges via Horrocks Pass we were almost in Port Augusta where the landscape changed instantly and remarkably back to station country with low scrub and salt bush. We stopped to have lunch at a bakery in Port Augusta. I'm glad we made the effort to actually go into Port August rather than just bypass it. It looks like dive if driving past due to it being an industrial iron smelting town. In town there are also many magnificent historical buildings. After another 4.5 hours riving and a brief stop at Kimba, whose claim to fame is the east/west half way point of Australia and home of The Big Pink and Grey Galah, we arrived at Ceduna at 1730. I managed to download about half my photos and put my favs on facebook. The rest will have to wait. We will be in bed early for a big 12 hour driving day tomorrow to Norseman.

---