Saturday, October 27, 2012

Sat 27 Oct - Port Augusta SA

After a cooked breakfast of hamsteak and egg, we packed up and moved out of Wilpena Pound Resort.

Before heading south to our final destination for the day, Port Augusta, we took a drive through the upper parts of Flinders Ranges.

We drove Blinman Road north and west into Brachina Gorge Road.

Magnificent landscape, with earth movements dating back 600 million years or so creating the most fascinating earth formations. All around it are the various ranges of the Flinders, which we learned were created under water in layers and then a massive meteor hit about 300km away which created a fault line in the earth.

Over time the eastern side of the fault lifted and shifted creating the ripple effect (and showing the layers of rock) that today is Flinders Ranges.

Also interesting is that the gorge road criss crosses, and sometimes runs in, the creek bed itself. In other words, after a big deluge one can find oneself totally cut off by not being able to cross the creek in either direction. Better bring food and water if staying in any of the campgrounds we saw there.
Eventually, we exited Flinders Ranges National Park on the west side and it was again all... flat.
We drove south when we suddenly saw the most beautiful brown and white big eagle nibbling on a roadkill next to the road. We stopped to take a photo, but being a shy bird of prey, it quickly took off. Very impressive bird though.

We continued south through Hawker (tiny) and Quorn (still small) and finally saw water and a settlement in the distance through all the emptiness which must be Port Augusta.

It was by then lunchtime and we were dying for some Chinese food. We found a classic hole in the wall kind of noodle place, one of those that does anything from Chinese to Thai to Japanese to Pasta etc. So we stopped there and had a few Asian dishes, which were nice enough.

After lunch, we decided to go to Big W and Woolies, by the water, before we went to check in at the motel at the back of Hotel Flinders. Parking ended up being just outside the door, by fluke. The motel is very basic Bessa Block but good enough for us for a night, and cheap at $70.

In the afternoon, we took a stroll along the foreshore and towards the 2 bridges that we saw on our way in. One bridge is a newish bridge for cars which has clearly replaced the second bridge which is now used by people fishing.


A local "identity" out on the boardwalk...

View from the car bridge...
And what has Jem done here...? And what does it all mean...? (Jem is a sometimes nickname for Jeremy)

On the other side of the bridges is Hotel Augusta where we had a cold one each while discussing the frontier and blokey feeling of the place.

On the way back, we swung by Radio Rental by the off chance that it is still open..., and it was. And they had a Belkin bluetooth keyboard, same as the one Hans forgot in Jamestown Library. The price was prohibitive though, $129, but the nice sales assistant let us have it for $100. Deal.

Back to Hotel Flinders after a quick visit to Liquorland for a bottle of vino for tonights dinner - more Chinese is likely as Port Augusta does not seem to be the fish and seafood place we thought that it would be.

So, dinner was at Golden Pearl, Chinese and hastily added, Malaysian Restaurant on Commercial St in Port Augusta. It was just as you would expect it, a big room, with Chinese junk art on the wall, run by a Chinese couple with a caucasian person to help out, in this case a humor free older lady who didn't seem too smart and with fork and spoon on the table, chopsticks on request only. We ordered 2 satay sticks as an entree and it came with a caution that it is hot...

All good fun. And a good meal of garlic prawns and mongolian chicken. We LOVE country Chinese restaurants. They are just so much fun.

On the way back to Flinders Hotel, Di decided that she wanted a glass of milk ordered from the pub. Now, this is Saturday night, around 9am. The order totally threw the heavily tattooed young man behind the counter. He dropped everything and went running around the pub in search of the holy milk. Eventually, he found a 2 liter milk and then didn't know how much to charge for the glass. Di suggested $2, and deal.

Back to the room for the night....

BTW, a somewhat lazy job of connecting the TV to the aerial...

 

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