Three Weeks Later

For the first time on this road trip I woke up before the sun, 5am to be precise. After a god awful nights sleep due to the heat I woke up super early to Skype my beautiful nieces'; who wouldn't get up to see their cute faces. In the blazing heat rubbing my eyes meant one of my contact lenses fell out so with one seeing eye and one very fuzzy one I had a lovely Skype chat with my eldest sister and niece's. After that it was my turn to wake Marco up! Muhahaha. I woke him up politely and went for my shower. After some early morning ukelele playing it was time to get on the road! Adelaide here we come.


On our drive we tried to get a bit of 4wd in since South Australia had been letting us down so far when it came to off-roading. First it was to the next town to get some fuel, and quite obviously an early morning ice-cream; imperative on these travels (sorry Nadia, I still haven't had a Maxibon). Once we were full of fuel we went on our merry way with only one stop in mind! ADELAIDE! WE CAN DO IT! 

We went through a town called Laura and I had to send a picture back home to my aunty Laura. I'm not sure she's that much of a sentimental bloke though... hmmmm... 

Before we got through Port Augusta we started playing with the cb radio, we had had a guy being quite promiscuous with his responses on the radio and it seemed like a free for all on this channel. With his radio silence it was time to get on to a different channel with more happenings, we chose to go on the truckers channel as we couldn't see past the road train and needed to over take. Once the first car had communicated with the truck to over take successfully it was our turn, but he kept on blabbering on the radio... it was a good job because without the communication we would have assumed he was just pulling in and we would have over taken. HOWEVER, there was an even bigger convoy coming in the opposite direction and it was more of a 'move off the road by choice or just get shoved off by the juggernaut'  so I'm pleased we heard the conversation and did as the road-train did. Road hog. 









Once we overcame that we got to Port Augusta and drove straight through, it was getting more populated and more city-like the closer we got to Adelaide. Regular encounters with civilisation was feeling peculiar after the frequent days without so much as a trace of other people. 
Given our desire to make it to Adelaide in good time there was no other stopping, and as per usual, feeding a hungry Italian whilst driving was an important part of our trip. The skills of not getting my fingers bitten was rather important and achieved! What a winner. 

We did manage to get some 4wd done... kinda. Although having missed the first turning we headed for the next one, we got on it but became apprehensive once we realised we were heading towards mountains... last time we headed up the side of a  mountain we had to delicately reverse the car as it could have very well tipped over. Marco got his serious face on and we progressed nonetheless. 


We made it up and around the mountains to the scenic route, it was a very nice route and I took far too many pictures of it along the way. Now I realise to everyone else looking, they look 90% the same. However, Marco and I know the difference, we have seen so many areas that just look so flat and bushy, a change of scenery is just what we need every now and again. 

Alright ok, so we did have to make one stop on the way but it was brief... 

I can't tell you how grateful I was for the air con when I went out of the car and felt the heat hit my chest. The kind of heat that means you can't quit take a proper breath. Back in to the car and back on our way. After two weeks with Marco and three weeks on the road I was so close. Even Marco was starting to get fed up. 

A little off roading later... WE HAD MADE IT!

HELLO ADELAIDE!   

I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for reading my blog and my adventures so far. I hope you are enjoying reading my blog and effectively joining me on my trip. 

Beyond the Grave

Marco once again got up to watch the sun rise, I'm still not rising that early, pal! 

Today we were heading to one of Australia's many National Parks, today it was Coffin Bay, for breakfast. On the way there we had to hit one of the ports so I could use the toilet, if an actual toilet is available then us girls would prefer to use it, not so easy or dignified squatting down to pee as it is for men! 

There were some very beautiful views from the National Park where we had stopped, I do enjoy eating my breakfast outdoors (when I can, I am British after all) but I doubt a grey skied garden will ever compare to the kind of views I had for breakfast here. I even got the binoculars out to have a nose at the islands, still no sharks spotted. 

After breakfast we headed to another part of the park so Marco could have another attempt at fishing. I was so engrossed in my book that I stayed in the car reading and admiring the view (if you read the previous blog you will know I was still unwell). Surprise, surprise, Marco didn't catch any fish. Come on, don't act like you expected it after the last two successes. 

After falling asleep in the car leaving the National Park I found us doing a very tight 85 point turn on a ramp near the beach... I think maybe we took a wrong turn? Then we actually made it to the beach and drove along what little beach there was to the end where the 4wd track was. Having not deflated the tyres very much, or be bothered doing so, when we reached a steep incline covered in soft sand the poor car struggled. We tried getting up there a good 8 or 9 times before admitting defeat and going to check it out on foot. The annoying thing was the soft sand was only on the incline. The bugger. 

We decided to give up on that track and head off in another direction towards Port Lincoln. We got on a track and would you believe it? Another No Entry sign. DAMN IT SOUTH AUSTRALIA! A little warning before getting most of the way down the track would be fricking awesome.

Due to this we detoured around about 3 or 4 times before ending up on someone's farm. THERE WERE NO SIGNS! That's even worse than a sign half way down. We casually tried to shoo these 4 cows out of the way of the track, one of which a calf, and another a bull. Well shit. This could end badly. Luckily they moved, most lucky as had we gone around we would have been front end in a massive ditch. 

So we followed the tracks along the fence, trying to find a way out, only to realise we are now circling around on ourselves. Eventually finding our way off the farm, at least, we got to a fence gate; we could see the bitumen road on the other side, within 10 metres of getting off this track for good, but no, 5 padlocks prevented us from getting anywhere. Turn around. 

Managing to turn around and literally going AAALLLLLLLLLL the way back we made it to where we started. Awesome. Big fat waste of time. ONWARDS! Deciding to stick to actual road this time we headed towards Port Lincoln. 

We made it in decent time 

and went straight to the information centre. Marco needed the in-house knowledge on the fishing companies. We also stopped and had lunch, yes, you read that right, lunch! We managed it for a change. Fish that was caught the day before (and two that were just given to Marco - I think someone felt sorry for him). We had those and then I wanted cake! Went and got cake, I have to say Australia never really offers a lot in terms of cake options, at least ones I like, maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places. And why the heck does everything close at 4pm? Do people not like cake after 4pm? 

We got in the car after cake and went to see if we could get Marco in good with the fishing boats. No such luck, most things were closed. 

After the farm mishap and feeling defeated at the lack of fishing jobs we decided to just drive straight up to Whyalla and stay the night in a Caravan Park. We had pasta for dinner in the unbelievably hot kitchen then tried our best to sleep, 36 degrees at midnight? Sheesh. It had even been raining on the way, like what?! Hot hot hot. Car doors open since the options were roast to death or risk getting eaten by mosquitos, the mosquitoes won. Try to sleep now... maybe it will be cooler tomorrow... yea right! 

Ok, I thought the title was funny because we went to Coffin Bay on this trip and then a few places beyond that. The play on words amused me.