day 3
We left camp to have the car checked at Jamestown and, after Rick gave us a clean bill of health, we headed back through Apilla, Booloroo Centre to Melrose in the lower Flinders Ranges, to Wilmington and Port Augusta. Another check of the oil here and we continued to Point Brown, east of Ceduna. After the stress of the past 24 hours we decided not to push it to Fowlers Bay, our original plan for Day 2. Besides that, what’s the rush? We have time. Our next booking is the Kalgoorlie Superpit tour February 25.
Travelling with a photographer requires patience and flexibility. There is a shot every 25km it seems. This different pace creates space to look at the details, such as the road base on which we travel. In the dirt are the colours of the trees’ bark and far mountains, the sunrise and sunset. Burgundy, scarlet and ruby red, corn, ochre and flax.
The cloud cover accentuated the soft tones as we drove past acres of harvested paddocks, bristles spiking the ground, en route to the Flinders Ranges.
After Port Augusta we drove through Kimba, detouring quickly to the Big Galah. The Venning family built and erected it in 1993. Constructed of steel, high tension bird wire and fiberglass, it is eight metres tall and weighs 2.3 tonne. It’s kitsch, bright pink and very cool. Last time we were here I saw a lovely looking blue heeler chained up on the back of a twin cab. ‘What a cute pup. Do you mind if I give him a pat?’ I asked his owner, walking toward him hand outstretched. He replied, voice low, slow and gravelly, ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. He isn’t the friendly type.’
On toward Ceduna. While I was driving Jeremy researched possible campsites before Fowlers Bay as we weren’t pushing on. He found this place highly recommended but closing, with WikiCamps pulling it off the site in early March. We wanted to get in before it closed. We turned left off the Eyre Hwy into another unsealed road.
The main highways and some roads in the various small townships around are the only ones sealed. We deflated tyres again as we headed south to Point Brown. After 30km or so, I saw a sheet of corrugated iron with the words in red caps, POINT BROWN CLOSED.
Do we press on? We did and as we arrived at the end of the road saw that every track had such a sign with warnings like CAMPING PROHIBITED and ROAD CLOSED, PRIVATE PROPERTY, etc.
We deliberated in the car park, not wanting to drive onto someone’s land. But whose could it be? Why prohibit campers? Maybe there’ve been bad campers, the type that leave rubbish and destroy fragile coastal habitats.
Car park it is for the night. Having arrived after 7pm we figured no one would be coming by. Apart from two blokes who were in there way up to Alice Springs and who were looking for a place to ‘throw in a line’, no one swung past.
Perched above the ocean at the end of the road, the wind howled all night. We watched the moon rise at around 10pm over the coastal heath, with the camper and Jeremy’s magic with a tarp for a windbreak.
