(Ir)Regular Ramblings -2


(Ir)Regular Ramblings -2 5/2/03 - 20/02/03 First, thanks to all who sent feedback on my first effort – was enough to inspire me to more (is that a good thing, one wonders?). Well, Robe…. What a beautiful spot Robe is! I am sitting on a rock 5 metres above the waves eating my breakfast as I compose the next instalment. It’s 7:45am with only a little breeze, the sun on my back and a beautiful aqua bay stretching before me. The rest of the family is still asleep and my only immediate companion is Johnathon (Livingston Seagull) who is regarding me hopefully with is left eye. With a bowl of fruit muesli topped with yoghurt in my lap, I am not too sure what he expects, but hope springs eternal. Yesterday I went metal detecting at the old gaol ruins on the edge of town (abandoned in 1870). Didn’t find too much in the half hour I spent there. Mainly bits of lead, presumably from roof flashing. One thing I did find though was a lead projectile (bullet) that appeared to have been fired into the sand. It was at the same depth as other bits I found and was obviously very old. Jess left her wallet in an internet café in Mt. Gambia and we have stayed an extra day to allow it to find us here. A courier picked it up for us at the Mount, and delivered it to the caravan park for $5 which was convenient. We have now spent a total of 5 nights at Robe, and would find it no hardship at all to spend longer – but… ‘head west young man…’ We seem to have a problem getting started early in the morning. One problem with all sharing less than 2 squares of living space, is that the girls are going to bed later than they normally would, therefore getting tired and rising later too. The sand, surf, sun and strolling adds to it too I think. The morning we left Robe we didn’t…. that is to say we didn’t get away till after mid-day (not as bad as after 3:00pm when we left Mt Gambia!!!).
				A detour to Cape Jaffa led us into the depths of a crayfish cool room to look at the sorting and storing of the days catch that had just been unloaded from a cray boat. Some of the crays exceeded 3kg and, interestingly, are worth less per kg than the small (2kg) ones as the restaurants are not able to sell the bigger ones as easily. The other component of their catch was some HUGE king crabs. “Big?.. nah mate, they’re only little ones, anything under a foot across the body is small…”

Struth!!! With their fighting pincer almost too big in diameter for me to get my great maw around, I consider them BIG! And I’d much rather have my hand around his pincer than the other way round!

				(Note the Cray in this photo – its about a 2.5kg job, so you can see how big the crabs are!!! The run onto the barge across the Murray at Wellington had me worried. There was a steep dip down the ramp and up onto the barge and I thought I might scrape/damage the back of the van. The ferryman was pretty brusque; “don’t worry if you scrape mate – they all do it” Well that’s OK for ‘them’…

I have sullage hose storage pipes at the back and I didn’t fancy ripping them out. Anyway, I needn’t have worried as we cleared it OK… (Maybe I can take the van Off Road??? Nahhh.. maybe not.)

			Strathalbyn looked like a nice old town to go poking around, so we stayed in the car park in the gardens in the middle of the town. A few local hoons doing donuts nearby that night was a bit disconcerting, but they got tired of it… only to return next morning bright and early yelling “Morning, Morning Sunshine…” out the car window as they roared past twice. I thought it pretty funny – guess they weren’t so bad after all…


