Tour Notes

Thursday 30/5/02

Track Notes	Adelaide to Spear Creek (Port Augusta).
Fuel	Ampol, Modbury 89.9 cents/litre
Caravan Park	Spear Creek. Turn off Port Wakefield Road 21km south of Port Augusta towards Wilmington and Horrocks Pass. Turn left after 8km and follow road for a kilometre. From there it is 3km on dirt track into Spear Creek. Showers and toilets clean but dated. Plenty of fresh spring water and shaded sites. Dog friendly.

"Let the adventure begin". Today is our first day on the road. The past few weeks have been hectic with so much to do. Finally the furniture is in storage, the house prepared and handed over to the real estate agent and the necessary arrangements for rental completed.

This morning was taken up with a few but minute shopping duties, like getting our tickets for the Slim Dusty concert at Marree. "Murphy's Law" prevailed and of course something had to go wrong. Odette's visa card was swallowed by the "hole in the wall" which was quite upsetting and of course there is the hassle of getting it replaced while on the road.

Matthew (Odette's son) is working around the corner from home so he came up to say goodbye and videoed us departing. It was 12.15 when we left the first time - (Odette seemed to have dropped her mobile getting into the Jeep - and 12.25 the second time. We stopped at Port Wakefield at 1.30 to have a bite to eat. We then pulled over at a very nice rest stop near the turn off to Port pirie. As we set off from the next stop it began to rain and continued raining for the rest of the trip to Spear Creek. By the time we pulled into Spear Creek our bring 'n shiny new van was covered in mud and grime. Oh well, we will find some soap and water somewhere.

For dinner we are having "Cape Mortelle" shiraz accompanied by garlic and herb mince roast chicken.

31/5/02

Odette decided to help out the Caravan Park owner (Mark Herde) with his web page. It took a few hours to edit and upload the page. I helped for a while but came back and washed the van and jeep. About 3.30 we went for a walk around Spear Creek. The gum trees are magnificent and the views terrific. Spear Creek is a working sheep/cattle station of 16,000 acres and the gums are over 500 years old.

All other vans departed about mid-day so we have the park section to ourselves tonight. An overcast day with occasional sunshine, a slight sprinkle of rain. Hot dogs for dinner.

1/6/02

First day of winter. We woke to a lovely clear sunny day. After breakfast we got the van ready to depart. Mark called in to see us and didn't charge us for our stay and gave us a free membership to FPA (Family Parks Australia) which will give us 10% discount when stopping at an FPA park. We got some nice film and photos as we departed.

Hawker