Port Pirie

We had 2 very long days driving southwards from Alice Springs, and have now spent a few days in Port Pirie in South Australia to recover. Port Pirie is on the eastern shore of the Spencer Gulf, and apart from being the service centre and export hub for the surrounding farming country it also hosts the world's largest lead smelter. This plant processes and exports multiple minerals apart from lead, and dominates the skyline for many kilometres around. We did the tour, which unfortunately didn't allow us to get out of the bus or take any photos, or even open the bus windows. Given all the workers had to wear breathing apparatus to guard against poisonous lead dust, perhaps not opening the bus windows was a good idea after all.

Inland from Port Pirie is the southern section of the Flinders Ranges. We spent some time exploring the northern parts of these ranges at the very start of our grey nomad adventures, and took the opportunity now to see what the southern ranges had to offer. The northern Flinders Ranges is very rugged and isolated, with a few mining and pastoral settlements clinging to the dry unforgiving land. Imagine our surprise to find that the southern Flinders Ranges is lush farmland and rolling hills, with prosperous towns offering cafes, wineries, olive groves and local produce for sale. Luckily for us it also offers several national parks with good walking through gorges and up to lookouts, so we got the best of both worlds in our couple of days exploration.

We're now discovering the downside of coming down to the southern part of Australia. Not only have we experienced our first rain showers in nearly 5 months, the forecast top temperature for tomorrow is barely more than the lowest overnight low we've experienced in that time!