Ardrossan adventures

 Here we were on our way. Just so you are not expecting too much of me, I will tell you up front I’ll only be doing one post a stop or every couple of stops if they are brief, don’t want to bore you to death or burn myself out. 

First stop Ardrossan, for those of you unfamiliar with SA and more specifically the York Peninsular it is a lovely little town on the the southern side of the Peninsular about 65 kilometres from Port Wakefield. The town has a population of just over 1,000 and some of the loveliest people I have met. 

Could this be our retirement option? Well it is close enough to the big smoke of Adelaide at about 150 kilometres away, now that is something we need to consider at our age with medical facilities etc. and to feed my retail therapy from time to time! Also access to the airport so I can go visit my beautiful family at regular intervals- it was so had leaving my grandchildren behind and I felt like saying “ If my grandkids can’t come, I’m not going” sadly their parents wouldn’t let them come and the HAPIBUS only sleeps 2.

What did we get up to in Ardrossan? Well the weather like most up to this part of the trip was to say the least Crap, sorry but there really is no other way to describe it however they have some of the most beautiful, vibrant and complete rainbows I have ever seen and on a regular basis too. We parked up at a free camp 7k’s out of town near a very sad memorial of some beached whales that died. The beach was readily accessible, just out the bus door in fact. We did several walks along the beach each day holding hands, Ha! If you believe that then you don’t know Donnie and I very well at all, in reality it was holding the dog leash but the walking bit was correct. Most days it was blowing a gale and bloody freezing but if you walked fast enough your body stayed warm and your face got so cold it went numb. One day it was so windy that even a strand of seaweed caught on a tiny twig made a sand angel half a centimetre deep in the packed sand. In all fairness we enjoyed our daily beach jaunts and I became adept at finding the tiny dog poos that the fur babies insisted on leaving for me in the piles of washed up seaweed, I even found one I left from the day before when I forgot my doggie doo bag (daschunds if you are not aware do poops the size of your little finger) so I am quite proud of myself! As you follow my rants you will learn that I am quite OCD and a lot of things/people piss me off. Number 1 is people who don’t pick up their dog shit!

Several days on while at the laundromat I walked across to the golf fairway opposite to walk the fur babies and met a lovely couple out for a practice, after a brief conversation I learnt that not only were the people here very friendly but that the ladies competition was on a Tuesday and the mens was on on a Wednesday and Saturday. Needless to say Don and I decided it would be nice to have a hit. Tuesday came around and it was a glorious sunny day (no joke), got out my buggy and clubs and all raring to go but the buggy had other ideas and wouldn’t budge, fortunately Don had dropped me off and was still close by so he brought his for me (disregard anything horrible I said about him earlier - at least for the day). I played with the Ladies Captain which was a treat and she was so tolerant, fun and also hit a great ball. I hacked my way around in my usual fashion and she was astounded when I said I had to stay in the rough for 5 holes due to having run out of sand for my divots and I actually did just that (the second thing that pisses me off is people who don’t fill their divots). Anyway it was a lovely day out there, the scrapes were great to putt on, fairways were lush at least the ones I was sporadically on were and when we got back to the clubhouse the ladies were so welcoming and nice I felt like I had played their my whole life. Presentations were done and I was described as a dag, I think it referred to me being lots of fun. I came 3rd in the daily comp.

The lady I met out practicing was so delightful and insisted I do my washing at her house and not the laundromat. The following day,  Don went out to play in the mens competition (the sunshine had made its appearance the day before and then pissed off) I was sitting inside having cups of tea and lunch cooked for me while the washing was getting done.

My hunter and gatherer ventured out in the canoe a couple of times, he hunted but sadly did not gather with the exception of 1 small squid which he cleaned and gutted then cooked, I had a small piece but squid for breakfast is not my idea of a breakfast delicacy and I much prefer pancakes! The weather was so miserable that no boats were seen on the water for the first 5 days, on about the 6th day I was advised that there were 3 boats out in the sea, fancy that I said - who would have thought boats would be seen in the water, Don was not impressed (by the boats yes but my comment no!)

My Hunter but not Gatherer!

About the town…. There is a great bakery, newsagent, pharmacy, Drakes supermarket, bottle shop, several cafes, post office, clothes shop, op shop (got a few good bargains there), 2 pubs, 3 realestate offices (not sure why as all they had listed was SOLD) and the most awesome fish and chips shop (2 large fish with chips for $14, tasted great too!)

One of the towns industries is mining and you will never guess what they mine, Dolomite! When Don told me that I thought he was shitting me, seriously Dolomite that’s the kids school savings account with the commonwealth bank, but apparently as I now know it is a white magnesium rock often used in concrete and bitumen mixes. The company ships the Dolomite out by sea.

In all we spent 9 days at this site, in that time numerous unhappy campers got bogged, the site had 2 dirt refills (making it easier to get bogged) and we saw lots of people come and go and met some really great nomads just like us.

Total rainbow

Vibrant rainbows

Beautiful sunny day

While at At Parara Campsite I took off in to Gawler for a night to visit a Bestie and do a bit of shopping so here is a tip from that trip!

As I said I am a little OCD and one obsession is good coffee after all life is too short to drink shit coffee! After trying my big automatic machine and finding the generator couldn’t handle the load, I tried a pod and fother but that was a lot of messing around so I purchased an Aeropress, the shot done with this and topped with milffrom the frother which runs on the inverter, is as good as almost any bought latte you will get while travelling as long as you use a good ground bean!