As I type this bit we are at Port Elliot Caravan & Tourist Park, near Victor Harbour. I spent 2 hours detecting on the beach yesterday and didn’t find a thing – then 15 minutes in the caravan park playground and found $3.05! I saw someone detecting the beach this morning with a waterproof detector and he was doing OK… guess I need a big plastic bag. Soon as the tide goes out, I’ll be back down there. There was a ‘Beach to Beach’ swimming race here this morning, about 2.5kms through the waves. I thought about going in it…. But that was all.. just thought! The biggest problem down this way is the wind. We actually had a nice morning without any, but it’s back this afternoon. Marg was out of bed before any of us were awake and walked along the beach to a jetty at the far end and watched a fisherman catch a stingray. The beach is nice white sand with huge rock outcrops at each end. The beach is reasonably steep and the waves are short ‘dumpers’. Jess had her boogie board in yesterday, but got dumped and isn’t too keen to get back in today as the board hit her slowly healing belly button wound Victor Harbour was fairly quiet this afternoon as we feasted on strawberries, ice-cream and cream on the foreshore, given to us at half price by a van-vendor who THANKED us for helping her clear out her stock! Granite Island, across a fairly long walkway, is home to another colony of Fairy Penguins (also called ‘Little’ or ‘Blue’ penguins). We saw a couple of babies in their burrow near the end of the walkway, and then walked further around the island. A couple from a farm near Bordertown stopped to talk and, upon learning of our previous address, asked about the road from Bairnsdale to Omeo as they were organising for their son to take a semi load of ‘donated’ hay to the fire area. “We need it, but they need it more” was the comment… Travelling from Victor Harbour to Adelaide, we encountered our steepest hill yet. We got down to about 45 km/Hr but I had the satisfaction of leaving two coaches behind as we ‘roared’ up the hill. Going down the other side was more of a concern as the van brakes were grabbing and shaking us around a fair bit. This problem had been there since new but was getting worse. The ratchet in the awning needed to be replaced as it had failed the second time I put it up, so I had booked the van in to have these problems worked on. Now this was where the ‘fun’ started. The caravan industry warranty process is hopeless – it’s a well oiled machine designed to fob the consumer off to the point where they give up… Only thing is, I didn’t! It all started when I rang the dealer… He said “Ring the caravan manufacturer”… But I’d been down this path once before, for a friend (Barry) . Caravan Manufacturer – Chassis Supplier – Axle Manufacturer – Stub Axle Supplier - Caravan Manufacturer… and around the circle again…. This time I said “No!!! Get them to ring me…. NOW!” and it worked. When the Axle Manufacturer rang he said he had a message to ring me, that I wasn’t happy and that I wouldn’t ring anybody – I told him I was glad THAT message got through! Anyway, it took a total of 4 hours of argument with the repairer in Adeleaide before it was all agreed to. He was reluctant to do the job as he was flat out and doesn’t get paid too well for warranty work. I am now preparing for a battle with the Mitsubishi service agent about the wheel alignment on our car. It was aligned under warranty 3000kms ago and appears to have been taken too far ‘the other way’ The person who did the job last time wasn’t sure of his results so gave me a print out of his alignment and said take it to my next stop if I wasn’t happy. The front left wheel is already showing signs of feathering, so I want it FIXED…. But of course the people here (I am sitting in the service dept. waiting area while I type this) claim it’s not a warranty job… we’ll see (grin!) We had to get up early two mornings in a row (I know… I know!) to take the van about a half hour drive to the repairers, with the result that it all appears to be OK now. Marg and the girls stayed at a library in Marion so the girls could do some school work. Talking of school work, Distance Ed. have VERY red faces at the moment! They sent a CD out to each student (so we got two). A nicely screen printed professionally produced CD. I was laying on the bed looking through it and clicked on one of the tutorials. The sound was up nice and high, the movie clip played as one of the Distance Ed teachers talked me through a process…. Till he made a mistake and emitted a loud “F@#$”. The girls were down the other end of the van (not too far I know) and came running “what did he say?” so we replayed it… and every time we replayed it he said “F@#$” and then proceeded to spend about 5 minutes attempting to fix his ‘on screen’ stuff up, without success! I emailed Dist Ed and asked them if they were aware of the problem… they soon rang, VERY apologetic, explaining that an incorrect file had slipped through there ‘quality assurance’ program and that they will send me a new CD as soon as they can get them printed… Over 3000 CD’s were sent out with the blooper on it – Oops! (English ed. taken to an extreme?) We are currently staying in the West Beach caravan park, near Glenelg. It’s a nice park, big, with two pools and we’re very near the beach. We are quite surprised at the amount of foreign tourists we have met along the way. There is obviously a huge market for the foreign tourist dollar – and Aus is very attractive to them. The majority of foreigners we have met are Dutch, German, Swiss and Canadian. I remember years ago when Mum and Dad came back from England on a Russian cruise ship, mentioning about two girls who were to land in Perth and intended to be in Melbourne the next day, by hitch-hiking. Dad asked them if they realised it was two thousand miles – to which they replied “but it’s only from here to here (producing a small pocket diary with a world map inside the front cover and pointing to the 4mm distance on the map between Perth and Melbourne!). We have already met many people who have made a similar mistake. Last night a guy from the Nederlands was asking our advice. He originally intended to travel from here (after landing in Melbourne) to Alice Springs, Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney and back to Melbourne – but only has 16 days left! He realises now that it wouldn’t be worth the attempt, but admitted he had no comprehension of how big our country is. We met a guy from Germany when we were in Robe, who had brought his push bike out and cycled from Adelaide over the previous three days, and had three weeks to reach Brisbane. The first day he covered 150km’s, the second day he did 130km’s and the third day he’d done 80km’s…. Now he assured me that it was the cruel head wind that had slowed him down…. But I do wonder how long it’s really going to take him to reach Brisbane…? Note: The Mitsubishi service centre got the better of me…. Their wheel alignment machine ‘is broke’ so they couldn’t check it…. I didn’t have an answer for that one! The week in Adelaide went quickly with good weather and swimming every day – for the kids at least. The sea was quite warm, but the pool was a bit cold for me and I only went in it once. From Adelaide to the Claire Valley. Very dry – the driest we’ve seen to date, but the grape vines seemed (to my inexperienced eye) to be doing OK…. After leaving there, we headed for Snowtown (no, we didn’t make a withdrawal from the bank, there was no ‘bodies’ there.. erff… erff…) On the way, we passed a sight that had me slamming the brakes on and doing a high speed ‘u’-ee… (if such a thing is possible with our current turning circle). The first white Kangaroo we had ever seen outside a TV screen. It was being cared for by a ‘local’ who’s farm included the biggest pile of ‘quality antique farm items’ I have ever seen rusting in a paddock. Apparently, it’s mother had been in a car accident (proof – Kangaroos shouldn’t drive?) and the joey had been thrown from the pouch, breaking a leg in the process. A $500+ vet bill had enabled the leg to be pinned and plastered and it was basically OK now – though a closer inspection revealed that the foot was still a bit crooked.


