Open a tin and let me dream

I have been saving all my small change for the past two years. My last few dollars left from this trip pushed the poor little tin to its limits, it couldn't hold any more coins... So I grabbed my notebook and my laptop and headed for the pub with a tin full of shrapnel.

"I'll have a pint, and a can-opener thanks."

What a better way to finish off a great trip!

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Mornings

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Pies, pasties... and a quick shave.

A must along this route is the Bordertown Bakery. It's built around the old jail, in fact, the loos out the back are in the old cells. There's a great park with a lake and playground here, probably why it's such a popular stop. Luckily though, at this time of the morning there weren't any screaming kids fighting over who pushed who off of the swing, just a few sleepy ducks for Zeke to say good morning to.

Although it was breakfast time, I unconsciously found myself ordering a vegetable pastie and a tall flat white (I've found that asking for a latte` any more than 200K's from Melbourne gets you queer looks). Now traditionally, South Australian pasties are fantastic (there is actually a theory that the pepperiness of a pastie diminishes proportionately in relation to your distance from the heart of the city of Adelaide. However, this one actually left me thinking that Gusto's back home in Melbourne must be run by South Aussies, because this thing in my hand had absolutely nothing over their veg pasties!

Although I passed on the idea of jumping on one of the chairs for a quick shave at the bakery, we did actually have a CLOSE shave on the way out of town! You remember how I got new shocks & springs for Red before we left? Well, whoever was in charge of tightening up the left side must have gone on smoko early! Despite the guys at Guest reassuring me that we could take the Oodnadata track at top speed with no worries, I actually had all four bolts holding the back leaf spring ready to drop off, no kidding! my biggest socket was just a fraction small to get tighten them back up, the only socket big enough was on the end of my tire brace... which was too long to be able to get underneath the axle (in hidsight, I could have just mounted the left side up on a curb, ah well). Lucky there's a nice guy at the local roadhouse who loaned me a big old shifter to do the job. He actually looked surprised when I brought it back... maybe he gave me a crappy old one for a reason.

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Relics of a not too distant past

Something else I've always wanted to check out are the old WWII fuel storage tanks at Wolsley, right on the Vic/SA border. I'd always assumed they were miles off the main drag (since you can't see anything when you look down the road) but since we got up early to see the sunrise on Green Lake it was still pretty early when we hit the border. It's not often I hit a border without any sense of urgency to get to the destination, so a quick U-bolt after flying past the (tiny and hard to see) brown road sign (top marks for visibility guys, geeze) and we were headed down a dusty road in search of some old wartime relics.

To be honest, they were a bit of a let down, just some crumbling brick tanks in some guys paddock really. However, the sense of history in that tiny hamlet is quite surprising. Railroad tracks pass right in front of the old fuel tanks, with the low clouds keeping the sun from thawing the morning crispness, and the tall dry grass whipping at my legs I could just imaging young soldiers filling these tanks way back when. It made me stop and wonder what ws going throught peoples minds back then, the fact that there was a fuel storage facility in the middle of nowhere which would only be acessable by train, aeroplane (plenty of fields to land in) or a very, very long truck ride. What were these people expecting? My history isn't the greatest, but did they ever expect the war to actually come so far onto Australian soil that we would need storage out here? Did the poor residents flinch every time they heard a plane fly past?

Like I said, that was all in my head, reality is: A couple derelict old tanks in some codgers paddock. Rcommendable tourist attraction? Sorry, no. Worth the 12Km round trip off the main road for a history buff or WWII enhusiast? Absolutely.
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Excuse me, can I get a glass of water?

What an amazing sight! "Green Lake" (neither word holding true to what is actually there!) is in Dukes HWY, the main drag between Melbourne and Adelaide. I've wizzed past here so many times and thought "Man, that's crazy, gotta stop there one day". Well, by pure chance (fete, serendipity, little green men, call it what you will) I happened to stop there for a nap.



I bought the biggest coffee available at McDonalds last night, but it must have been decafe, because we didn't get far down the road (in fact, only one story from Pseudopod down the road, by the way, horror stories, empty road, dry lakes with abandoned lifeguard towers... not a good idea) before I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

I guided Big Red in to the next powernap area we came to hoping to get a couple hours of quality shut-eye before pushing on and making Ma's place in time for breakfast. If you're traveling this road and feel like you need a proper sleep, not just a neck-craning, back-arching power nap in the drivers seat, then I have to recommend this area. If you go a little further in from the big truck bays, there's a neat little area on top of a crest with tables and a loo, but then go a little further and you go over the top of the crest and there are decent sized parking bays amongst pine trees, overlooking the 'lake'. It wasn't until we explored over the hill that I realised where we were. That's when I made the executive decision that, well, maybe I really should have a decent sleep. Nah, really I just wanted to hang around 'till the sun came up so I could get some photo's of this amazing sight that I've driven past so many times!

