Port Julia and Redbanks Conservation Park S.A. ; 9-11th Nov 2010

Hello All,  matt here again;

We are currently camped up at Redbanks Conservation Park where it is wonderfully quiet (you can hear yourself breathe) but... it is damn 'HOT' (33C) but it was cool in the night (10C).

We took it upon ourselves this morning to take a 5km trail walk around the area and apart from the great views of nothing but vast plains and rolling hills, we got caught out by the heat.

Poor Louise was suffering from light heat exhaustion and I was not too far off myself, luckily we had enough water and we managed to stumble out way back to the van to recover while taking in lots of fluids and cooling ourselves down with a damp cloth placed over our heads and under our armpits.  Not a pretty site; especially with faces red as beetroots...

I also hooked up the generator and turned on the airconditioner for an extra measure.

As you can see by the pics, Port Julia was quite a nice quaint town, most of the towns along the east and west coast of the Yorke Penninsula are holiday homes for people from as far as Broken Hill, NSW; most places only have tank water but do have electricity.

For anyone wishing to snap up a slice of real estate on the Yorke, a nice 3 bedder house will set you back anywhere in the vicinity of $120K-250K.

On our way to Redbanks C.P.  we passed through a town called Balaklava, which was named after the battle of Balaklava from the Crimean war in Russia.  When I first saw the name I though it read Baklava, which is a wonderful sweet eaten by those from the middle eastern countries  - mmmmmm Baklava.

We then passed through another place called Clare (a place known for its wine produce) and we will be returning there tomorrow to use the laundromat and library (to download some DVDs), then heading onto the Barrosa Valley for some wine tasting.  

We have discovered on this trip that most libraries have free internet and DVDs can be lent if a deposit is forthcoming (we have no permanent address of course) and we copy these movies to watch at night on the Mac, and return next day back to the library and get our deposit back.  But thank God for the ABC's IView service which means that when we can get the Net up, we can watch shows that have been recently broadcast.  We were enthralled last night to watch the BBC show 'Spooks' which is back on but I can also recommend the new Aussie drama on the ABC, with Richard Roxburgh as a barrister; it's called 'Rake' which is also very good;  sorry to ramble on about TV shows but our entertainment options on the road are quite limited...  But we are also getting through the bag of books Louise brought along too.

At every town we have stopped at along our journey, we have made it a habit to buy 2 x $1 scratchies in the hope that we strike it rich and trade in our little van for a massive winnebago LOL...

I managed to scratch up $11 yesterday in a town called Burra, so of course I bought 11 more in the hope of that big win.  From the 11 scratchies I purchased, I won another $4 and will be returning tomorrow to Burra on the way to Clare to purchase 4 more.   

We will try to keep you all posted within the next few days of our drunken journey through the Barrosa and beyond.

We hope you are all well and are enjoying our photos and blogs.

Matt and Louise xoxoxoxox 

(Julia Port camp spot 9/11/10) We had a nice little spot at Port Julia S.A. with loads of birds flying around.

(Redbank Park walking trail  - Thurs 11/10/10) Louise strutting her stuff during our 5km walk along the trial, as you can see it was quite "VAST" and heat exhaustion set in later on...

(Redbank walking trail) 11.11.10  Matt at the top of the loop and lookout of the trail, it was nice to take a windy break from the heat that crept up upon us.  The flies were bad again so the veils came in handy once more....

Adios amigos; please comment, we love to hear from you.....

louise & matt