The lady told us a story about this roo’s brother. Apparently there is a white (albino) buck in the area, and he must be a good fighter as he has produced a few offspring. One of the offspring had ended up as a pet for a while but got away (or was let out as he was getting pretty big). About two years later, one of the locals was driving home, ‘drunk-as-a-skunk’ and noticed the white roo in a paddock. He stopped the car, gave chase and eventually wrestled the roo to the ground! He managed somehow to bundle the roo into his boot and, all covered in bruises, scratches and blood, drove to its previous home, waking the owner and presenting his captured roo quite proudly. “But its gone wild” exclaimed the carer…. “You aint telling me nothin’” rejoined the capturer…. !!! We headed for Port Wakefiled…. And believe me, Toni & David (Wakefield) have NOTHING to be proud of with that town! We had intended to camp (Oops – park) there for the night, but other than a channel out to sea, and masses of mangroves, it wasn’t much of a place. There must have been lots of small fish in the water lying or swimming at the surface. Playing the torch across the surface resulted in thousands of ‘plops’ as they flipped and dived out of sight, as I panned the light along the channel – it was cool! We had dinner and moved on. About 10:30pm we arrived at Pine Point (with about 30 houses) and parked near the boat ramp for the night. Next morning we watched a local launch his boat with an old bright red tractor. The water goes out a looong way when the tide goes out, leaving the mud flats exposed. It was just starting to run out when the local arrived, drove straight down the ramp and into the sea with a bow wave rolling away from the front of the tractor. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to drive it all the way across to Adelaide, when he finally did a u-turn, stopped and released the boat.

		We are now in Port Vincent and it has poured rain all night and all morning. I had the bright idea of draining our drinking water tank (which had Adelaide water – YUK) and filling it with rain water caught from the awning. I figure the awning has been washed enough with last nights rain and have made up a funnel onto the end of a hose and it’s re-filling the tank. Secretly I hope it doesn’t stop raining too soon, as I’ll have egg on my face, but the others are whinging that there’s nothing to do (‘cept school work).

	We did get some time on the beach yesterday and Maddie took some pics of the penguins… See pic above– looks like a PELICAN to me Maddie!!! Well, I really thought this email would be shorter than the first, but we seem to be packing so much in, there is quite a lot more I could have told too. Hope this finds you all well, please feel free to send a reply, but don’t feel obliged. We loved reading the ones we have already received and I will attempt to respond to the individual ones today. I rang and booked some time at the Minlaton primary school on their computers - it’s the nearest available internet access and is about 35km’s away, so we’re going there this afternoon. Cheers for now, Love Maddie, Jess, Marg & Jim.