When I woke this morning the weather was calm but cool, however the streaky clouds in the sky gave a warning of the windy day to come. By the time I had packed and ridden the 20km south to my old home town of Wallaroo the promised wind had arrived and with it dust. Why dust, well much of this part of South Australia is grain farming and for at least some farmers it is ploughing time. So high winds and ploughing makes for dust. And so it continued for much of the day. Indeed the weather was so unpleasant that I did not spend long in Wallaroo just long enough to get a photo of our old family home and another of the two land marks that I remeber from childhood.

Port Germein

After Wallaroo it was simply a matter of pressing on in the face of a strong dusty wind.

Fortunately I found a respite from the wind in the little town of Port Germein. This is an interesting little town. It has a very long wharf (1680m) which was originally used to load wheat onto ships. The jetty is very long because the tide combined with the gentle slope of the beach means that the water recedes a long way during low tide.

Whyalla

After Port Germein the wind and dust continued until after Port Augusta and encouraged me not to stop and look around in PA. Once through Port Augusta the dust subsided and the wind dropped somewhat making for a nice ride into Whyalla.

Tonight will be a room in a Comfort Inn, a US motel chain, and dinner at Maccas.

I will have a look around Whyalla tomorrow morning before leaving and maybe take a few photos to add to this page.