This magnificent bronze statue of Makybe Diva is on the foreshore of Port Lincoln. One of her past owners was Tony Santic who is a local tuna fisherman.

Our last campsite is 40 minutes south of Port Lincoln near an historic woolshed and pier - it is crowded and has very basic facilities. The concert with Sara Storer and Beccy and her crew was at the Port Lincoln Hotel. Beccy had organised buses to take everyone to the show but we opted to drive and book a room in the hotel. We aren't fans of Sara Storer as we find her a bit mournful, but with the other performers it was a good night with plenty of locals coming to the Monday night concert. We were awarded badges as we are officially "Return Roadies". Libby has left us to join a ship in Sydney for a cruise singing jazz.

Strong winds blew all day. Anita and 4 other women were booked on a fishing trip at 7.30 am. I was very concerned about their safety especially after I saw how small the boat was - they came back safely but only after a rough trip back through big waves. Of course fishing was not successful in those conditions. We had lunch at one of the hotels in town and sat with Beccy and Libby and 2 of their "staff". This is a seafood town and the pub offered good options. I went on a tour to a quandong "farm" and an oyster farm. Quandongs are native fruit and the 85 year old woman offering morning teas did a roaring trade from our group. Tonight our concert was fabulous - Beccy, Libby, Kelly Brouhaha and Taylor Pfeiffer had a jam session (that's Taylor in the pic with Beccy). Their musical skills are such they can join in with each other's songs, even when they had no set list and didn't know what songs were to be sung. Beccy asked Taylor to join her on stage in Tam

The road east from Angorichina Village to Blinman was worse than the stretch west to the Prairie Hotel, but was a bit shorter. We turned south towards Hawker down the picturesque Flinders Ranges Way and called into the Wilpena Pound national park. There wasn't enough time to do the 3 hour walk to the lookout above the treetops, so that has been added to the bucket list. At Wilpena we reconnected to phone and internet after 4 days out of range. Our next camp was at Spear Creek about 30 kms from Port Augusta. It was hot and windy the next day prompting the first total fire ban for the season. We drove through the range up Horrocks Pass to enjoy the views and had lunch in Port Augusta.  Today we drove to Cowell via Whyalla on the Eyre Peninsular. Many of the town's buildings are the same colour as the steelworks in the photo. Some of our group went on a fishing charter and came back with plenty of fish, but not many had the skills to fillet them properly. Our guest entertainer is

We drove back down the rough road 19 kms to the Prairie Hotel on the Outback Highway at Paranchilna for dinner and a concert. Non Roadies could buy tickets to attend the concert and there were about an additional 50 people in the audience. One of our friends from the NSW tour came up for the concert so we caught up with her over dinner which was very good. We decided to spend the night at the hotel rather than drive back in the dark - there are heaps of emus and kangaroos and we didn't want to add to the road kill toll. A couple of Roadies have collected emus and we had a near miss. I am driving slower than most of the others so we were able to avoid the young emu that jumped across the road in front of us.  The hotel is miles from any towns. It has an historical section complete with fridges that have the old wooden doors. The new part of the hotel is built from mud bricks and lots of corrugated iron. The rooms are partly underground to deal with the heat. The early morning view a

From Hawker we followed the Outback Highway north to Angorichina Village caravan park near Parachilna Gorge in the Flinders Ranges. We have never been in this area before and it is on our list to come for a longer visit. The scenery is wonderful, but the dirt road from the highway to the caravan park was bone rattling. I walked along the track following the Parachilna Creek and almost tripped over this kangaroo. It was less than 2 metres from me and didn't move. I took a quick snap and backed off when it growled at me. I saw several other kangaroos including another one on the track that didn't move away as I approached. There are also lots of goats in the area.

Our first two nights in the outback were at the Bendleby Ranges on a station that has facilities for camping, caravans and four wheel driving. We went for a walk with a group that was supposed to be for 40 minutes but ended up being 2 hours. It was too hot in the middle of the day for walking up and down steep hills but the scenery was lovely. It is very dry but when the rains come they gouge away large areas of the red dirt. This gum tree was next to the Hub where we gather for breakfast and have our concerts. One night the concert included Dave Prior who cracked mostly sexist or racist jokes - it was fortunately a short concert! We had no reception and hadn't downloaded google maps so we had to rely on the unreliable Jeep GPS and paper maps to drive north towards the Flinders Ranges. Fortunately I had purchased Hema maps on my phone and these are available offline and provided a bit more information about the various gravel roads in the area. After a while we were leading a small

We had 2 nights at the Melrose Showground with great concerts in the freezing wind! Good bunch of people in this group. Our next 2 nights will be at Bendleby Range which has no reception. The pic is of horses made from corrugated iron which is located in Orroroo where we have stopped for lunch. The horses heads move in the wind. Just outside of the town we admired a 500 year old gum tree with a circumference of more than 10 metres.

