While Not Working

The drive south from Whyalla to Cowell is not particularly inspiring, although the wheatfields appeared right on cue as we approached the vicinity of Goyders Line. We dropped in to Lucky Bay and were fortunate enough to be there when the ferry from Wallaroo came in, which was a moment of great excitement for both of us.    Here she comes!    It was so exciting, in fact, that we hung around until the ferry went out again before we went looking for a park for lunch and realised that Lucky Bay, being a loosely organised collection of fishing sheds of varying constructional robustness, didn't quite stump up a picnic table for people such as ourselves. We gawked, and headed in to Cowell which is much better endowed in the picnic spot department.     Lucky Bay has a beautiful white sand beach, courtesy of the dredging required to keep the channel  clear for the ferry.  Cowell also has a very nice main Street with lots of the beautiful old stone building...

When I lived in Mt Isa in the 90s, it was always clear that the town was and always had been a mining town. The smokestacks were always visible, the lights and sounds of the mine seeped through my bedroom window at night, and wherever you were during the day you could, if you paid attention, feel the underground blasting reverberate through the ground under your feet. In Mt Isa an ocean of spinifex lapped up against the colourbond suburban fences. Whyalla reminds me of Mt Isa. There's no underground blasting but Whyalla was a BHP town until the 70s and the smelter, power station, and iron ore export facility are both visible and audible right beside the old main Street, and an ocean of saltbush laps up against the suburban fringe. Power Station, iron ore export, and steel smelter from the top of Hummock Hill. Heat and steam. The industrial side of Whyalla. Unlike Mt Isa, Whyalla has a slightly split personality in that the real ocean also laps up against its foreshore and ocean-goi...

Peterborough breakfast with a view over the valley. Whyalla sits at the top of the eastern side of the Spencer Gulf. We got there via Gladstone, Port Germein, and Port Augusta (which we treated with all the disdain of a town we'd been to twice and therefore had seen everything worth seeing: most unfair to Port Augusta, I'm sure).  Along the way we left the Goyder Line behind with its green swells of wheat and eddies of canola, and returned to the wide grey sea of saltbush and bare earth.  The high point (not literally, we were at sea level) of the journey was lunch at Port Germein. Entrance to the jetty at Port Germein.  There is a sculpture theme happening in town.   The jetty at Pt Germein had to be built extra long to reach boats and accommodate the low tides in the Spencer Gulf. Prior to building the jetty, at low tide bullock drays took wheat out to platforms and then the wheat was loaded from the platform to the boat when the tide came in. Building the jetty ma...

I know you were all breathlessly waiting for the cheese tree finale and I didn't get to post on the day because I was out and about doing train stuff, so sorry about that, and I will put you out of your misery now. The Tail of the Cheese Tree  In 1860 George Bishop moved to the Melrose area with his wife Eda.  I don't know where George worked but my money is on a dairy, because he was given quantities of milk as part of his work.  Now Eda was an industrious woman and she started turning this milk into cheese.  Although she was industrious she wasn't necessarily a fan of working any harder than she had to, so she developed the cheese tree method of pressing cheese.  She placed the end of long rails into the mortice holes and hung weights on the other end, using this contraption to press the cheese until it was mature enough for sale. As far as anyone knows she was the only person to ever enlist a tree in this way to help press cheese, and history is silent on her...

How to Have A Shower in the Melrose Showgrounds: 1. Collect all your goods and chattels and decide which shower block you will use. There is a choice of three: the little tiny one which a caravan has claimed as its own personal ensuite and parked so close you will trip over their doorstep to get in; the old one which is... old; the new one which opened for business yesterday and is spacious, squeaky clean, and new. 2. Decide to go to the new block and hike over there: it's a bit of a walk around the cricket oval. Get there and discover you've lost your toothbrush. Grieve the end of a beautiful relationship that had barely begun: you only bought that toothbrush 3 days ago in Port Augusta and now it's gone. 3. Clean your teeth with your finger (and toothpaste, you're not a savage!). While you are doing this your clean clothes will slide off the bench and onto the floor. You won't notice. 4. Go to the showers. Discover that the new showers are poorly designed, so all t...