Wudinna to Streaky Bay, SA. Thank Goodness For Google! Sat 17 Nov 2012.

We were at the Wudinna Tyre place at 8.30am, and great relief, the bike tyre for Dave's bike was ready to be fitted, after having been trucked overnight from Port Augusta, thanks to our guardian angel racing car men yesterday. The young man who was to do the tyre fitting looked real nervous….yesterday he said he wasn't used to fitting motorbike tyres. This place mostly has huge tyres for tractors and other farming vehicles.

So, thank goodness for Google…last night Dave used our trusty little laptop to find out how to fit his tyre. Having never taken the back wheel off before and knowing the tyre guy would be the same. A quick phone call to Grumma, his Honda bike mechanic in Kenwick helped too, on the finer arts of what to do. The old tyre was lying in disgrace in a corner in the workshop, with the steel belt in the middle showing. It had only lasted for a disappointing 6,000km.

So this morning a very relieved young Wudinna tyre fitter had a happy time with Dave fitting the new back tyre on the big Honda.

While they were doing this, I went for a little walk around the tiny town. There's a very well stocked supermarket, a pharmacist and a doctors surgery with a small hospital, a butcher, and a couple of gift stores, along with some rural supply stores, petrol stations and a caravan park/motel. I have a feeling there's a lot more happening at Wudinna than meets the eye….small towns like this service a very big rural area and I bet the locals have a pretty good social life when they get together. The locals we met seemed happy and they all said that a lot of jobs get done around here.

There are gigantic wheat silos on the edge of town, as there are at every little town we are passing through. I watched local farmers bringing in their tip trucks of harvested grain to the silos, tipping the golden grain slowly into huge silo hoppers. I nearly saw a horrible accident happen: a huge fuel truck road train came hurtling along in the 60km/hour zone; he was speeding and following a big wheat truck. But when the farmer driving the wheat truck indicated to turn off at the wheat silo, the fuel truck had to slam on his brakes hard, skidding along the road, nearly rear-ending into the wheat truck. Gulp! I was metres away walking along the side of the road, glad I wasn't a fiery inferno witness!

With a brand new safe tyre now fitted properly on Dave's bike, the ride through to Streaky Bay was lovely and cool, perfect weather for motorcyclists. We realised when we arrived at the Caravan Park in pretty little Streaky Bay that the next leg of our travels would be about 600kms, so we'd need an early start on that day. And predictably the local museums in Streaky Bay were closed….darn it, only open for a few hours on Tuesdays and Fridays, because it's run by volunteers and it's a small town. A pity, as the 2 museums looked interesting on the outside. Even the tourist information centre was shut on weekends. So we booked a cabin right on the shorefront of the Bay for 2 nights. A beautiful peaceful view for us Mighty Intrepids! This was one of the best cabins we've stayed in, with practical features to enjoy. We cooked our evening meals up in style and enjoyed the lovely tidal view just metres away from our window. Pelicans and seagulls were our neighbours.