13th August Clare to Port Pirie

Wednesday 13^th August

Since we were in a town, I went for another run. Decided to do a reckie on some wineries while they weren’t open to see if we could go there hitched with Gibson.

We decided that we had had enough of this cold crap weather and the Oodnadatta track beaconed. Greg had selected the wineries he was interested in so we settled on those otherwise you would be in Clare for days which we didn’t  have the luxury of time and money. So I jogged to one winery and found adequate parking and jogged almost as far as town and then went home, via the Riesling Trail – which is a rail trail – a converted railway line to a shared bike and walking track. I covered at a guess about 6 or 7 km. Had a nice hot shower at the end of it in the van as we were on power and put the washing machine on too. Washed floors, cooked a casserole for lunch, waited for the washing machine to finish and left. Turning the inside of the car and van into a washing drying facility and hoping it would dry. Made the car smell nice if nothing else.

First stop Tim Adam’s Wines.  This was my first jogging reckie. Greg wasn’t a huge fan. Next Jim Barry wines which was miles away and unless I was a marathon runner with lots of time I would never have got there.

Jim Barry wines - a bugger of a place to turn around a van
 but great wines and friendly satff! 

Greg was full of praise for these ones and we bought half a dozen. Next was the Claymore (the other side of town by about 20km) wines famous for ‘Dark Side of the Moon Shiraz’ which we just love. We had a wonderful chat with the lady on the counter who had just moved to Clare after running the William Creek Hotel for 2 years – which is where we are going. She had so much information about the area and where to go and what to do that Greg had to find a piece of paper and write it all down. They had skins on special so we tasted them and they were good so we bought a box, and two bottles of Dark side and another one GSM which stands for something – don’t know. Nice anyway.

Greg with his bounty! Claymore wines Clare Valley

Off again on the road – this time to Auburn – we were hoping to turn around and go our preferred way but by the time we reached Auburn it was a bit silly going all the way back so went the coast way.  On to Port Wakefield via a little town called Balaklava which had some nice buildings. We ate our casserole soup stuff that had been slow cooking itself in the shuttle chef. It was warm yummy in my opinion in spite of the fact Greg hates soup. I was starving it was 2pm and all I had after my run was a couple of oranges and a yoghurt!

Some of the beautiful countryside around Clare

We were now going the coast way instead of inland which we hoped would be shorter and net us some saved time but because of nowhere to turn around we were forced to go the longer way. However we got to go past Port Wakefield which had some lovely old buildings. Actually most places have lovely old buildings but these were really old and stone and must have been a very thriving port in its day. Unfortunately the only thing we found at Port Wakefield other than the lovely buildings were holiday homes and the actual port which I wanted to take a photo of had a man doing a wee – so I didn’t want to take a photo of that. It was a very unimpressive port after the buildings so we did a lap of the town and left, taking some photos out of the window of the car on the way. Must be a haven for fishing or something.

the cruiser at Port Wakefield

Next was the long drive to Port Pirie. Lots of crops, the biggest wind farm I have ever seen, some very pretty lakes and a very straight road thankfully with lots of overtaking lanes so people cursing caravaners could get past safely. We travelled  for some 119 km. We finally came into Port Pirie and found the tourist information center ( almost ready to close) which we gathered some valuable information about the Flinders ranges and outback Australia. Greg had decided to stay at a place that was a free camp only about 7km out of Port Pirie called Laurie Reserve – so we went there. It was a lovely free camp, mown and flat. We parked in the middle of the field rather than under the trees as there were other campers there – turned out to be a very wise move as the wind came up. Like really gusting.

the not very impressive  port

Prior to the wind coming up we decided to hang our washing up on our portable clothes horse/line thing (just like a hills hoist only smaller, lighter and falls over easily – bought from Aldi – the last one left for a bargain!) which Greg modified so you could ram tent pegs into it to stop it falling over in a puff of breeze. I wanted to take the washing in but there was to be no frost so we left it out. At 2am however I took it in! Blowing a gale so much that Gibson rocked in spite of having his legs out to stabilize the van. The wind kept waking me up all night and in spite of setting the alarm for some sunrise photos, it was still so windy and so cold and the sun wasn’t on the mountains so we slept in.