After saying goodbye to Sheryl and Brian we headed into Port Augusta for a quick shop. Then moving south onto the Yorke Peninsula and still enjoying the pleasant weather, the fields are once again planted out with wheat, canola and barley crops. Neither of us had ever explored this part of South Australia, so we were excited to travel this part of our country. Traveling from Port to Port we are astonished with how big these towns are. Our expectations of this Peninsula were to drive through small seaside villages, yet the towns are large suburban areas. Most of the towns have the older area, with stunning old stone buildings and this seems to be the hub of these townships and then massive new estates, one town had a stunning marina/waterways with water front houses. TV reception must be poor as most houses have at least 9 metre antenna's.

It was surprising that one town supported all these residence with one small IGA store. At Port Broughton, the home of the Spence Gulf Prawn fleet, we thought it would be nice to purchase some prawns but the only place where the public could buy from was closed on Tuesdays.

The camping at Innes NP is all regulated with a permit and then camping fees and with free camps getting harder to find, we decided only to travel as far as Warooka then headed across to the east coast of this peninsula.

On the east coast of the Yorke Peninsula we found the quaint little seaside villages. As we got closer to the northern part of this peninsula, the northerly winds picked up and we were driving into strong headwinds.

On our arrival to Port Parham 80k north of Adelaide (known to be the best free camp in South Australia) we tucked DABUS into a corner to avoid the wind, although it was windy it was very warm. Port Parham is said to be the best beach for the blue swimmer crabs, (the session starts in September) as when the tide goes out you could walk over half a kilometer to reach water, therefore a large sandy area to obtain these crabs.

Again we have been bus bound so decided to walk the one km into town and have dinner at the Social Club. Wednesday nights they only serve light meals, mmmmm….. our choices were either chiko/spring roll & chips or crumbed snags and chips with gravy……all served in take away containers. Still we enjoyed our night had a few drinks, enjoyed a few chats with the locals.

It was so hot during the night at 1am willyweather was indicating it was still 20 degress at Port Parham, but then throughout the night DABUS was rocking n rolling with the strong winds.

Early morning the rain started up, so our journey into Adelaide was not a pleasant one, it was raining with extremely strong winds. It looked like a dust storm as we got closer to Adelaide. Arriving in the CBD the wind was swirling so hard. We enjoyed a beautiful lunch at Alamfi's, which is dined at frequently by Alan and the guys, when they attend the Supercars each year.

After lunch we enjoyed a pleasant walk down Rundle Mall as the wind but not the rain had subsided. Watching the news later that day, we were lucky to have even received any lunch, as a lot of businesses were left without power. Roofs were dislodged, trees down on cars, traffic lights out (which we did experience).

Again it wasn't a pleasant experience driving north out of town as the winds had once again picked up and we stopped for the night at Tarlee at the local sportsground. Rain & wind again kept us inside, but after a very filling lunch, no dinner was had. When in Adelaide we finally found the 'Skip-bo' card game, so our night was playing several rounds of cards and a few quite drinks.

Prior to arriving in Adelaide and checking out the weather we have decided to go north and not south, so change of plans we are now heading to Broken Hill in hope of warmer weather, were we can get over our cabin fever.

Alan has been struggling all day with strong head winds, rain and crappy roads, along with a few trucks. After Hallett we leave behind the fields of wheat and canola to dry open plains, with a warning from the lady at the local servo to watch out for all the kangaroos and emus and the goats at Yunta. Driving through one part of this section was like driving through a mass open grave of kangaroos. It was an interesting sight to see the emus with their rear towards the wind and their entire tail feathers spreading out and flatten. Finally we start to see some blue sky and sunshine, our stop for the night is at Mannahill, where DABUS has stopped rocking n rolling.

The first stop we made when arriving at Broken Hill was Bells Milk Bar, which is a 1950's milk bar. After sharing a choc malt (fantastic) milkshake and a cookie, we declared that was our lunch for the day. As we had both been to Broken Hill previously and neither of us had been out to Silverton, that was our next destination.

The road out to Silverton was shocking, very bouncy for DABUS. The discovery of silver and lead deposit was the birth of Silverton back in 1883. The town is now a historical mining town with numerous art galleries, the pub and is also known from the filming of A Town like Alice, Mad Max 11 and Pricilla Queen of the Desert. We checked out one of the galleries before stopping at the pub, which was doing booming business and enjoyed a drink. On leaving the pub a group of motoring enthusiast were positioning their cars out the front of the pub for a photo shoot. So we got a photo with DABUS, the cars and the pub. Our camp for the night was at Mundi Mundi Lookout, while setting up and prepping for dinner as cute little jack Russell came up to greet us and get a pat. We both assumed he was with visitors checking out the view, only to have a woman come up to us and ask if he was ours, by this stage there was only our two vehicles there. The car of the three woman decided to take the dog back to the Silverton Pub and we asked for their phone number just incase the owner arrived back looking for the dog, so we exchanged numbers. Thankfully we did this, as the owner arrived back within 10 minutes and we explained that his dog was on its way to the pub. No sooner did he leave, we received a phone call from the pub to say the owner was coming back to us and we explained that he had left us and would be in town within a couple of minutes. All ended well with dog and owner reunited while we were still talking to the women.

Our night was enjoyed overlooking a wind farm and enjoying the sunset. The following morning, after enjoying a cooked breakfast, we travelled back into Silverton to check out more of the galleries, then moving back to Broken Hill. After catching up on phone calls etc, we left Broken Hill heading east towards Wilcannia. Following the Barrier Highway, it was like driving through a kangaroo slaughter yard, passing and dodging 1000+ carcass's. The vision we saw was similar to walking down a pier where copious amounts of squid are being caught, with ink stains everywhere. Our first choice of heading to Wilcannia came after listening to another audio book 'My Mother, A Serial Killer' where the author and her family had once lived. We thoroughly enjoyed the book and loved visiting places where she had once worked and lived etc. The second choice was to stay in warmer weather for a bit longer. Wilcannia is 'in the middle of nowhere, the centre to everywhere. The historical buildings were built from 1887 and Wilcannia was once the third largest port in NSW. In 1887, 218 vessels arrived in Wilcannia with 36,170 tons of goods and 222 left with 26,552 tons.

Camp for the night was beside the Darling River, where we shared the area with numerous Kangaroos and Kookaburras.