Kimba CP. About 15 powered sites but lots of room for others. The town has a beaut Showgrounds free camping area, where the dump point is. The bowls club is close to the Showgrounds too. To be honest, if we hadn't had a totally full freezer we'd have been better off at the Showgrounds.
We went to Kimba on the invitation of two bowling acquaintances whom we met at Clare's Four-Day Tournament. Peter and Aggie from BHAS at Pt Pirie needed another pair so we thought we'd make Kimba our first stop intead of Streaky Bay. That changed radically our steps and later made a big difference, as you will see.
The Kimba tournament was a rollicking success for the Kimba Club and their sponsors, especially the pub. New owners there Ian and his wife are young and extremely able at presenting great meals, and the majority of the bowlers dined there, where they were given a whole room to themselves. These bowlers came from Geelong, Hope Valley, Victor Harbor, the Riverland as well as Pirie, Clare and the 'locals' from Pt Lincoln, Streaky Bay and so on. Noisy?! Full of stories, lies and wine? Yep. The Hotel - Motel is a story in itself, the result of fifty years of boom seasons and drought. The Mods and additions were cobbled together with enthusiasm more than cold, hard economic logic, and today there are still some memorial rooms, dark and empty. But there are now some festive ones too, as we recounted the joys of Four End Madness. This is where your four takes on another for four ends and then moves. Lightning Bowls! We did really well, beating almost everyone... but our last two sets of four were disastrous, so no champagne tonight.
Next stop was Fowlers Bay. A town steeped in SA history and in a genuinely remote location, hence a lousy road in - being worked on right now - and a small but sea-side CP. No IT or phone cover, power by gen, solar and wind and water at a trickle. This translates as you slowly fill your tank with water and pump it to your shower; use one electrical device at a time and smile as you hand over enough cash per day to have the real thing. Zan took three overload switches to get a jug for coffee before we switched to gas.
The town was totally magnificent. It was named by Matthew Flinders for his first Lieutenant, later Admiral Andrew Fowler. The town has existed without ever thriving, the weather often keeping ships waiting. Legends abound re fishing, but 'you should have been here last week / month / year/ decade now are circulating. The towering sandhills loom over the lot, the steel-pile jetty bravely pointing out to sea where one might catch squid or better.
But as often happens when you have just a couple of days by the sea, the wind can blow for all of it and delete half the fun. It did. We left.
We really thought that Fowlers should be worth a longer, more dedicated stay, and it would be great to have two or three sets of people. And a decent compressor for re-inflating tyres after a sand-dune climb or two, and a generator. And then go free-camping behind the sand hills. And sit in a heap on the jetty and catch a feed. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment