Port Pirie

Jetty at Port Germain

Original Lighthouse Port Germain

Bangor Ruins amongst Pepper Trees

NM

Our campfire at Melrose Showgrounds Campground

14/5/2012  -  Left Port Broughton at about 9.50am.  This morning was sunny but still cool.  We headed to Port Pirie and had a look around there.  It is a very dry town but we did find a spot in the Coles carpark to pull up to go in and do our stock up.  We got our groceries from Coles and were lucky to get an 8c a litre voucher from there and stocked up on our reds.  Can't be running out on the way up the centre can we.  We got our fuel from the Coles Express servo nearby and fuel was $1.51 there so we got it for $1.43 which is really good for out here.  The old girl was really thirsty so was one of those times where you hate handing the credit card over.  After that we pulled up in town beside the river and had lunch.  The weather was quite a bit warmer up here and not as much wind.  Port Germain was our next stop.  It is noted for having had one of the longest wooden jetties in the southern hemisphere at 1673 metres long.  In its heyday it was the largest grain shipping port in Australia. The original lighthouse that was situated at the end of the jetty has been replaced by automated lights so the lighthouse sits at the start of the jetty now. The town is really quite small but is somewhere we think we could stay for a few days.  Would be good to walk the length of the jetty.  There is heaps of seaweed stacked up on the beach which is common for down here at this time of the year apparently. They also use "Jinkers" a.k.a. "Spiders" like they had at Port Parham for launching their boats. After there we started heading inland winding our way up towards the Flinders Ranges.  We passed through a place called Bangor that wasn't really a town but some old ruins.  We stopped to take photos and some of the ruins are in amongst a few pepper trees that were absolutely loaded with peppercorns.  It was really beautiful.  There had been an old pub there  called The Gorge that was built in 1888 and apparently at any one time there were at least 100 bullock and horse teams camped along the creek across from the pub.  Would have been a busy place.  It closed in 1911 when the railway started carting the wheat and wool from the district.  While we were there all we could hear were the sheep calling to each other from paddock to paddock. We headed on through Murray Town to Melrose where we had planned to stay the night.  The town is a nice little place and we ended up going just out of town to the Showgrounds where there is a campground.  They charge $5 per person and if you want a powered site it was another $7 for power.  We decided we could do without the power so set up on a site where we could have a fire.  There was a huge drum there so Pa soon had a great fire going.  We had a weenie roast that night for tea, something we haven't done for ages.  It was a cold night so we weren't able to sit around the fire long but at least had time for a couple of quiet reds before tea. It ended up being an absolutely freezing night there.  Reckon we should have put a couple of bricks in the fire and put them in the bed.