This morning we had a leisurely departure from Whyalla. Our first stop was the Maritime Museum just out of town which was rather interesting and fulfilled “R’s” military passion.

Back on the road and the GPS took us on a country road that seemingly diverted going into the heart of Port Augusta. We didn’t stop today as we are staying a night in Port Augusta on our way back up the middle of Aus. On we headed toward Adelaide, past an extremely large wind and solar farm and on to Port Wakefield where we stopped for a loo break and to grab a bite to eat. The road heading into Port Wakefield was soooo frustrating, there were so many roadworks which reduced the speed limit to 80kmh but the really frustrating thing was that it wasn’t just left at 80kmh, they kept changing it back to 110kmh for about 500m then back down again. Up and down the speed limits went for ages!

We decided to head straight to Adelaide via Mawson Lakes to check out the tiny house that “G” and “A” built some 20+ years ago, the first of 4 houses that we’ve since built. It looked really overgrown and a bit weathered. The whole Mawson Lakes area has grown massively since we lived there, beggars belief to think that our little house was the first in the street which was essentially in the middle of a plain.

Into Adelaide we went and checked in to our accommodation on North Terrace. Unfortunately our car with the roof pod on top doesn’t fit in the underground parking so we’ve had to park it up the road at the hospital, fingers crossed it’s safe there! Our apartment is quite nice however the boys have to share a king sized bed which I’m not sure they’re overly keen on 😀

“G” needed a sleep so the boys and “A” headed off to check out MOD. which is almost directly across the road from us. It was quite interesting but is pitched at 15+ year old’s so perhaps a bit beyond the boys. There were two really good sections – one which showed the effects of human influence on the climate and another on facial biometrics which took your picture and determined your age along with a number of personality features. “R” was a little put out as it picked his age as 10 and “L” as 13 😀

We left MOD. and headed to the Torrens River for a wander before heading back home to get “G” and think about dinner. As everyone was starving by 6pm, we decided to have dinner at the Strathmore Verandah Bar just up the road. The boys shared a tasting plate which they enjoyed and “G” and “A” shared crumbed barramundi and a wagyu chorizo burger which was all really delicious. A quick stop at the convenience store next door to get some ice-creams and we headed back to our hotel for the night.

On a side note, the wave-o-meter went out the window today. We had previously been giving everyone the “WA wave” as we drove along with generally more than a 50% response rate …. until today where it dropped to less than 10% 🙁 The boys have given a name to each wave response:
Full wave = friend
No wave = foe
Single pointer finger raise = the worm
Two fingers = peace
A point = pistol
The biggest challenge has been to get a Shaka from someone, so far we’ve only had one success at Lake McDonnell but we really have to pick our audience for that one.
We’ve definitely decided that the more rural you get the higher the wave response rate 😀