Early start this morning, as we left Adelaide for Port Augusta. The trip's about 340km, but we were told it can take as much as 5 to 6 hours by the time you get out of Adelaide with all the road works going on. Luckily, we had a bit of assistance with some insider, local knowledge, and we got out of Adelaide in good time.
The scenery changed dramatically, as we left the outskirts of the city, and started chewing up the highway kilometers through the country towns. The land now looks much more arid and harsh, more of the traditional 'outback' country, without being desert. Red dirt, dry grasses, and Eucalypts are the prevalent feature. The traffic changed too, we were no longer a big vehicle on the road, as a matter of fact, some of the road trains make you feel absolutely insignificant sitting beside them. You just have to hope the overtaking lane is long enough to be able to get the diesel wound up enough to get passed, before the truck starts to merge back into one lane, and you get squashed like a little bug on the highway... Still lots and lots of caravans though. We stopped at Port Pirie for lunch, which is a picturesque sea side town not very far from Port Augusta. We made lunch in a park with a playground, cause Jo thinks we've been to enough bakeries for a while. I tend not to agree, and I tried the argument that we need to support these little towns by purchasing lunch and coffee, but it didn't work, and we got stung by the curse of the home made cheese and tomato roll... The boys didn't seem to mind, but I don't think they were aware of the options either? Port Pirie had an exhibition about a Great White Shark that had been caught in their area, which was interesting. They had a life size replica made, along with the jaw/teeth of the actual shark, and storyboards etc of Great Whites and their habits, diet etc... This shark was 5.5m long, tip to tip, and had drowned in a fishermans net. Yeah, you won't get me swimming in the oceans down here, or the rivers further north, everything wants to kill you and eat you... I think I'll stick to the highways, with the monster road trains... We're in Port Augusta now, for two nights, and although it's a pretty town, I can see why it's referred to as 'The Gutter' by the city folk in Adelaide. It's very basic, and more about surviving than thriving. We asked about a restaurant for Jeremy's birthday tomorrow, and were told there's the Hungry Jacks on the outskirts of town, a Chinese in town (but the good one closed down), or the pub down the road from the park (foods good, but not sure about the people drinking there?) Obviously we'll have a look around tomorrow and try to find something, but there doesn't seem to be much here. The park has filled in the last couple of hours, but most people have stayed hooked up, as though they'll need to move on again really quickly... Do they know something we don't?
On a genuinely good note, the sun was out all day today, and we hit a blistering 21 degrees, and that's meant to continue all week and get even warmer.