Maybe the Last Post? Port Augusta, Aldinga, then home

At home, sitting near the kitchen radiator. Outside the rain is driving hard against the window with gusts of wind tearing at the eaves. The old clock on the wall goes about its business, metronomically, as usual. Months of planning and months in the execution, brings us, just as we knew it would, to this point. It’s finished! So this last post will carry some of the anti-climax we felt when we had crossed back into the east, with nothing but bitumen ahead.

The transformation as we closed with the coast from Coober Pedy had been swift, and now a further greening took place. Stone ruins were commonplace, and some beautiful little townships, like Burra, should not be missed. Burra, especially, is famous as the main producer of copper in the world at the end of the 19^th Century, and is now famous as the first town in Australia to be conserved under the International agreement (ICOMOS), and known here as the “Burra Charter”. Architectural historians get excited over the stuff!

We spent a night in the forest at Wirrabra, trying to get warm beside a damp pine fire. The desert Mulga fires of the week before, where all you had to do was scoop some leaves together and drop some small dead branches on and you had a hot cooking fire, were sorely missed. The first swirls and flurries of rain tapped on the Tvan roof overnight. The temperature dropped further and the damp penetrated our clothing. Really this was a good way to wind down, with a dripping walk in the old nursery/arboretum and timber workers' pioneer cemetery. Our next call was Clare, and we enjoyed Skillogalee and Kilikanoon wineries, and our last meal in the open – well, huddled in the van, and quickly to bed with a raunchy Wilbur Smith novel. Helen always insisted I read out loud the raunchy bits! Well, when you’re into bed at 8pm what else are you going to do?!

The journey from Clare, through the Adelaide Hills and the Torrens gorge, is a delight, and it was a relief to clear the suburbs of our first major city in four months, without too much pain, and head for sister Margie’s at Willunga Beach. The weather had brightened up and by the Sunday it was sunny enough to indulge a little, and see the coastline from the air; Helen shouted me a trip aloft courtesy of an old Tiger Moth, from the most up market little aero club I’ve ever seen. We broke the journey to Victoria with a night in Robe, having a great fish meal at The Caledonian Inn (go there), where we enjoyed a long yarn about our lives with each other. You get to cover some interesting topics when together like this. Refreshing, it is. Well that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Don’t dally. “Just do it”, as that dreadful ad says.

Our second last day in the car was the longest drive we've had for the whole trip - along the coast via the Coorong in South Australia through to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria where we wound our way in the dark to get to Geelong for a meal with the newly engaged Andy and Michelle. Another long suffering sister Robbie and husband David left the lights on for us to stumble to bed in Wallington. After a second breakfast with Helen's mother in nearby Point Lonsdale next day we felt able to gently wend our way home to be greeted by ancient cat Smog and far too many rabbits.

We’ve really enjoyed writing this blog, and we’ve had some very kind comments from our readership! Thanks especially to those who sent us comments on the blog itself – some from “out there”, and especially Etch! We’ll think very hard about doing one again. Cape York 2009. What do you think?