Our final stop was Maggie Beer's Farm, but we were treated to a VIP cooking demonstration by her general manager Curtis in the newly built Eatery. This does not officially open until Monday and will become the lunch venue, while the old farm house will expand to sell even more products. Curtis (not Stone) was an entertainer in an earlier life and those skills were integrated into his cooking demonstration. He told us we were the largest group he had for doing a cooking demonstration, but as a 17 year old he was in a New Year performance in Asia where the audience was about 750,000!

Our second stop was at Penfolds where we had a gormet lunch with wine tastings (or water tasting in my case). This was served in the cooperage building - that's where the wine barrels are made from imported oak. This is also an historic winery with several elegant buildings.

Today we needed 2 buses to tske us all on our wine tour. First stop was the wonderful Seppeltsfield with many old buildings. The original plan by Joseph and Johanna Sepplet was to grow tobacco but the crop wasn't good quality. They changed to vines and succeeded with the other popular vice of alcohol. It was their eldest son Bruno who expanded the business, and one of his policies was to provide all of his workers with a daily hot meal. For 20 years Seppelts was owned by Fosters. It is now back in private hands, exclusively owned by a South Australian. The buildings have been very well preserved and there sre good facilities for visitors. In the wine tasting area there were hundreds of certificates from shows over the decades where Sepplelts won a prize for their various wines.

Our first camping site on the Aussie Road Crew SA tour is at Kapunda. This is one of South Australia's oldest towns. It is also credited with preventing the State from going broke thanks to the discovery of copper in the 1800s. Sidney Kidman played a large role in the town's development - he had business dealings and bought large chunks of land establishing the huge Kidman Station. A group dinner was held in the bowling club next door to the caravan park. This is some bowling green - millions of dollars were spent buildig the roof and laying the artificial turf. Netting protects the whole roof from birds - otherwise they could perch on the beams and poop on bowlers from a great height. Dinner was prepared by volunteers from the club, and the food was excellent considering about 70 people were served at the same time. The bar served cheap drinks as it was also staffed by volunteers. Our first concert included Rick Albeck who is Beccy's son. While we were listening to Beccy s

This morning we walked to town for breakfast at the bakery. We carried shopping bags as the new Co-op opened today. It was only the fact that we would have to carry everything we bought back to the caravan that curtailed Anita's spending on the wonderful array of food items. The cheese department is huge and the photo only shows about one fifth of the cheese fridges. A large coffee shop is integrated into the store and for the opening a really good country music singer was performing for customers. We had taken a lot of gear out of the Jeep for its service so had to put that all back today before hitching the Bushtracker. When we entered our code to leave our caravan park for the last time, the boom gate would not open. The staff had not changed the computer to reflect our pre-paid late checkout. This level of security in caravan parks has been made necessary by people who arrive after the office has closed, and leave before any park staff arrive in the morning, without making any

Yesterday evening we ate at the Wanera Wine Bar at Angaston. The setting was a well restored old building and the menu very promising, but the meals were not very good apart from the salad. We walked around the village which has many buildings dating back to the 1800s.

We had to drive 50 kms to Salisbury Park for our Jeep service. While the service was being done we occupied ourselves at a local shopping centre buying a few odds and ends we need for the Bushtracker. Back at our caravan park this cheeky kookaburra was sitting on the clothes line. 

Yesterday we spent the morning doing housework (or should that be caravanwork?). We rewarded ourselves with lunch at Maggie Beer's Farm. Anita indulged buying some of the interesting produce on sale. We actually spotted Maggie Beer in the premises. On the TV news we learnt she had been to court that day to speak on behalf of a friend who had sabotaged a vineyard after he had been sacked. 

There is a pedestrian tunnel passing under the railway line at Coonalpyn. There is no graffiti in the tunnel - instead there is a series of murals painted by local children. This one is my favourite. The idea originally came from a police officer and several organisations supported the project. On the other side of the railway line there is a small off leash dog park. We are based at the Barossa Tourist Park for 3 days. Our Jeep is due for a service so that will happen locally on Tuesday.

Reviews of the Bordertown free camping spot at the Recreation Lake said it was quiet - the reviewers must be hearing impaired! We were 150 metres from the railway line and goods trains passed through after sounding their horns. We could also hear trucks on the highway just the other side of the railway and the noise from the town's gokart track - fortunately our Bushtracker is fairly soundproof. Our coffee stop was at Coonalpyn after we spotted these silos. Since the images of 6 local children were painted on the silos there has been a big increase in vehicles stopping for a look and to take pics. 

