We have been “missing in action” for the past couple of days, well actually no, we have been missing our internet connection instead but that is another story.
We were up before sunrise with plans to leave close to 8:00am. Today started perfectly with the departure setup flowing perfectly, however, “He” managed to stretch a muscle in the lower part of his back whilst retracting the stabilisers. We are not sure if “back problems” is one of the reasons why people go from caravans to motorhomes?
The weather looked a bit threatening as we left Woomera and a strong wind was blowing from the north. The wind assisted us most of the way to Port Augusta where we stopped at Coles to purchase food to cover the next couple of days.
It was actually very sad when we turned left from the Stuart on to the Eyre Highway at North Port Augusta as the Stuart Highway has given us a lot of very fond memories this trip. The highway was also kind to us giving us no problems at all with the large road trains that travel its length.
We elected NOT to refuel at Port Augusta and refuel at Hawker to maximise the amount of fuel we would have for exploring the Flinders Rangers.
The moment we turned left at Stirling to head to the Flinders Rangers the wind hit us. It was very strong and close to gale force.
We followed the Pichi Richi railway line to Quorn before turning towards Hawker. The country side was lush and very green. With the Flinders Ranges on our left side, the view was outstanding.
We intended to refuel at the BP at Hawker but it was closed. We did find the Mogas station open and refuelled there. From Hawker to the turn off at Rawnsley Park station, we had a direct head wind and our fuel consumption was just below 20 litres (per 100k’s). The Nissan performed very well with most of the 35k’s from Hawker in fourth gear.
The road into Rawnsley Park was a lot better than the last time we were there, it was hard a dry unlike the mud we experienced back in 2008. We were given our choice of sites and we selected a large drive through site about 50 metres from the amenities block and camp kitchen. We stayed at the campsite for the remainder of the afternoon.
We were able to get our satellite dish working taking less than 30 seconds to find the satellite. During the afternoon “He” climbed to the top of the ridge behind the caravan park where we knew we would find Telstra reception to make calls home.
We cooked our evening meal in camp kitchen and then watched TV until late.