What can I say, call it a dustbowl if you like, but this truly is an amazing country we live in!

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Free? I'll take two!

The best things in life are indeed free... Like WiFi, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere. Awesome!

I was seriously jonesing some chips, luckily there was a KFC at the start of town, so I got myself some (relatively speaking) decent chips there before setting up in the car park of the Macca's where us boys had a quick little diner before grabbing a coffe, digging out one of the muffins I got from my local grocery store (for a green grocer, they have some quality baked goods)
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Last Pitstop!

Well I survived the run yesterday, and got not-too-shabby time either (see, told you it wasn't all fun and games), someone must have read my thoughts on the course going THROUGH pubs though... a bloke I know (a personal trainer no less!) stopped off at Young & Jackson on the corner of Flinders & Swanston street, siddled up to the front bar and ordered a pint! The barkeep asked him how the race went, to which he replied "Dunno mate, I still got a K an' a half to go". With that he downed his beer on sped back out the door. Yes, I was present to see the sorry man cross the finish line. No, I will not be adopting his race technique!

Ok, back to travel stuff. With Zeke back from the vet and looking very fetching indeed, it's time to get serious about this packing business. I HAD planned to pick him up and continue on out of town from there, but there is still so much to do! I always seem to get really anxious at the outset of any trip. I get really worried that things aren't packed in the most practical or efficient way or that things aren't in the easiest of places to access. I forget that after your first night or so, everything just seems to find its own place and things of necessity somehow rise to the top while luxury and other non-necessities somehow magically sink to a hidden, yet still accessible hidey hole somewhere below.

In the end I adopt my usual packing technique, food behind the passengers seat, clothes behind mine. Cooking gear at the back with extra water containers an guitar runing down the left side of the car, leaving my beg (on the right) free to throw "possibly might need in a hurry" items such as a raincoat and camera bag. Those couple things are easy enough to throw into the front if we need to pull up somewhere for a night. Oh, and maps and notebooks go on the floor in front of the passenger seat (along with Zeke's nifty new, anti-spill travel water bowl), only small things that are easy to throw in the back when I FINALLY run across that gorgeous Swedish hitchiker.

So, last pitstop before we hit the road.

...man my legs are sore...
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No time to kick back, we've got a trip to plan!

Okay, time for another adventure, I've got two weeks to play with, and feel like exploring my roots a little. Of course, that means heading to the outback, so first thing's first, I'd better get Zeke a haircut, or he isn't going to cope with the heat up there... not to mention the prickles!


Other than Zeke needing a trim, we're pretty much all set. Red got back from the guys at Guest 4WD with brand new Koni's and springs all round, so there's no question about HIM being ready! Me on the other hand, well, the 'Run For The Kids' fun run is the day before we head off, in fact, it's the reason we're not hitting the road two days earlier!

For those who don't know, the Run For The Kids is a wonderful fundraising event which is an absolute joy and pleasure to be a part of... yeah right! It's 14 hellish K's of city running, through tunnels, over bridges and past pubs (that's gotta be the hardest part, PAST pubs, if only they could organise it to go THROUGH pubs!). People say: "Oh, it's not competitive, I don't care about my time, we're doing it for the kids" but sure enough, they'll still come up to you afterwards wanting to know your time, your splits, your this and your thats... All I'm thinking about, is not how I'm going to go in the race, but how my legs are going to cope with a long distance drive the next day!

I still feel a little disorganised with my camping gear spread all over the place, but I keep reminding myself that it's not like I'm going to the moon for three years. There isn't anything that I absolutely can't live without, and if I do happen to forget some necesity, it's not like Adelaide really is the backwater that some politicians have claimed it to be, I can always pick up gear along the way.
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The Flinders

During April we took a trip through SA and up to the Flinders, find the posts here:


No time to kick back we've got trip to plan!

Last Pitstop...

Free? I'll take two!

Excuse me, can I get a glass of water?

Relics of a not too distant past

Pies, pasties and a quick shave


Home at last, I need a drink!



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