Whyalla

So it was business as usual again today, After a brief bit of riding company yesterday, I said goodbye to Yuji who was heading up to Lake Eyre, and Lyn the French hitch hiker who was hoping to reach Alice Springs by nightfall tonight.

Am American couple rode in on a BMW just as I was about to leave, so I had a brief chat with them  before leaving. The man was a bit deaf and kept shouting so I was quite glad to get going and rest my ears.

The Stuart Highway is one of the main highways of Australia, and more or less follows the route that John Stuart forged. However, its only been a sealed road since 1979, and apparently used to be know as hell’s highway because it was so rough, so long, and so hot. But its good now and the nice smooth bitumen is a luxury after all the dirt I encountered in the last week.

Its also road train central but I find they are  ok especially if they can see you’re aware and trying to help them out by moving over when you can. But do they have to honk the horn as a thank you when they pass? It nearly blasts me off the road every time they do.

About 100kms or so south of Pimba, there was a great view of the Flinders Ranges laid out across the skyline, some 50 kms distant. It must have been such a sight for the early Europen explorers to see things like this for the first time, knowing that they were the first white people to do so. I guess it must be a bit like space travel or wining an Olympic gold; many dream and many try, but few succeed. But the fact that people like Stuart did all of those is why I am able to ride where I do.

Pottering along at a stately speed of postieness, I am able to look around much more that were I on a bigger bike or in a vehicle. And some of the stuff that I see is great, really funny and random. And because its so easy to just turn round and go back or down a track, I do, and always take a photo.  Yesterday, on a flat, straight open boring stretch of road, I saw a home made signpost which said ‘ Felt Hat Corner’. There was no corner for miles of course and no felt hats although there were three baseball caps and a bush hat hanging on it.

Today was a corker; on a dried salt pan lake bed close to the road, somebody had made a sharkfin and stuck it n the sand so that it would look like a shark was in the water. It was well done too - nicely cut out and painted black and would definitely scare the crap out of you were you to come across it poking out of the drink. What I’ll do when I get the chance is collate all the funny pictures and do a weekly round up. Then you’ll see what I mean.

As I approached Port Augusta, I took a brief detour up to the Matthew Flinders Red Cliff lookout which is exactly what it says: a lookout on top of a red cliff overlooking the Spencer Gulf. I have no idea whether Flinders found it or whether its just named after him, but it was a pretty good view down over the water and a grey mangrove swamp.

recycled railway track handrails

Those mangroves are perky little plants. Because they live in brackish water, they have to tolerate more salt than most water plants. To help them do this, they have developed three neat little tricks. Firstly, they have breathing roots that come up out of the mud like a little snorkel like thing in order to get free oxygen from the air. Swamps being swamps can be pretty stinky because most of the stuff is wet and decays anaerobically, making a bit of a pong. But the mangroves need oxygen to survive so snorkelling is how they get some of it.

Secondly, when they have too much water is reaching their leaves, they shut off the mechanism that normally sucks water in and control their salt intake. But the third thing that they do which I thought was pretty good was if they have taken too much salt in, they excrete it in crystals via their leaves, leaving a grey sheen, and thus earning the grey bit of their name.

Port Augusta is a fairly sall little place on the river. I went down to the esplanade and did a bit of mechanicing as Gerty’s chain was a bit loose. That of course immediately attracted several old men, all giving me (conflicting) advice on what to do. So I smiled but politely ignored all of them and sorted it the way I always do and it worked, just like I knew it would.

I did toy with the idea of riding straight to Whyalla but instead took a 100kms detour to Iron Knob; a town with a name like that cannot be missed. I had heard that it was almost a ghost town, having lost out when the Eyre highway came along, and indeed it was.

Built on mining ( iron ore) a huge slag heap backs the place. However, the town is very tired and partly abandoned and mostly boarded up although the derelict buildings are interspersed with nice well kept little houses, complete with flowers in the garden, a footy oval that hosts a world class collection of weeds, and a tourist information centre that is shut because tourists  no longer visit the place. Its a shame as it was clearly once a thriving little country town but I  suppose that’s what happens when transport routes and trade patterns change. 

I’m also seeing signs to Western Australia now, so I have a real sense of moving west.

So now I’m free camping right on the ocean at Whyalla. I can hear the water lapping onto the sand as it comes through the mangroves that are about 100m out to sea. 

Tomorrow I’m heading down to Port Lincoln after calling in at the harbour here as there is apparently a pod of dolphins hanging around. I have to buy some engine oil tomorrow too as Gerty needs clean juice before crossing the Nullabor and I did her tyres this evening as I forgot yesterday. A few psi out but nothing serious.

Oh, and I've got a new satnav holder. Pooratech Ltd. Retails at $0.99c. Two bits of elastic cord from a broken tent and the upgraded security spec of a bit of paracord. Works too.