Ceduna
Ceduna, it transpires, is the home of The Big Oyster! Our Big Things average is going through the roof, I tell you!
A Big Oyster, which was not all that big to be honest with you was not all that huge, was not enough to keep us in Ceduna, though and we were soon in the belly of The Beast and heading for the Orient once more.
It appeared that we’d stumbled unwittingly into The Lake District as the heavens opened and we were in the middle of a massive downpour. And then for a while, every town we passed seemed to be the same as the last with a bowling / golf club, a pub and a massive grain store.
Kimba marks the half-way point between the East and West coasts of this giant continent. We acknowledged this by parking outside the snappily-titled Half Way Across Australia Gift Shop and taking a photograph of the great Galah that stands in their car park.
Eager to make it more than half-way to our destination, we set off at the national speed limit, continuing due East. Our enthusiasm was overwhelmed only by a lack of petrol as we approached Iron Knob. The sign outside the petrol station declaring "Come in, we are open" was betrayed by the locked doors and the closed shutters. Thankfully, there were ten litres of petrol in a handy red can in the boot of The Beast. This was more than enough to get us to our planned stop.
Port Augusta is Australia’s crossroads. To the North lie Alice Springs and Uluru, to the East, Sydney. South is Adelaide and if you want to know what lies to the West, then I suggest you go back and read the previous ten blog entries! Tonight K and I shall lie in Port Augusta, having found that the hostel we had planned on staying was no longer there and the hotel we had as a backup was closed. We have found a nice room above a pub, though for not-too-many dollars. Sadly, this does not seem to include WiFi.
Food will be served shortly, so I shall wrap up here by announcing that we have changed our planned route around Australia and that we are now going to continue to the East Coast. It seems a fair number of our friends and family are going to be in Sydney towards the end of this month and it would be a shame to miss them all by arriving there after they have left. I’m looking forward to seeing Sydney again and our friends that live there. More news as it happens.