Danger Danger Danger!

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At Meningie we feasted on some delicious Coorong Mullet at the local hotel before travelling some 50 klm north to Tailem Bend where we camped on the banks of the Murray River. It was the Easter weekend and the campground were full, but everyone was well behaved.

An amazing coincidence was that the couple whom were camped next to us were from Rosetta in Hobart. Peter & Linda McIntosh are travelling on the mainland for 3 months. Another coincidence was that Peter & I both played cricket for the Rokeby & Sandford clubs. We knew of many mutual team mates but never actually played with the clubs at the same time.
The third coincidence is that Linda has worked at Wrest Point Casino & knows my son, Damien, well. During our stay the weather was kind with one reaching 34 degrees C.

Our next travels were to the Barossa Valley. We went to Murray Bridge & north through the delightful little towns of Mount Pleasant, Springton, Eden Valley, Angaston until arriving at Nurioopta.

We were in wine country now. Our prime objective at Nurioopta was to visit Maggie Beers Farm Shop. Maggie Beer is a cooking icon in Australia. We then headed to the little hamlet of Greenock for an overnight camp.

 

The next day we headed up to the Clare Valley. Winemaking in the Clare Valley stretches over 160 years & today there are more that 35 direct cellar doors in the region. We didn’t try them all!!!!…. just one, the Shut the Gate Winery. We also enjoyed a light lunch & wine tasting at Pauletta Wines Bush Devine Café. The café is an Australian bush food café & garden. The Clare Valley towns were quaint with many old buildings & traditional streetscapes. We travelled on to the old copper town of Burra where we overnighted.

The next day we travelled west to Port Pirie. It was very noticeable how dry the countryside was as South Australia is the driest state in Australia & they are in drought. Port Pirie was built upon industry with smelting being the dominant industry. It is also a railway town & port. There have always been strong links between the railways & ports with the city going on to become the major railway link to Broken Hill in 1888 & the sea link for the mines at Broken Hill & Silverton. We plan to visit the latter 2 towns later in the trip…. So, watch this space!

We free camped between Port Pirie & Port Germain for a couple of nights. As we were setting up our caravan, we noticed one of its tyres was going down. I suspected we had got a puncture but on removing the tyre we observed extreme uneven wear to the tyre tread. As you can see from the photos the tyre was not repairable, in fact, we were very lucky……it didn’t disintegrate!
We purchased a new tyre & headed south of Port Pirie toward the Yorke Peninsula.

 

The Yorke Peninsula is a haven for a variety of water adventures including surfing, fishing, boating & snorkelling. We lunched at the beach at Wallaroo then onto Kadina, Moonta before being free camped at Maitland.
Today we travelled through Minlaton, Warooka & then onto the tiny seaside town of Marion Bay where we are booked into the local caravan park for a few days.