We rolled on into Port Augusta to yet more rain – no surprises there!
First stop was Whiteway Laundromat – it was a great little laundry complete with toilets, fast machines, helpful staff and a cracking loo sign that’s on the top of our signs list for the trip so far.
I don’t know why but we take a lot of delight in the different signs around our country. We have a collection of photos of our favs from our many visits to Tas, which we’re sure to add to on this trip. I always wanted to start an Instagram page of office signs… but that would have been a waste over the past two years!
Anyway, we stopped for a snack at Mamma Lou’s at the railway station in town – it was dry and warm and had a great little book exchange.
We had a wander around the train station and the art gallery (another book exchange here – still no kids books) and Ems picked herself up a key ring made by a local artist.
We filled the afternoon in with chores, stocking up on supplies and then took refuge from the rain in the sports club next to our camp site.
The Port Augusta Motorhome Park where we camped was $8/night and all vans must be self contained. But the toilets are available for use in the Central Augusta Football Club when it’s open. The staff here are awesome! They had no worries about us chilling for a few hours in the club while the kids filled out their travel journals and Garth and I did some trip planning and recording.
We may have also enjoyed a sneaky ginger beer or two from the bar.
We were grateful for the flexibility that the Motorhome park offered – the windscreen was booked to be fixed the following morning and the local van parks wanted to charge us a full day extra ($50+) for a late check out! We offered to pay an additional $8 for the Motorhome place as it’s so popular – but they wouldn’t have it. You pay for the nights you stay – no matter the time you arrive / leave! That made those ginger beers at the bar even more worthwhile.
We’ve learnt to fill up our water tanks on the way into these parks – as it was getting a little dry by the end of our stay and we weren’t really keen on lugging water across the grounds in 20L buckets.
We also enjoyed the ingenuity of the other campers, watching them use some pretty clever set ups for topping up!
We’ll be back in Port Augusta in a couple of weeks – so we’ve left the touristy stuff for then.
Knee Deep Travels 