Day 111

Thursday 25th June 2015, 14 degrees, overcast, feels like: winter

Port Augusta to Tailem Bend

The Port Augusta Big 4 certainly was an improvement on the Shoreline Top Tourist where we stayed on our way west. We would stay here again. Under the Port Augusta Bridge if you look carefully on the southern bank on the inland side, there are the ribs of an old boat sunk into the mud. Nearby there is a disused railway turntable with at least eight railway lines fanning out from it. I do hope they restore it.

Heavy grey clouds hang above the Flinders Ranges, shafts of sunlight are breaking through and lighting the green folds and rocky bluffs. Last March the drive up to Port Augusta was all golden paddocks now they are damp and green and lush. It’s hard to comprehend all this green after where we’ve been.

Of all places we choose Snowtown for a pit stop. A small typical SA town with plenty of stonework except of course for the now boarded up bank where the Snowtown mass murders took place. On a lighter note there is a long wind generator vane on display in the park and it is quite impressive. Being up close you can get a better perspective of the size. We pass a saltbush farm. Now I know that SA is famous for its saltbush fed lamb but with the millions of acres of wild saltbush I wouldn’t have thought that we’d have to cultivate the stuff. Interestingly there are sheep in the paddock but they’re munching on hay from a feeder. Note to self, learn about the saltbush industry.

Damn I wish I had the camera in the car, as we pass the turnoff to Port Wakefield there is a unique reflection in a small salt lagoon, a car wrecker’s yard.

We get a good run through the eastern suburbs of Adelaide and decide to stop for lunch in Murray Bridge. Still trying to make up for the lack of pubs on the West Coast we zero in on the two pubs in town only to find that we can’t park close enough for ‘old hop along’. We end up at the Riverside Hotel at Tailem Bend and the roast beef is as nice as the locals. Pelicans swoop past the window and the view of the Murray River is impossible to beat. We wind up the day right on the water at Westbrook Park River Resort the surprise of the day.

Accom: $30.00 Tailem Bend

Travelling Kms: 398Kms