Chapter 13: Moonta, Baroota and the hierarchy of charging
It’s rained a little overnight and although it’s a bit gloomy, the rain holds off as we pack up at Pondalowie. It’s our first time taking the van off-grid and the power has held up pretty well. This is reassuring as we only have one more plug-in site before we have over two weeks without it.
On the downside a large fly made it into the van and spent the night whizzing past my ear like some kind of trainee fighter jet pilot. Nobody else complained about it so I guess it singled me out for its training mission.
As we drive out of Pondalowie, we stop in to admire the view at Galawulgawi Ngunda Nhagu. If you’re reading this impressed that I remember the Narungga name for the lookout, don’t be because I took a photo of the sign for exactly this reason. I do think if the Narungga people have been kind enough to let us admire their beautiful land, the least we can do is call it the right name.
We’re on our way to Moonta purely because there’s a water park there. The kids thought it sounded fun and we thought we should probably throw them a bone and let them do something they like to do for once. Plus, they’re old enough to go unsupervised so we can do the shopping and perhaps snatch ourselves a quick coffee.
On the way, we stop in at Port Victoria for lunch. It turns out to be a historic town founded to transport grain to colonial ships. Filled with limestone buildings, the interesting part was that its local shipping was still powered by sail until 1948, long after steam powered most ships. It’s unbelievably windy, so that may have had something to do with it.
Splash Town
Moonta’s Splash Town turns out to be four smallish waterslides and a giant dunk bucket. The kids are underwhelmed — I did warn them it was hardly going to be Wet ‘n Wild — but even though it’s not that warm and a stiff breeze is blowing, they decide it could be fun. We like it because it’s free. By the time we’re driving away to do the shopping, they are happily running up and down the slides.
Moonta’s powers-that-be hit on a great idea by building a water-based play area there. For those driving around with kids, it’s a reason to go there, instead of the larger Kadina to the north. Moonta is distinguishable from other SA towns by its extra tall television antennas. It’s almost like there’s a competition on who has the highest one.
After the shopping, we collect the kids and head to our last Big 4 for a while, Port Hughes.
The hierarchy of charging
With access to full power again, we discuss who gets to charge what first. Everyone agrees that my and T’s phones are #1 because that’s how the kids are getting access to the internet. After this it comes down to a battle between non-USB charging items, like our laptops, their iPads, various pairs of wireless earphones, the Switch, and rather unexpectedly, the electric toothbrushes.
We diligently rotate the electronic devices through the charging hierarchy because there really is nothing more satisfying than a fully charged electric toothbrush.
Port Hughes
Port Hughes was probably a sleepy little holiday town 40 years ago but now it’s full of enormous bespoke “beach houses” crammed into smallish blocks. Every so often an original beach house stands dwarfed by one of these behemoths; its simple square design quaint by comparison.
The Big 4 has two sites; and we are in the lesser site for caravans. This means we have to walk about a kilometre to use the very nice pool. I don’t mind too much since it’s good to walk after being in the van and although it’s still quite breezy, the sun has finally come out again. A and I decide a game of mini-golf and a swim is in order. G stays behind catching up on the 24 hours of YouTube he missed being out of range.
The next morning, the rain and wind are back. I’m so desperate to stretch that I do my yoga anyway. Frustratingly, the towels I washed because they were starting to stink from not drying for three days are still not dry. But we only have a two hour drive today, so I hope the sun emerges once we’re off the Yorke Peninsula.
Port Pirie
We stop along the way at Port Pirie, very much a working port town. We need petrol but we don’t really know what else there is to do and it’s too early for lunch. The visitors centre invites caravans to park, so we rock up there and go inside.
T ends up hooked up to a virtual reality set involving a shark cage experience. He volunteered as tribute because A wanted to do it but was too young. We watch T freak out as a shark tries to eat him in a cage. It’s pretty cool.
Doing the VR experience means we gain access to see Shakka, the giant Great White Shark caught off Port Pirie in 1998. It’s not the real one of course because sharks don’t have skeletons, only cartilage so they can’t be preserved. However, they’ve built a full scale model of her and she was absolutely enormous. They also have a cast of her dorsal fin and one of her flippers, plus her jaws. The entire display is centred on how statistically improbable it is to die from a shark attack.
This is kind of weird because I know someone who knows someone who really did die that way.
Baroota
Our next campsite is on the way to the Eyre Peninsula at Mt Remarkable National Park. Up here, the sun is out and my towels will finally dry properly.
It’s these little things that make life on the road so much easier.
It’s quite a pretty spot with a dry river bed and a lot of red river gums. The flies frustrate A (secretly they annoy all of us) but he gamely agrees to come on a bushwalk. Meanwhile, G loses it over the lack of internet, the flies or the mild heat or all three (at least we think that’s why, he was too worked up and upset to articulate what was going on) and I explain we’re all going to lose it on this trip at some point, he’s just the first one.
We drag him off for the bushwalk and even the kangaroos and emus don’t cheer him up. Eventually he gets out of his funk and declares it quite enjoyable after all.
High praise indeed.
