Taking a different Road to South Australia

Author: Phil Yeomans   Date Posted:25 July 2019 

The time came for my interstate trip to South Australia, a nice little two day drive from Sydney.

The most common way is via the Hay Plains, an area where the vegetation struggles to grow more than about a metre. The alternate way is the route further north through Cobar, Wilcannia and Broken Hill.

As my first destination was Port Lincoln west of Adelaide, the drive time according to the various websites was less than an hour difference, so why not see something different?

Inland Australia is going through a rather difficult dry period, with rain desperately needed in dams and rivers. I can only support the country towns by passing through purchasing fuel and the odd meal.

Admittedly, driving long distances some of it tends a little blurry, same after same view of the road and surrounds. It was however glaringly dry and brown as distinct from the dry and greenish on the Hay road. 

I had been keen to see the Darling River where it comes through the town of Wilcannia. I didn’t take a photo even after stopping as there was nothing to see. Upstream of the bridge was dry and downstream just had a puddle you could jump over.

When you think of the early settlement days, the paddle steamers were the mode of transport for the region. Not now, you could probably ride a BMX style push bike further than a boat down the Darling River.

Heading into Port Augusta, the first thing I noticed was the lack of the power station, I’d seen the chimney come down on the news some time back, but it’s like sailing into Sydney Harbour and not seeing the Sow and Pigs. Heading down to Port Lincoln, nothing else had changed other than the odd new house here and there.

I spent the following day with a range of DeckHardware customers before heading back clockwise around the gulfs. At various coastal towns, I just did a short stop to see if there was anything new, no, time for a couple of photos and back to more driving.

Monday and Tuesday were spent driving with the occasional stop. The latter days in the week, I was able to see more customers due to the higher population densities. The one thing for those that don’t know the size of our country, it’s huge and in some areas very monotonous.

One thing that doesn’t change is the Aussie love of the water and watching the guys at Copper Cove racing their Radio controlled yachts in the drizzle was an example. As always its’ good to catch up with customers, many who have become familiar voices over the phone and at various regattas.

At one business, the owners thanked me for my time showing the DeckHardware product range. We’d spoken on the phone before but never met in person. It’s nice to put a face to the name as they say.

Driving home was via the South Road, good old Hay Plains that I first drove down with my mate John in the mid 70s towing two Lasers to the Australian Championships at Glenelg. Nothings changed there other than having a more comfortable vehicle than the good old HQ Holden. Certainly some of the music was the same, Beatles and Beach Boys and the good music from that era never grows old.

- Phil