Today wraps up our time on the Yorke Peninsula as we head to Clare and the Barossa for some wine and food tomorrow. Before we get into all that good life we thought we should complete our trek up the Spencer Gulf. Having done lots of work in the region 25+ years ago, I had a fair idea what to expect, but sometimes the passage of time can distort our views (we hope).
We had a quick look around the Wallaroo town centre and had breakfast at a nice coffee shop called ‘The Smelter’ in keeping with the copper mining theme of the area. From there, we drove north to Wallaroo’s North Beach and followed the road along the coast as long as we could until the roads ran out. There are some beautiful beaches and stunning coastline set off by the brilliant blue waters all the way up the gulf.
We were on the main highway from there on. We passed another wind farm on on top of Barunga Range. There are 27 turbines in this project, generating 56 Megawatts which is enough to power 33,000 homes. This project was completed in 2010.
It had been over 25 years since I had been to Port Pirie a town not only famous for being a permanent Top 10 listing in ‘Shit Towns of Australia’, but also a a major grain port and home to a metals smelting facility. This facility was upgraded with a government grant to reduce emissions, but the blood lead levels in residents are still elevated. It was originally run by BHP because there was a direct rail connection from Port Pirie to Broken Hill. As usual Deb did her search for churches, but mainly found churches that had been converted to cafes or fish and chip shops.
So the bottom line here was that not much had changed. The shops were largely pretty run-down and the clothing stores were more like 2nd hand stores. On the other hand there are still a few amazing heritage buildings, but on-balance I think Port Pirie will stay in the aforementioned top 10 for some time.
Lastly, did any one famous come from Port Pirie? … well apart from Adelaide Crows dual premiership captain Mark Bickley and Melbourne Demons star Mark Jaymar, Port Pirie also gave us Robert Stigwood, producer of bands such as the Beegees and Cream as well as the stage productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Our next stop 20 kilometres up the road was Port Germein, which is another of the now-defunct ports that have been displaced by railways that we have visited. The jetty was built in 1881 and was the longest in the southern hemisphere at the time measuring some 1,680 metres. I popped up the drone, which again was a bit scary in the gusty conditions, but it does show how shallow Germein Bay is.
Being only about 60 KMs short of Port Augusta, and the fact Deb had never been there we decided to make a quick visit. It is unlikely we will choose to make a return trip. Interestingly, on the way we passed the Sundrop Farms facility. This is a large private equity funded wind and solar power generation project combined with a desalination plant and 20 hectares of hydroponic tomato production that is a partnership with Coles. It is only by driving past you get a full appreciation of some of the renewables related projects in South Australia. It’s also quite poignant that Port Augusta had some large coal-fired power stations as recently as 2015.
Once in Port Augusta, I remembered that the main reason for the town existing is as Australia’s crossroads, between Darwin, Perth and the eastern states. It has many of the major machinery and trucking distributors and many indigenous service providers are based here. Again a few heritage buildings, but largely a utilitarian town rather than an attractive one.
I did try to find someone famous from Port Augusta, but it doesn’t seem there is anyone … or at least no-one publicly acknowledged.
Until tomorrow
Rob's "Beats Working" Blog 