Bubble & Squeek

 Road To South Australia

We decided today that staying at caravan parks is not really worth the money unless you are leaving the van there for a whole day unprotected. all your really paying for is a toilet and shower which are not always great anyway. all the grey nomads and caravaners stay at the free stay areas which allows more money for tourist things and other enjoyable things. because the next few days are fairly boring areas, that's what we will be doing. Up early and off we go. On the road by 9ish and we are going to push for a place called Bordertown in South Australia. This is the first town on the entry to SA.  These very flat roads are quite uninteresting as they travel through mostly farm land and flat country. a lunchtime stop off to break our trip was at Charliegarke lake. Nobody at this stop off at all. it is like an abandoned lakeside campground. Only a couple of old abandoned caravans and a broken down kiosk. Looked like a scene out of a plague movie where everything had been left behind. Very flat and open but right by the lakeside which was quite nice. there is plenty of tap water available (non drinking of course) so heather suggested we wash the van to get rid of some of the road grime and dust we have gathered. What a great idea. see video.Washing a very small mobile house

Bubble & Squeek

 if you click the 'you tube' logo the video will play larger

   Being such a large span of water i thought it might be a good idea that i throw in a line to see if there are any fish around but a local later told us that the lake had dried up only 3 years prior due to drought and so no fish at all existed here. maybe some yabbies would be around but as you see in the video there aren't even these little creatures hanging around.

The Big Koala

Grampians at a distance

Charliegarke lake sand castles

Kaniva Entry sign - very Australian

Finally at the South Australian border

Our first SA campsite. - Poocher Swamp

     Back in the van after a couple of hours rest and play with the girls, we head for Bordertown. We made our destination at about 5pm and quickly set up at another free stay camp area called of all things "Poocher Swamp". A little breezy and raining as we entered the free camping ground. Again no-one around. This is actually a game reserve for duck hunting, very rough looking surroundings but enough for our night stay. after all we are only sleeping here not site seeing the area. Quite cold and the Gas stovetop is our heater for the cold nights. Works quite well.