17 November 2011 - Shoreline Caravan Park, Port Augusta, South Australia

Clouds have already gathered mid-afternoon however this seems to happen more often than not in this hot climate. We were late venturing out into the sunlight this morning, busy with washing and following Barack Obama’s visit to the Australian parliament in Canberra. We were interested to hear the speeches by Julia, her best mate, Tony and the Man himself. All were well worth the wait, and no doubt will be regurgitated on the news tonight and in the newspapers for the next week or so.

We had shuffled through the sheaf of brochures picking out those places we wished to explore here in Port Augusta, and headed off with the eski packed with lunch and water bottles filled with ice cold water.

After filling with diesel at a service station nearby, we called up to a water tower lookout on the western side of the gulf with superb views over the town. This proved to be the best lookout in town from where one could have a rose coloured view.

Views from the water tower

Our next stop was the Curdnatta Art Gallery, whose coloured promotional brochure promised great art. The old railway station now housing the gallery was soon found, but appeared to be shut. On checking I found that we were indeed at the right time, on the right day, but due to the higher temperatures, the gallery would not be opened because there was no air conditioning in the building. So much for the Curdnatta Gallery! Pity they hadn’t asked the Information Centre to take their brochures off the shelves!

We then drove down to the Wharflands Esplanade, a lovely board walked area down on the gulf frontage, incorporating one of the old wharves. There are shade sails, cylindrical poles that make the strangest noises, interpretative panels and heaps of parking.

Port Augusta was established in 1854 to facilitate transport into the area. It continued as a major wool and wheat shipping depot until its closure in 1973. This coincided with the building of coal fired power stations, fuelled by coal from Leigh Creek, and these generate more than a third of the state’s electricity even today. Apart from being the state’s electricity supplier, Port Augusta is a supply centre for the Outback, and an important link on the Indian Pacific railway along with the Adelaide to Darwin line.

It was interesting to learn that an Adelaide pastoralist by the name of Thomas Elder who had had previous experience with camels in Damascus, imported the first one hundred and twenty camels and thirty one Afghan handlers into Australia at Port Augusta in 1866. This was of course just the beginning of those that followed and the genesis of the feral camel problems of the outback today. Interestingly, while these first camel handlers were indeed Afghans, those that followed were from every country except Afghanistan, but were all tarred with the same handle.

We walked down the shore for some way, and then cut back across the centre of town, passing up Commercial Road, the main street. It was sad to see that many of the very old buildings such as the town hall are in dreadful states of disrepair. While the town does appear to have most services one would need in a place of this size, including two supermarkets, the town is not particularly attractive.

We were unable to find a shady free spot along the waterfront to eat our lunch so drove off checking out the green spots on the map, finally settling for the wooden shade of a well-used scruffy park which did serve our purpose.

Our hunt for a lunch spot had given us an excellent opportunity to see the residential part of the town, and so we now felt we had seen as much of Port Augusta as we wished to. We headed off to the supermarket, filled our trolley with a list of stores that has been steadily growing since we left the last big supermarkets back in Alice Springs, sped home to refrigerate the perishables and settled down to spend the rest of the afternoon in the air-conditioned caravan. Wusses that we are!