Port Augusta

Posted On November 10, 2012

First stop of the day was Lake Hart a salt lake. Both of us have never seen a salt lake before and it was quite impressive to walk on the dry and salty underground . A unique experience for sure.

Lunch stop was at Woomera. This town was until a few years ago a restricted military side for rocket launches and weaponry testing. A large proportion of the surrounding area is still off-limits but the town itself can now be visited. It reminded us of a ghost town (or a film set where suddenly everybody had left). A small park showed various aircraft and engines and even some parts of the rocket who delivered the first Australian satelite to space (rumors has it that it had 2 kangaroos and a dingo on board). The small visitor center served an unexpectedly good fish platter. Furthermore Kevin was very excited to see that some military optical equipment in the museum had optics from “Kern – Aarau” a company of the town where he lived in Switzerland (he he, go Switzerland once more).

A few hundred kilometers later we arrived at Port Augusta where we for the first time since Darwin saw the sea again. After a walk along the seaside it was time for dinner and some chicken wings.

The next day was another rest day. Besides a late breakfast we visited the botanical garden and had an ice-cream at McDonalds. There are two things about McDonalds which I learnt to appreciated while being abroad. Number one being the free WiFi which is great but very slow (it still puzzles me a bit why every 10 USD backpacker in Cambodia can offer free WiFi while in Australia it’s like 10 AUD for one hour at certain places). Number two are the very clean toilets. Fair enough this is not that relevant in Australia but was (and will be again) very much appreciated in places like China. Besides that I think McDonalds is normally not worthwhile visiting (sorry folks at the former Singapore office ;)).