6 December 2017 Adelaide to Port Victoria SA
Our big decision this morning was, do we go to the last day of the first ever day/night Ashes Test Match at Adelaide Oval, or go get the caravan and head up to Port Victoria.
With England sitting at 4/176 and only 178 runs from a win, it was a hard call, but we decided on Port Victoria.
After packing the car, doing some shopping for supplies and picking the van up from getting serviced, we were on the road by 11:40am, the cricket was due to start at 2pm.
We had a smooth run north, even allowing for a few puzzling gps directions from our car, why go straight ahead when there are a few perfectly good corners to go around and more traffic!
We arrived at Port Victoria at around 2:40, the English started loosing wickets just as we got onto Yorke Peninsula and our decision was looking good.
By the time we almost had everything set-up England was all out and we had won the Test Match. 6 wickets lost in less than a session!
The caravan park here has been jam packed full every time we have come up here in the past, but today it was very empty. The wind was up a bit, it is cool and cloudy.
After we were done setting up we took a walk out on the jetty. The jetty has only recently reopened after it was destroyed by storms a couple of years ago. It looks exactly like it did before and there were squid ink marks up the length of it, things were looking good. ?
After we came back in I got my fishing gear out, set up a couple of rods and then walked out to try my luck. Try my patience would have been a better call, nothing, zip, nil …… not a sign of fish life in all that water. There were around 6 others out trying their luck all with the same joy as myself. I lie, as I wasn’t returning to our van I saw a man putting a very small squid into his bucket, yes he had just caught it and it wasn’t bait! At that size you would need a dozen to make any sort of meal out of it.
We had BBQ chicken (store bought) for tea and then settled in for our first night.
7 December 2017 Port Victoria SA
We both had a great nights sleep, unusual for us on the first night away in the van, and woke around 7:30am.
By the time I dragged myself out of bed, had breakfast and a coffee (or 2), it was 8:45 before I was out on the jetty wetting my line in anticipation of a good mornings squidding. The sun was almost out (I am sure it was up there somewhere behind all that cloud), the wind had died down almost completely and the jetty had fisher persons on it! The signs were looking good.
After an exhilerating 1 1/2 hr a few spots of rain warned of the incoming squall, so I bid an unhurried retreat back to the van, fishless! From what I saw the only catch was a small Port Jackson Shark (2ft) and the woman with it on her line was perplexed how she was going to save her rig with a light line and the shark about 10ft below.
After lunch we headed into Maitland. It’s a typical country town, wide streets lined by lots of old buildings, many dating back to the mid 1800’s. We parked and had a walk around town, finishing up in the local Market Shed. It is literally an old shed that has a series of small stalls where individual locals sell their produce, with a range of goods from wooden items, knitted goods, jams and preserves, books and more knitted stuff. We left empty handed and went to the local IGA supermarket to get our supplies.
We drove back to Port Vic and had a relaxing afternoon hiding from the howling wind that was blowing outside.
Deb put together a delicious cheese platter for tea and we sipped some red wine with it.
