Whyalla – Wild, Windy Weather

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Being Wednesday, it was Egg and Bacon breakfast day. If you know Greg, you will understand. We didn’t see T in the morning as he had already left for work but Z was busy in the kitchen preparing the ‘right’ Wednesday breakfast as her departure gift to us. It was most enjoyable. We had been woken several times in the night to the sound of rain on the roof, so it was not surprising that the morning was a little soggy. There had been a heavy fog, but we only saw the last hint of it.

We stopped for lunch in Port Augusta before heading off towards Whyalla, where we were to spend 2 nights catching up with our dear friends Sheila and Brian. Surprisingly we had foreshore sites adjacent to each other even though neither of us had requested it. We both assumed the other had.

We knew a storm was coming, but there was no sign on our arrival. However, it was not long before the wind started to pick up, the sky darkened out to the west, and it was clear we were in for a beating. We certainly got a beating over the next couple of days. We felt sorry for the people in roof top tents and the young kids who were in a ground tent that was clearly struggling to stay put. We were snug and warm in our caravan, rocked to sleep by a gentle buffeting and sometimes woken by a stronger surge. As it was, we seemed much more protected than the people in sites further west of us or up the hill.

Dinner out seemed a good choice on our first night together. The Eyre Hotel had good rap so we booked for 6:30. The 4 of us squeezed into our vehicle, amidst jackets, cameras, wine cartons and other travelling necessities. We kind of knew where we were going but were relying on the sat nav to get us to the right place. It took us in the oddest directions so we eventually gave up using it and found our own way. It was only the next day it dawned on Greg that the cracked windscreen with its inbuilt sensors was stuffing up the GPS communication.

Table 13 – ominous. A guy approached our table shortly after we sat down to inform us how to join the Quiz Night but if we weren’t interested maybe we would like to request a change of table as our location right under the speakers would be very loud. Reluctantly the staff changed our table as the place was fully booked. Greg convinced them to change us with a table where the people hadn’t yet arrived. All settled we ordered our food. We waited and waited and waited, but no food. Tables around us were served, tables who ordered after us were served and even the table we had swapped with was served but no food for us. Eventually Greg went to check. ‘The kitchen is very busy and steak and chicken take longer to cook,’ he was told. Sure! Within 5 mins our food arrived. Perhaps the saving grace for the night was that the food was stunning.
Next night it was BYO dinner to our caravan and the next to Sheila and Brian’s.

Thursday the weather continued to be wild and woolly with promises of still more to come. Before going in search of someone to fix the windscreen, Greg booked us into the Caravan Park for another 2 nights. The windscreen had to be shipped in over-night so the 4x4 was booked for Friday 8:00am. Brian kindly brought Greg back to the CP after delivering the vehicle.

A short walk into town to meet Sheila and Brian for lunch took us past SES workers clearing a fallen tree on the entry road to the CP. By the time we arrived back all was gone. When Greg received the call to say his car was ready to be picked up, we were walking on the jetty. It was very windy. They offered to come and pick us up. Very nice we thought. Actually, these were very genuine country folk. We realised that being Friday afternoon and they were finished all the work for the day, the doors were shut and they were keen to go, so no surprised they offered to fetch us.

Saturday morning Sheila and Brian headed off so we spent the day driving around, exploring the city of Whyalla and enjoying a slightly less windy day.

Given the continuing unfriendly weather along with our troublesome fridge, we decided we would move inland, and homeward over the next couple of days. Perhaps we would finish our trip in a few week’s time when we had made repairs and the weather was better.

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Photos

Mangroves at the end of the beach.
Spot the ships in the distance