Day 77 – Thu, 14 Oct to Port Augusta

A fine day but expecting rain towards the end. So I left Port Lincoln riding NE up the Eyre Peninsula running along the coast of the Spencer Gulf.

Initially the countryside was familiar, riding through wheat and sheep country. To my left fields running off into the undulating hills, and to my right were the fields running off to the water of the Gulf. I guess you would know from my previous posts that I really enjoy this environment, or is it just the riding, I’ll have to think about that – oh, lets just agree it is both..

The towns along the coast are basically service centres for the local community, fishing and holiday ports. Towns such as Tumby Bay, Port Neill, Arno Bay, Cowell, all are fairly similar with their wheat silos and their jetty running out into the bay of the Gulf.

Once I headed N of Cowell the road ran inland more and the countryside was more in keeping to what I had following Ceduna – scrub countryside, with low bush, small and medium sized scrub and red earth. Still sheep country but as I approached Whyalla there was a mountain of earth which was obviously the result of mining.

The approach to Whyalla was wonderful, coming down from the top of a hill the plain opened out in front of me with the town some 20km in the distance, but visible for its industry and ships in the Gulf. Quite unexpected.

Whyalla is obviously a steel town, with the steel works on the coast, and everything coated with a red stain. I trust that that their dust control is better these days, which appeared so as the air felt quite clean.

The final 80km to Port Augusta saw the completion of the day’s riding. The Port refers to itself as the crossroads of the country, seeing the roads heading N to Alice Springs & Darwin, E to Sydney, S to Adelaide and W to Perth. It is also the crossing point for the N-S Ghan Train and the E-W Indian Pacific. Real crossroads.

 

The town is comfortable sitting at the top of the Spencer Gulf, and I decided to stay here tonight with rain expected. I’ll decide on which way to go from here.

I hadn’t realised that the Flinders Range came all the way down here – those are the ranges in the LHS photo above. They form a beautiful backdrop to the town and almost would be the backbone of the country.