Port Augusta

Sat 21 Mar…..We weren’t struck on PortAugusta when we were here in mid November and nothing has happened to change our minds. The idea today is to double stock everything in our fridge plus stock up on beer and wine as we believe that supplies will be limited and expensive in the outback. As this is an important crossroads, for going north we are surprised that there is no butcher or bakers that we can find and only one “bottlo” We did a bit of a deal on the wine but everything else is quite dear. There are a lot of Abbos here and we think this is the reason that there aren’t many places selling booze. Port Augusta is the crossroads of Australia as there are 4 roads in and 4 roads out and it is also famous for it’s power station! Yes really but we haven’t done the tour and we haven’t any photos! It also has the biggest train shunting yard in Australia which is just over the water from us, about 1K. It’s very quiet during the day as they wait for night time to do their shunting! We have seen the longest goods train ever. How they get away from a standing start we don’t know, it must be down hill! Anyway they are gathering as we write for this nights shunt around! Last night we defied the mossies all night and sat outside all evening as it was so hot. Perfect for drinking and the Burra cider went down well. Peter had saved a drop for this evening and its even hotter tonight. We’ve had no sun today but it has been windy and HOT. Apart from shopping, we haven’t done a huge lot today ( tho he forgets the washing and mopping the floor and cleaning the toilet!) and the highlight of the day was an Emu this morning wandering about the camp. As there is a 2M fence around the park he must have come in the main entrance. We were informed that the local wildlife folk were coming to assess the situation but the Police turned up first to arrest him!
TIP FOR TODAY Put Roo Poo on your garden, it will come on in leaps and bounds!