Committed Travellers

The town of Moonta is mainly a tourist town these days. It was established around a copper mine which operated from 1860 until it was closed in 1923. The mines in the area were very prosperous leaving a legacy of many impressive buildings dating back to the mid 1800s. This house caught my attention. Over lunch we caught up with a couple of old friends who live in the area. We left Blue with his "aunties" for a couple of hours and from all reports he was well behaved. When we got back to the caravan park I took him for a walk and we ended up having coffee and custard tarts with other Roadies. Our concert was moved from the caravan park camp kitchen because four non Roadies hung around during last night's events. They declined to make a contribution to the entertainers or buy any CDs. A local cafe provided a venue for a fee that Beccy wouldn't have incurred if she didn't have to avoid gate crashers.

It was back to colder weather as we packed up in Clare. We drove to Kadina and found a place to park with the caravan, then walked to Woolies for cat food as it was on special. In the historic area of town I discovered Cafe Deluxe. I tied Blue to a post outside the door where I could see him. I heard a little bark and when I looked to see why, there was a large grey cat inside the cafe looking out at him. The decor in the cafe was also delightfully eclectic. Many of the historic stone buildings in South Australia are only maintained because they attract commercial tenants such as real estate agents, doctors, dentists and lawyers. We planned to have lunch at North Beach Kitchen near Wallaroo, but failed to research the parking situation before discovering we had driven onto a no through road. Fortunately we could reverse the van and found a parallel park nearby. The wind was blowing sand off the beach. At the restaurant we were able to sit outside away from the wind. This pattern on the

It has been the first sunny day for a while and made a welcome change. We drove to Clare for a few groceries and a walk around. This is the Clare library with a small statue of a reader. Anita went with the group to a winery and lunchtime concert, while I stayed at camp spending the time with Blue and Tilly. His feet were overdue for trimming so that job was done over his objections. They were both tired by late afternoon. This evening the concert was put on by Roadies, to mixed reviews. Some have real talent while others need to rethink their aspirations. The boot scooting choreography could do with some improvement, but was fun to watch.

There was more light rain this morning as we sat outside having breakfast in the cold. We packed up and followed Google map instruction on the best way to drive to Clare. The first step was to double back along the windy roads to get onto the freeway to Adelaide. The South Eastern Freeway has a 7kms section where there is a continuous downhill run, very steep in parts. Multiple signs warn bus and truck drivers to be in low gear. They are supposed to descend no faster than 60kph, but in some section the heavy trucks crawl down at about 20kph. The general speed limit is 90kph, but I drove down much slower using the Toyota's low gears to reduce reliance on the braking systems of the car and caravan. There have been fatal truck accidents on the downhill section with one truck reprtedly travelling at 156kph before crashing. We skirted around the CBD and headed north eventually travelling on the Horrocks Hwy. Just before reaching Clare we stopped at the Watervale Hotel for lunch. We sat

It was even colder this morning than yesterday - just 2.9°. Anita wanted to get her nails done so we headed back to the Mount Barker shopping centre and dropped her off. I spent the time with our friends one block away in the historic area where we found the pet shop for me and horse clothing and equipment shop for the others. I could have bought some of the designer jackets in the horse shop as they were very trendy. Since I still have 20 odd jackets that hardly ever get worn, I resisted the temptation. Before tonight's concert Anita cooked our dinner which was a lovely pasta dish of sage leaves and toasted walnuts in burnt butter. As Beccy's mother lives only 10 minutes from here she came back to see the show. Of course Carole was persuaded to sing one number.  Beccy and Libby were outrageous and hilarious performing excerpts from their show the Cowgirl and the Showgirl. They have written and performed medleys mixing jazz with country music. Their very funny Covid ditty went

