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We continued on our trip up the western coast of the peninsular yesterday, the road leading just a bit inland although the coast was visible. The wonderful farm country continued, the few small hills we saw to the east were dotted with wind turbines and many in the course of being erected.
We stopped at Port Broughton for a look around - quite a nice waterfront, jetty and main street with an funny country clothing shop where everything was bundled together, summer, winter, men’s and women’s and shoes piled in boxes, lots on ‘display’ outside on the footpath. I thought I’d find something cheapish but though the lady didn’t know how to arrange, she knew how to charge, so no buying. Once it was a busy port - they’d load bagged grain on small ketches and sail them to bigger windjammers that were moored 15ks. out to sea - I suppose that part of the Gulf was too shallow for the big boats to come right into port.
Our next big town was the industrial town of Port Pirie with ships being loaded from big silos which dominate the waterfront. We just drove around the streets and
the waterfront of the town before heading north, feeling that was enough. Then we were in the outback once more - the Spencer Gulf to the left, grey-green saltbush, red soil, gum trees, and the interesting Flinders Ranges on the right. The further north we drove, the narrower the Gulf became and we could see the land the other side of the water, until we came to its head at Port Augusta.
Port Augusta is something of a busy crossroad for traffic going north to Central Australia and Darwin or west towards Perth. The Ghan train also crosses here on its trip from Adelaide to Darwin. We drove around town and the waterfront and then found ourselves back on the highway. We felt we hadn’t explored Port Augusta enough, so turned around and went back to town to see what else the town had to offer.
We came across a building called the Wadlata Outback Centre and decided we’d go inside. What a wonderful display it was. It showed the outback from prehistoric times when it was a vast inland sea, fossils found, aboriginal legends and how they lived off the land, and then the coming
of the white man and the problems they faced living and exploring the inland, farming, droughts, fire, building the overland telegraph line and the Ghan railway. The Flying Doctor was first started here and I had a turn of the old pedal radio once used by children for School of the Air.
It was one of the best displays we’ve been to and we were in there about 2 hrs. This meant it was getting late in the afternoon and rather than drive on, we found a caravan park to stay the night. There were a few caravans queued to get in and I think it was probably full by the end of the day. Like at Wallaroo, there is just dirt on the ground at this park, they don’t waste water on grass. The goods yard was in town but Woolworths built on their waterfront block and now it's is across the water from the caravan park. I thought the sound of the train sounded great last night but Doug said it didn't sound so good when it was shunting the carriages at 2am. Luckily, I slept through it all.
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