Not so August in this Port

No, - not the month-- I know it's January. It's a play on words , as in Augustus,  but in mine it was, you know  August as in August or magnificent , like how they used to describe Caesar , you know, but in this case it was reference to the place we are in ---- Port Augusta -- only in this case I was trying to get to the point that it isn't so great--- at least that's our view. Are we clear now, is that understood--- Port Augusta, is not a great place for people coming to have a great time so thank the Lord that I've cleared that up.

So we had a great drive up from Adelaide yesterday , very uneventful and with the plan to be here early afternoon so we could get to have a mid afternoon swim at the place that we were staying, -- The Majestic Oasis Apartments, a gated little set of apartments that people own and rent out to travellers like us as well as long term lets or holiday periods.

Clearly in the area of the drive there is a huge agricultural emphasis with vast wheat fields and huge quantities of tented structures for growing tomatoes and other fruit or salad stuff that needs protection.

 Also the obligatory wind farm to assist with the local power

There was also many many salt lakes likes these that we past and I would say that when they are as vast as those that we saw--hundreds of acres -- it is a pretty awesome site---

  Oh , and just to let those scottsmen know that Nessie is alive and living in the salt lakes of south Australia-- it's true look below--

Now bearing in mind that we did not find this place but obviously had the ability to go through the images of each of our stopovers and were no to specific about one night stops this is what we were looking at on the web----

 

Look's nice right, and they are all self contained, and are very reasonable inside and Lynda was even able to get some clothes washed , tumble dried and ironed---- yes ok well I did offer to put the soap in the machine, -- look she gets all bossy on me and insists that I don't do things properly so what's a man to do--- just do most of the driving is what.

 

So nice enough , right ?

 Pictures look the same of the apartments and the town main bridge right and yes we got in the pool for a swim so the |Plan was achieved with that----
except-------

w- we ended up with only ten minutes swim in a pool that had not been cleaned for a while and the fact that a dozen children of all ages in the pool--- these were rare shots we took of us on our own --- in a pool designed for about 10 people it did become very crowded.

 

It is a gated community and that is for a reason.

There were throughout the afternoon, locals loitering around and causing a few issues.

There was also a mini fair on in the evening which was fun with the music and general noise that one gets.

 

And then the piece de resistance --- when we went out looking for dinner , the places we were told were closed --- well it was 8.30pm and the town was not somewhere to loiter around in --- it is tired and far too many stores shut down and closed for business, which is clearly a shame, although Woollies is alive and kicking in Australia.

Just to repeat, there was NO restaurant or even fast food place open and serving after 8.30pm, so we bought some warm food from a hot cabinet in a garage and ate this with crisps in our room.

 

 This building is all boarded up and looks like it may have been a town hall or similar.

 Now just to be clear, we are not writing this to have a go at the good people of Port Augusta, just pointing out what we see and it is a little sad.

On the other hand there is industry around such as ---

the Coal fired power stations but 2 are closing

 The 2 above are closing--

 This one is still operating--

And these below are part of south australia's future with Solar Thermal Power seaming to be their proffered choice--- the problem comes in that there are not many jobs created when it goes live , where as the old plants generated a lot of work so I guess that it doesn't help the town.
 
See www.beyond zeroemissions.com.au for more info but welcome to the 21st century---

 

So, there we have it -- not bad amount to talk about when we are only stopping the one night but hey gotta write it as I see it.

 

So Coober Pedy next and a very different hotel waiting us there but that is another story for another day.#

 

Happy Trails