Tuesday, November 22, 2011

22 November 2011 - Maitland Showgrounds, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia


We woke to the chorus of birds about; kookaburras, crows, rosellas, galahs and a host of others too numerous to identify. We were first out of this road side camp and drove up out the gully to find that we had been only a few hundred metres from views over the coast and Spencer Gulf.

Port Germain is a small settlement on the Gulf, with little but an old jetty to commend it. At 9 am, there was no sign of life but for a parked car and a distant form at the end of the jetty, no doubt trying his luck with a fishing rod. Once upon a time, this jetty was, at 1.7 kilometres, the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere.  Over time, storms and lack of resources have shortened its length, however in the cold wind this morning it was still too long for us to bother walking its length. It is quite astounding how many times we have encountered the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere. One in Hervey Bay springs to mind, and another in Tolaga Bay on the East Cape in New Zealand. Port Germain, with just 250 odd inhabitants,  is an RV Friendly town and has an excellent dump station and water supply that we availed ourselves to. However three quarters of an hour was enough in this coastal place and we were soon on our way again, heading south to Port Pirie.

Port Pirie is just twenty seven kilometres south on the coast, of course. It is the sixth most populous “city” in South Australia with less than 15,000 people, which tells you a lot about population density in this State. It is home to the world’s largest lead smelter and has most services you would expect in a place of this size.

Our main target here was a caravan service centre, the only one within cooee in the region. The proprietor of Northern Caravan confirmed that they were certainly in the business of checking out caravan bearings but were absolutely overwhelmed with work at the moment. "How many days were we going to be in town?" he asked. After learning that we were not wanting to hang about, he managed to slot us in then and there.

So we left the caravan there while we walked about the town, which does have some lovely old buildings along the town frontage, and the quaintest dwellings dating back to pioneer days by the looks of them, all beautifully maintained or restored, or at least that part we could see. Nearly every house has a fifteen metre aerial for television reception, however now that analogue television is obsolete in this part of the country, these too are obsolete. These curious structures are really quite an eyesore to the city-scape, and are likely to stay so for some time. The council obviously agrees with me, as well as acknowledging that some are becoming rather unstable as the materials are disintegrating. But the residents are not in a hurry to dismantle them, because they must be taken down with the strictness of safety precautions, by appropriate technicians. You can understand that no one wants to fork out for this. They may well remain as part of the horizon for some time yet.

The Visitor Centre is also the location of the town’s Art Gallery where we viewed two exhibitions; works grouped under the title “Four Seasons” by Nita Beard, most of which reminded me of two dimensional embroidery samplers, with little sense of scale or perspective and the other a collection of paintings by Jason McArthur who has spent his life working with racing dogs in all facets of the industry. These charming but poorly executed works illustrating dogs at work and on the couch at home were as colourful as Nita Beard’s work, and had a cheering effect. Neither deserve the accolades and pecuniary reward they have apparently received, but they did prove to be a diversion to us who had time to fill.

NyrStar Smelters offer tours three days a week, and as usual, we were here on the wrong day. But then reading the health brochures about lead exposure and how best to live in such an environment, I was not really too excited about staying longer than we needed to.  The biggest percentage of the lead smeltered here is used in the manufacture of lead acid batteries; the kind also used in the storage of solar energy. All very environmental, of course!

The caravan man gave us a call while we were still eating our lunch at McDonalds (where else?). We returned, paid up and considered that we should have had this done about five thousand kilometres ago to save ourselves the cost of full bearing replacement. After topping up with diesel and fresh fruit and vegetables, we were once more heading south through wide stretches of grain growing. The wheat harvest is in full swing and we saw machinery and trucks about in every direction.

We travelled on south through Crystal Brook, Redhill and Snowtown, all marked by huge grain silos and little else. At Snowtown we left the main highway and headed south west down the northern part of the Yorke Peninsula. After 164 kilometres, travelling all the while through grain growing lands, even across the hills high and windy enough to house dozens of modern electricity wind mills and those forming the spine of this peninsula, we arrived at Maitland. Note that this Maitland should be differentiated from the Maitland we stayed at in New South Wales, temporary home to my great great grandparents.

This Maitland has a population of just over 1,000 people, is laid out in radiating squares apparently in the same fashion as Adelaide, but on a miniature scale. It  has a hospital, at least two churches, parks, sports grounds, a school, and of course these showgrounds which provide an excellent camp for us in the way that only showgrounds can. From here we will explore the areas west to the Spencer Gulf, south to the Investigator Strait and east to the Gulf of St Vincent. The weather forecast is good, although the temperatures are according to the caretaker here, inclemently cold.  The wind has deterred us from putting out the awning but given that our time here is really for touring, it won’t matter too much.

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