Day 3

Day 3

Waking up in the morning, it took me a while to remember where we'd stopped. My alarms were going off, my phone barely charged enough to register them. Wanting to get on the road on time, I was up at 7.45 and started packing up. Calling out to Doug, his groggy reply asking what the time was.

"its 7.45 mate, lets get on the road"

"it was 7.05 a minute a go, i must have slept longer than i thought - no wait its 7.15"

See, what had happened is when we stopped in Adelaide, we did our research from a McDonald's. Doug's phone, having no sim card it but being clever enough to locate itself through google, had picked up that he was in a different timezone. What he had forgotten the conversation 2 weeks before we left when we were reminded about the 30 minute time difference. We'd discussed and agreed that as SA was the only state we'd be going through with a different time zone to the rest of the country - we'd ignore it and leave the SAians 30 minutes behind us (bless they do that by themselves, no wonder they need the time change too). Doug had forgotten this conversation, but managed to get up anyway, and for the first time we were on the road on time.

Despite our turn off being located before Port Augusta, we had to resolve our electrical charging issue (how would we write the blog without electrical items? Not to mention mp3 players for when the radio reception is poor?) As we headed in, we saw a car parts place right next to Hungry Jacks, and decided on a combine breakfast/spare parts job. Alas, HJ was closed for the kitchen to be refloored, so we had to continue. The golden arches loomed as we got closer to the centre and breakfast was sorted. This also gave us a chance to charge laptops and upload pictures and Doug was able to write his blog update. Mine got started, but was planned to be finished off and uploaded from my phone, which was still good on signal. Breakfast turned into a rather long affair, and it was 11 before we left mostly due to us holding out for the rain to stop. No such luck, and as we drove around town, the windscreen wiper snapped off. Still better for that to happen here than in the middle of nowhere. WE drove all over town from auto electrical shop to shop, looking for a replacement fuse for the 3 way gang. Apparently, the fusing didn't like the kettle i plugged in (doh), and the car phone charger was the wrong sort for a secure connection to our cigarette socket. Surprising how hard is is to find a non standard fuse. Giving up before we wasted too much time, we purchased a new 12v socket

spliter

. New windscreen wiper installed, fluid levels topped up, and devices once again charging, we hit the road again and I got down to some serious blog writing. Backtracking down the highway, we finally hit the turnoff. We were off the main highway, onto the small roads and into the real driving part of the trip. The unsealed roads would be coming along soon, 4wd tracks and dusty sleepy towns. What threw me was the almost instant lack of phone signal. With all my blog being written reliant on a data signal, i was stumped! Hopefully i'd get a signal further along the road. The finders ranges were fantastic, reminding me of the northumberland forests dad and I had once ridden through. The trees were planted in long straight lines, and if you timed it exactly right you could look down for a long way seeing down a tree corridor. Lunch today was at a rest stop In the middle of nowhere, watching the mostly empty road shaking away round the hills. When a car did come along you could hear it from a good distance away, and 10 seconds later turn round and see it on the corner. I decided it was a good time to try work on the tan, and we think this is why the rain clouds came in to give us a quick shower reminding us to get on our way. When I did the 4wd training, I'd been discussing our planned route with some of the others on the course. They done some of the same journey recently and  recommended a campsite. Id discussed it with Doug and we kept it in reserve in case we revised the distances covered each day. Because of unplanned visit to port Augusta, we decided to bring in to play this backup campsite. This meant we had much less urgency for the afternoon, and when Doug spotted a dark black smudge on the horizon we were able to make a stop at a open coal mine. Doug had never seen one these before, and the last time I'd seen one it was from a rim top road (possibly closed) that I'd directed Maria to take as a shortcut on the way back from the Great Ocean Road, so I knew how impressive they were. In this viewing area, they had some decommissioned equipment as well - they were massive! Standing next to them, I was just dwarfed by the size. finally heading on, we continued to farina - our campsite for the night. Arriving nice and early, it was good to be able to relax and be all set and ready before sunset. Farina also had hot shower facilities, which both Doug and I were in need of. The set up was brilliant a wooden hut with 2 showers inside, lit if needed with solar powered lights, and the hot water provided by a traditional Australian 'donkey'. The sign inside explained it all, and to get the hot water, a fire was built outside, with a metal barrel, with a water supply. The fire underneath warmed the water in the barrel, and the rock wall surrounding it and on top helped maintain the heat. A brilliant design, providing hot water in natural way. The showers were brilliant, just the right temperature to clean off and feel human again, and everything felt good after dinner as we sat around a crackling fire. All was well until Doug spotted a spider. About the size of a 50 cents piece, it was happily going about its business, no harm to anyone. For a while it camped out inside our beer box, then circled the fire a few more times, all the while getting Doug more and more worked up. The horror stories about the most dangerous creatures in the world, and not knowing whether this was one of them clearly playing on his mind - especially when the spider then climbed onto his vacant chair. Despite the peaceful evening, with a clear sky full of stars (visible even with the constant sweep of the flashlight as Doug scoured the surrounding ground for more creepy crawlies) Doug called it a night early and I was left enjoying the slowly dying fire on my own. It had been a long and eventful day and based on the roads we'd finished up on today, tomorrow was going to be an interesting drive.