We discovered one redeeming feature at the Wantirna caravan park - the floor in the ablution block is heated. Yesterday we had lunch in Kew with our friends from the Viking cruise. This morning we hit the road again and had a couple of unpleasant experiences on the road. The first was caused by an idiot in a red car tailgating a white ute in the lane next to us. The ute changed into our lane to get away from the tailgater, but the idiot followed into our lane barely inches from the back of the ute. My adrenelin surged when the ute driver hit the brakes, presumably in an attempt to cause the tailgater to back off. Unfortunately a Jeep towing a Bushtracker can't stop instantly! The idiot in the red car took the next exit before things got ugly. Our second near miss involved a duck family that decided to cross the highway about 40 metres in front of the Jeep - mama, papa and about 5 ducklings. We couldn't do a thing to avoid them with vehicles behind and beside us, but thankfully

We have stayed 2 nights at the Wantirna Caravan Park. This is well located for visiting the people we need to see, but it doesn't have many other redeeming features. There is controversy about the proposed development of the park for housing. Long term permanent residents set up protest signs outside on the highway, but its hard to imagine they will stop this park from closing. Yesterday we drove to Traralgon to monitor my brother's efforts at reducing his accumulated vehicles and other unidentifiable things. He has made a good start but still has a very big job ahead. Anita caught up with her sister and nephew for dinner. We will be here for 2 more nights before heading to the Barrosa Tourist Park near Adelaide.

Our caravan park at Peak Hill only charges $2  per load for washing and $2  for drying so we put a load through before we left. We passed on the pancakes for breakfast and had a satisfactory egg and bacon roll instead from the Woolshed Cafe in Peak Hill. The Newell Highway is bouncy with many rough spots, particularly in the flood prone areas. We stopped at the information bureau in Forbes which is located in the old railway station. This is a beautifully painted federation brick building. We stuck with the highway till West Wyalong when we followed google maps to wind our way along roads we have not previously explored. Mostly the roads were in good condition and had hardly any traffic. We drove around The Rock which is a rocky outcrop 324 m above sea level. There is also a town named The Rock on the Olympic Highway where we paused for a pit stop. Our overnight stop is at a small caravan park in Culcairn. This small town has 2 banks but only one pub which is only open limited hours. T

I have previously stayed at the Double D Caravan Park in Peak Hill with Coco in the pet friendly cabin. The park is about 400 m off the highway so there is no noise from trucks at night. Each morning the owners provide pancakes for breakfast with tea or coffee. There are birds in aviaries and small horses that belong to the owners. There is a dog off leash area and a doggie day spa where guests can wash their dogs. Most of the sites are drive through so it is easy for caravaners who don't want to unhitch when staying just one night. It is very clean and tidy and the first park we have stayed at that provides bath mats in the showers. It is located in the unfortunately named Bogan Street. I went for a long walk around town and located the first vertical wheat silos to be constructed in Australia in 1918. The small town has 5 churches and 2 schools - a state primary school and a catholic school. All of the shops and service stations are struggling to survive and many of the houses ap

It rained most of the day so we drove slower than we would normally. The Newell Highway has many rough patches due to the huge number of trucks that use it every day and night. Today there were many extra wide loads which probably add to the deterioration of the road surface. A regular pit stop for us is a park in Coonabarabran that has clean toilets, but there are several spider nests that need removing. Geese live in the park and greet visitors in hope of a feed. We stopped in Gilgandra to catch up with our friends. They have signed up for the 2018 Beccy Cole Qld Tour so we did too! We had already planned to go to Music in the Mulga which is where the Beccy Cole tour ends, so we decided we may as well do the whole thing. 

It was drizzling and overcast when we left the Esk caravan park. We drove through Gatton, Grantham and Toowoomba. There is little of interest on the road betwwen Toowoomba and Goondiwindi but we noticed several red and green P plate drivers overtaking us while we were travelling at 100 kph. There were 3 police vehicles at both ends of this long stretch of rural road. We discovered why when we passed a long line of utes outside the Goondiwindi showground - The Plucked Duck is on tonight which is the B & S Ball raising money for charities.  The event website states it is strictly a black tie event, but "Girls" not wanting to wear heels under their frocks can wear boots, volleys or thongs. Sexist stereotyping is well entrenched in rural Queensland! When we refuelled the male attendant asked Anita where were our "better halves"? And no, she did not tell him we were each other's better half.

We took the Bushtracker to Maroochydore for its 10,000 km service. Since we had to be there at 7am we stayed at the same Big 4 caravan park we have stayed at before - more school holidays, so lots of Victorians this time. Next service we will find somewhere else to stay since we don't get a lot of value out of the water slides! Our van was ready by 2pm so we were able to start our trip towards Melbourne. First stop this time is Esk at the only caravan park in town, which happens to be run by two women.  We had dinner at one of the two pubs in town and there is live country music - Adam Kilpatrick who is obviously a local as half the small audience is related to him! His music will not keep us away from our van for long - we have been spoiled by the talent we saw on the Beccy Cole tour.  On 18 October we join the SA Aussie Road Crew Tour. Our first stop will be Moree for the thermal pools. Then we head to Melbourne for a few days before driving towards Adelaide.