Nuttbush Retreat

 We left Wallaroo bright and early and headed north along the Spencer highway towards Port Pirie. In all the years I'd lived in SA, I never once actually drove into the town so it was a surprise to find a lovely park with great amenities by the seaside. We enjoyed our morning tea there and chatted to birthday boy James ( rather briefly as he was intent on playing with his new toys!) Its a busy household this month at Rose River with Lachlan and Hannah also celebrating birthdays. We remember Lachlans last bithday as that was the day we lost our wheel!! 

         

We arrived here at Nuttbush lunch time and set up once again in the unpowered sites by ourselves. 

             

This time however, we have no nice green grass - just dirt - plus annoying little ants!!  We were the first ones in but by the end of the day there would have been about 15 vans - mostly overnighters! They have a happy hour here which we thought we'd support and happy we were after several very full glasses of wine!! It's served in the woolshed which is also a rustic restaurant. 

       

The amenities are very clean but we're rather disappointed we can't have a camp fire and there's nowhere to walk other than the highway!! We'll use this as a base to explore Whyalla and surrounds before we head south towards Port Lincoln.

We did a quick run to Iron Knob and what a sad place that is! Even though the mine is still working, the majority of the town was derelict and unloved - certainly not a place you'd say you'd love to live in!! 

  This is the pub - no dining here 😳

      

We found Whyalla an interesting town and easily whiled away the day doing touristy things. We enjoyed the tour of the ship Whyalla - the first ship built there in 1940 -  plus the adjoining maritime museum. 

        

Darryl also found another place to have a catnap:

     

Darryl and Dennis were also very taken by the model railway which was very impressive. 

There were also lovely gardens there where we had our picnic morning tea. We toured the town and had a good overview of the town from the lookout.

      

 We had our picnic lunch along the foreshore and met a lovely local couple who told us Arrium - who run the mines, are in a bit of financial trouble - so it's nervous times for Whyalla residents. 

We came across a festival on over Easter so we strolled around through the various stalls and listened to the music by "3 Amigos plus 1" Their music was quite toe tapping. Then we just had to find Auntie Mary's house to complete the family tour. 

Tomorrow we plan to celebrate Easter Sunday by taking a picnic to visit Point Lowly with the plan to exercise the fishing gear again - so hope we are dining on seafood tomorrow night! 

We wonder if Easter bunny finds everyone - we send happy Easter wishes to you all.  🐥🐥🐣🐣