Blue woke me early. The temperature was at its lowest at Willunga when I took him outside at 6.40am when it was 5.4°. He peed and pooped in record time. We decided to change back to our winter doonas so had to lift up the bed, which is not so simple with the new mattresses as they are heavy. We have to remove most of the bedding and there isn't much room to put it so it was a major exercise. The overnight rain eased to occasional light showers while we packed up. I had carefully planned a route to the caravan park at Ironbark, but we missed the first turn so had a scenic drive through the hills around Mclaren Vale with lots of Sunday traffic. Eventually we got to the Mount Barker showground where we topped up with potable water and used the dump site. We went looking for a decent cafe but parking a caravan in this region is a challenge. Purely by chance we found parallel parking near a major shopping centre. There wasn't a decent cafe so we got coffees and toasted cheese sandwi

We had breakfast in the basketball stadium, then Anita and I walked around the markets that had set up around us. It was very cold and windy with sporadic showers and brief sunny periods. We took Blue for a walk up the main street and found a cafe with an undercover outdoor area. I had a delicious danish filled with real fruit. Normally the Fleurieu Folk Festival would be held over three days in October here in Willunga, but Covid caused that to be cancelled. Instead today's Arvo on the Oval was organised from 2 to 7pm today, featuring South Australian Artists - Beccy, Libby, Amber Joy Poulton (all ARC) and Chris Finnen. The ARC artists were all supported by ARC's Kelly Brouhaha, who played guitar, percussion and backing vocals. It was a great concert but bitterly cold sitting on the oval exposed to the wind and occasional shower. The truck stage had a tatty awning over the entertainers so it was lucky there wasn't any heavy rain.

Last night I threw some clothes on the bed and Tilly crawled under them. I am not sure why she had that look on her face.  We packed up and left Cape Jervis this morning. It is only a short drive to our next stop at Willunga so we deviated to Victor Harbour. We tried to park in a pay parking area but our car/van length is too long for the double bays. I checked at the Information office and discovered the free 2 hour caravan parking just 150m in front of us.  There is an old horse drawn tram that crosses the 630m causeway to Granite Island. This has operated since 1894 and is one of only two horse drawn trams in the world. We had walked part of the way over the causeway when a woman told us dogs are not allowed so we turned back. The horse was taken from one end of the tram, turned around and hitched up to the other end for another crossing. We had lunch at a local cafe but it wasn't very good. I was served with a really bad cup of coffee. It was cold and windy so we drove to Willu

I started the day walking part of the Hysen Trail with one of our newly inducted Roadie friends. The 1200kms walking trail starts at Cape Jervis and ends at Parachilna. We didn't go to the very start as that is next to the ferry terminal. There is a road near the caravan park that leads down to the remains of a whaling station which is by the trail and we started there. We had more energy than we had time as we were joining others for lunch. Lunch was at the historic Leonards Mill restaurant, 15 minutes away by car. I did a shuttle run to get 8 of us to the restaurant. There were mixed views on the quality of the food, but those of us who ordered the waffle dessert were unanimous in thinking it was sub standard. We later learned the restaurant has recently changed hands so the glowing reviews we had read no longer applied. I enjoyed seeing the building and this unusual rose. Back at camp I packed away the critters' cage and our chairs and tables before the rain came. Our concer

One of our friends needed to see a dentist in Adelaide so I drove her to the city. While she was spending a couple of hours in the dentist chair, I had a great time with her partner visiting the Palm House at the Botanical Garden. Blue enjoyed his walk through the park and being admired by strangers. This German made iron greenhouse was imported in 1875. It was affected by rust and eventually restored thanks to donations and a Federal grant. It houses very interesting plants from Madagascar. The straight sections of trunks to the left of this photo are covered in spikes and small leaves, resulting in an interesting texture It was a lovely sunny day in Adelaide with the temperature around 26°. Back at Cape Jervis a freezing cold wind was blowing. BOM reports the temperature at 10.15pm as 10.3° but feels like 6.7°. Fortunately this caravan park has a restored shed that accommodates our group. We had dinner there last night and it is where we gather out of the cold for our nightly concert