Adelaide to Port Lincoln

Adelaide 3/12/2010
Qantas delivered son David on Sunday 5th safe and sound although he was a bit indignant at having to get up so early to catch the plane which arrived at 11:35 am after a 2:20hr flight !!!
Shopping and site seeing over the next few days familiarised David with caravan life and Adelaide. We booked a tour through Haigh's Chocolate factory and entered assigned address into Gladys our trusty GPS, eventually after stopping at 400 traffic lights, travelling for numerous kls and winding our way up into the Adelaide hills, Gladys informed us we were at our destination on the right. Here we were in the bush a steep gully on our right and a few private houses to our left, a quick phone call to Haigh's and we were hurtling back down the range almost to the city centre fringe again, late of course but got the free hand out and made the tour that was also running late. The tour only took 20 minutes, didn’t exactly inspire, they don’t tell you or show you too much and it all seemed rather tedious and labour intensive, in fact they emphasise the fact that everything is hand made (as if hand made makes a better product ), it’s really a con to influence visitors to buy chocolate items from the factory shop and it works.
A lot of Adelaide’s roads are extremely long and apparently numbering re-starts at each suburb, a real trap and something everybody using a GPS gets caught with, ho hum.

Hahndorf:
Set in the Adelaide hills this distinctive town was settled by Prussian refugees in the 1830’s and to quote, “Its heritage is preserved in the village architecture and German style shops, museums, cafes and pubs”. It is a bit like visiting Montville in the Sunshine Coast hinterland only this is authentic on a larger scale and obviously caters well for the Sunday, holiday tourist trade, regardless of the tourist focus it is attractive enough not to be tacky. Hahndorf and other areas of the Adelaide Hills is a beautiful drive, for us northerners it is nice to see a variety of deciduous trees, the whole district must be a kaleidoscope of colour in autumn.
During our drive we managed to find Beerenberg Strawberry Farm where you pay to pick your own, Nancy and David were kept busy here for a short time while I listened to the Poms demolish our not so illustrious cricket team. Beerenberg strawberries are probably the nicest I have tasted, it is no wonder they are so famous. Just to add to the humour, when entering the picking fields a lady explains how to select ripe fruit and how to pick it. Apparently David wouldn’t have a bar of it and promptly told everyone (as usual), how his Grandpa had taught him what to look for and how to pick the fruit. The very first berry he endeavoured to pick, the whole plant came out of the ground and he spent the next 10 minutes trying to replant it, much to everyone’s amusement.
Hahndorf is somewhere we will visit again before leaving SA. Hans Heysen the famous artist mentioned in earlier posts lived and painted at his home and studio at the Cedars in Hahndorf. The Cedars now heritage listed is open to the public and is considered one of the must sees. Unfortunately it is closed on Mondays, trust us.

Leaving Adelaide for a final destination Coffin Bay at the bottom of the Eyre Peninsula and home to the famous Coffin Bay oysters (thought I’d throw that in), we punched a strong head wind all the way to Port Augusta using 23 litres per hundred kilometres of fuel and decided that was quite long enough travelling for one day. Previous nights David had slept in the annexe but while we were travelling it was decided to use the 4 man dome tent we had brought with us for that purpose. With a black ominous sky and wind increasing it was going to be a race against time to erect and secure David’s dwelling for the night before the pending storm struck. These dome tents are so easy to put up they don’t need to supply instructions with them, yea right, well I don’t know if anyone was watching but it must have looked like a trio of drunks dancing around a maypole. Setting out the floor, flexible dome rods and inner lining was a piece of cake and very straight forward, other than the fact an F111 was parked alongside of us with it’s jets blowing across us, we had six arms between us and needed twenty, finally stabilised we threw the outer shell over the frame and proceeded to anchor it down only to realise it was the wrong way round so we moved it around 90 degrees and it still wasn’t right and so it went on accompanied by a lot of instructions from those that have never put up a tent in their life, eventually we got it all together and anchored down, rain had just started and then all hell broke loose, rain bucketed down and the wind was ferocious but by daylight it was all over and David and the tent had survived, it was certainly a baptism of fire but nice to know how effective the tent is and the next time we put it up it only took a short time, (now we are experts).
From Port Augusta we turned the corner to head down the Eyre Peninsula and expecting a tail wind after our run up the previous day, you wouldn’t believe it Murphy again, a weather change and we were punching a headwind once more. Enroute at Whyalla we visited a maritime museum that included a conducted tour of a corvette named and built in Whyalla during the second world war , this added a bit of interest to our journey, especially as we were able to look up the record of a past friend of Nancy’s family who served on corvettes during the war.
Port Lincoln became our destination for the day and we decided to stay for a few days giving a chance to have a look around before travelling the 40 kls to Coffin Bay on Sunday.
Port Lincoln
Hair cuts all round were the order of the day, amazing how woolly you get in what seems a short time. The car also needs a service and that will be taken care of today, weather has turned to poo, occasional showers which are really only misty rain but horribly overcast and an extremely cold blustery wind blowing, back into jeans and a flannelette shirt – look like something out of Ipswich but no Ugg boots.
Surely this un-seasonal weather we are all experiencing will improve.

Don't forget if you want to make a comment or ask a question you are most welcome to by just following the prompts.