28/8/18 Kimba to Ceduna

On the road again after fueling up.  John is using less fuel than me, but takes the more expensive 95RON.
John felt the need for coffee.  Kyancutta was almost bare.  Shop and post office closed. So we headed into Minnipa, which neither of us had seen.

The coffee here was pretty weak:

The pub across the road -maybe Tuesday mornings are a bit slow?

All these towns seem to be doing it tough.  Well past their heyday.


The road to Ceduna was devoid of dead roos.  Maybe someone cleans them up?
It was a lovely ride, except for the blowy section toward Ceduna.  A strong north wind, which made crossing semis on the other side of the road 'interesting', and the bike had a fair lean on it at times.  It was good to see the green everywhere.  Healthy looking crops, uncropped areas grassy, puddles by the side of the road (puddles a bit further east than Kimba).

I feel sorry for the semis, some of them triples.  They want to travel at or near the speed limit, 110km/h around here, and keep having to pass grey nomad caravans traveling at 90 to save fuel.   We can zip around anything pretty quickly on our largish bikes, but its a different story for a big semi to pass anything.  Can be a bit dangerous.  They must get very frustrated.

In Ceduna we went to the beach and ate our lunch snack, tin of fish, biscuits, fruit, then went to the bakery for a coffee.  After john's frustration with the coffee at Minnipa, we bought a thermos -a bit crappy, I should have brought mine, stupidly was saving space.  So we'll use my coffee drippers to start with a thermos of fairly decent coffee, to save money and disappointment (and the temptation to add a cake to a bakery-bought coffee).

Ceduna jetty.  No fisher people!  Must be the wrong time of day.

We sat on this seat at the end of the jetty...

admiring this view, as the sun sank (naturally the pic doesn't do it justice).  The serenity of the place was lovely.

We walked in from our cheap motel ($79/night) to the foreshore pub for drinks and meal.  We started off at outside seating with this picturesque view on dusk:

 But the mozzies drove us inside.    Definitely doing it tough!

We might have to cut back on the expensive meals.   But hang on, a local told us on Wednesdays they do a good meal at the sailing club.  -Maybe later we'll cut back.
We walked back to the motel.  John is now having a cup of tea.  I'll ask him if he wants port with that.  -He says yes...

---

Wed 29/8/18 Leisurely breakfast of cereal and coffee in room.
Walked into town for a gander, along the foreshore to the sailing club.  All locked up and bare, scruffy with some rubbish lying around, no sign of a menu for tonight.  Fair way from home.  Back past the fish 'n chip shop and pizza joint.   Reckon it'll be fish 'n chips for tea.
Wandered through the hotel's huge bottle shop for a look.  Chatted there to a talkative attendant who grew up in Minnipa.  His grandfather built the old rooms on the hotel in the photo earlier!  Those days it was a thriving town with a huge pub always busy.  His mum used to tell the kids to hurry up on a Friday night, or they wouldn't get a seat in the pub.  How times have changed.  Now almost a ghost town.
We asked about the booze policy since customers have to show ID to buy takeaway alcohol.  He said there aren't any real restrictions, except that they can't sell port!  (I couldn't live in Ceduna.)  When they were shifting 5 pallets of cask port a week, the licensing board stepped in and banned sale of all port as takeaway.  He said it was mainly blowins from up north who were the problem drinkers, ending up in hospital.

Back to the room for a snack lunch and coffee.  Below is our bikes outside our budget room in a motel that is huge and mostly empty.  The amount of accommodation in Ceduna is staggering.  It looks like the grey nomads are filling up the caravan parks, not the motels.

Its dull and blustery outside, so instead of riding round the town sightseeing, we've decided to bludge in the room until tea time.  John is snoring quietly as I type this, still getting over a bug.

We walked to the fish shop for tea.  Great fish, salad & chips for $13.50.
Then to the Foreshore Hotel for a drink.  Again fairly busy, mostly old grey haired nomads (like us).  They deserve good business (despite John not liking his meal there) because it seems to be the cleanest, most modern, professional, place in town.

A bit too late in the day, but here is a view of the sunset, looking a bit worrying with occasional lightning.  -That's black cloud above the pink.