Yorke Peninsula

South Australia's Yorke Peninsula is just West of the State capital Adelaide, so has a lot of holiday beach resorts. We're not really beach people, but still managed to find enough to occupy ourselves for a couple of days. There's a national park at the southern tip of the peninsula, that used to be a gypsum mine - this apparently is used to make plaster, no we didn't know that either. Now it is just ruins, scenic lookouts out to the southern ocean and some interesting walks. We're into walking so that is what we did. Towards the north of the peninsula is the 'Copper Coast', 3 towns that came into being because of the copper mines. They were populated by miners from Cornwall and are still very proud of their Cornish heritage, with pasties being the ubiquitous local fast food. The copper has long since run out, but the whole peninsula is now covered by wheat and barley fields, so between tourism and grain exporting the locals still make a very nice living. Mind you, the countryside is so flat it looks like a couple of metres rise in sea level will wipe out the entire peninsula! Every town has a golf course here, but with sand scrape greens (also known as 'blacks') so we've left the golf clubs in the bag.

Kingston SE - Murray Bridge

Kingston (SE as it is in the South East, to distinguish it from Kingston OM - On the Murray - in the same state) was a bit of a disappointment. John was hoping for some lobster but the best we could find was a pot of lobster pate. We just had to make do with a photo of Larry the Lobster. Note to any 'big thing' fans - Larry is currently for sale - you too could own your very own Big Thing. We stocked up on some wine at the local wineries, so the van is once again groaning under the weight. Only a fairly short drive along beside the Coorong from Kingston SE to Murray Bridge. The Coorong is a long narrow strip of land between a lake and the sea, along the SA south east coast, which is a National Park and bird sanctuary. We're not much into birds, but there was an interesting sidetrip to Chinaman's Well, which was once a stopping off place for Chinese gold miners on their way from Adelaide to the Victorian Gold fields. They didn't catch the boat all the way from China to Victoria as Victoria had a 10 pound landing tax, they saved this by walking for a couple of months from SA. At Murray Bridge we did a river cruise, as well as the obligatory game of golf.

Limestone Coast South Australia

We've based ourselves in Millicent in South East South Australia for the last four days and we are really enjoying the trip so far. Lots of walking in the National Parks, a bit of 4WD as well. Played golf at Millicent Golf Course, rated the best country course in SA. We could see why, it was great. Interesting cave just down the road at Tantanoola, very easy access. The van is holding up well so far, no problems with equipment. The bizarre looking tree behind Wendy in the photo below is covered in grass, it looks like hair!

We're Off!

At 11:45 am on Tuesday 17 March, we finally set off on our big adventure. The last week or so have been crazy - cleaning, packing, organising, trips to the tip and the charity shop..... Big thanks to 3 generations of Wendy's family who pitched in and helped us get everything done in time.

Having spent so long getting ready to go, we then drove 3.5 hours to Hamilton and stopped. Still, even a big trip has to start with a small step.

Nearly Ready

We're close to departure now, and have drawn up our expected itinerary (published at the bottom of the blog page). Don't let anyone tell you we aren't the organised types, we've got day-by-day details for the next 12 months!

Meanwhile the boxes are starting to get packed, tenants are signed up to move in, the Patrol has UHF installed and the salvos are getting bags and bags of stuff donated.