A little bit more trouble …..

We’ll it hasn't been our week vehicle wise as now our car is in Port Augusta with problems with the electric handbrake. It’s been playing up all along a bit but Wednesday it decided to drive us nuts by non stop dinging!!  We couldn’t stop it so had to drive the 60odd kms to Port Augusta with the dinging ringing in our ears! Not pleasant. We were fortunate that the Ford service department were able to fit us in and it was determined that we need new callipers and actuator - which of course need to be sourced from Melbourne & Adelaide. They kindly gave us a loan car so now Darryl is a Toyota man!! They hope ours will be ready today but we’re not real hopeful and seeing it’s a holiday Monday, we might have to wait till next week. We certainly can’t go anywhere as the loan car doesn’t have a Towbar! Luckily we still have Dennis’s car and yesterday we enjoyed a lovely scenic circuit drive over the hills to Gladstone, Laura and Wirrabara and back through the very pretty Germein Gorge.

We firstly had a look at the ships in at Port Pirie and were impressed with the lovely waterfront areas (not depicted in these shots) 

Our morning tea stop was at a little place on the Highway called Warnertown - where the boys enjoyed talking to the very knowledgeable ARB chap set up next door. From there we drove through the picturesque rolling hills to Gladstone and had a good look around there - the town is much bigger than we thought as usually we drive straight through. We went onto lovely Laura where the statues celebrate CJ Dennis who spent much of his young years here. 
We browsed through an antique shop then drove onto Wirrabara where we enjoyed a delicious pasty from the bakery. We admired the silo art - how clever are these artists?

 We visited the nearby forest where the first plant nursery was established in the 1870’s to determine which trees would be best for plantations. The Radiata Pine was the winner and I guess from these experiments, the pine plantations developed. The king tree was an attraction and it certainly was huge - although not all that healthy.

This wood carving was very good - as was this lizard carved by a local bloke. 

Like most people, we had a spectacular thunderstorm the other night and recorded over an inch  - at home we had a good soaking and we heard the mountains had huge amounts. It’s cooler now but not freezing - although the fishermen on the jetty may think otherwise! Their catch to date is 3 yellowfin whiting which we’ll enjoy as entree tonight. The long weekend is upon us and we’ll be thinking of the activities going on at home and hope everyone has a great time. We are going on the Pichi  Richi steam train tomorrow so are looking forward to that - although we are a little disappointed it is only running from Quorn to Woolshed Flat. Happy long weekend everyone  ❌❌❌