Port Augusta 2018 Day 8 & 9

After a long day driving we finally arrived at 'The Shack; Chris had down played the place by telling us that it was just a tin shed by the beach. And actually that is exactly what it was except is had everything that one could wish for including air conditioning, a flat screen T.V and a coal range! We stayed out the back in the retro caravan which also had a T.V and air conditioning. The outside toilet even flushes, luxery!  

And even better the water is only about 20 paces at full tide. It is not really a beach, more of a stoney shore, but beautiful. The weather up here gets very hot and last week got up to 43 degrees celcius, although we have a mild 23 degrees and a light breeze. 

We decided to forgo dinner and had some cheese, salami and things whilst we played card and enjoyed a drink. It was a great evening and we toddled off to bed just before midnight. Lance and I slept well, but did have to nip out to the loo in the middle of the night. I have been very watchful for snakes and lift the toilet seat to check for large or nasty 🕷. 

After a slow start to the day we headed off to Quorn, Chris' home town. The landscape so far has been very dry with not a lot of growth, as soon as we headed into the Flinders Ranges it was still dry but much more interesting with misshapen trees and bushes and even a family of emus! 

The town ship was very old and had some lovely old buildings and homes. We stopped for a bite at Emily's Cafe which apparently used to be a large haberdashery store. Large wooden framed glass cabinets were on all walls and beautiful old wooden counters lined with items from years gone by. Especially intriguing was the cash carrying system that I remember seeing in Auckland department stores when I was a very little girl ( I must be ancient). Wires criss crossed the ceiling all leading to an ornate wooden booth where the owner Mrs Fox used to sit and count the money, returning the change to the counter via the same system. I had a wild peach pie with vanilla ice cream and it was lovely. 

When we got back to 'The Shack' the tide was perfect; donning the correct crabbing attire (particularly on the feet) we grabbed our buckets and rakes and made our way to the low tide line. 

  I have to admit that I felt reasonably confident, after all they are just 🦀. That was until Chris let out a shriek and leapt into the air, she had been nipped, but she paid back when she scooped a huge crab out of the water and popped it into the awaiting bucket. Immediately I started checking the water more carefully, moving away from the stirred up sand so that I had more visibility. Crabs were being caught in a fast and furious fashion, I was a good spotter as the crabs scooted towards the deeper water, but I wasn't game to try my hand at scooping. Then horror struck, the sand under my feet started to wiggle and nippers appeared. Yes there was screaming and hopping. Have you ever tried Irish dancing in water two feet deep with sloppy sand and beach shoes on? And in I went with my new phone in my pocket, I quickly raised my rear end out of the water to save it. The phone was fine, but I only wish that Lance had been holding it videoing my antics, I would have been on one of those funny You Tube clips for sure. 

We hauled our 20 blue crabs in to the shore and began the procedure of preparing them for dinner. And what a feast we had! Along with a couple of bottles of South Australian wine everything went down very well. Thanks Chris and Rob for the adventure. 

I had a slow start, and after bacon and eggs for breakfast we hit the road for home. It was great to finally stay at 'The Shack' and be able to take home our own 'Shack' stories. On the drive out we spotted a couple of emus, so we stopped for a quick pic. 

The temperature over that's couple of days has been lovely, not too hot at all and we didn't even use the air con in the caravan. Tomorrow though it will be 41 and Saturday 46, so we timed our visit perfectly.