We had a relaxing morning at our campsite. Breakfast was cooked on the campfire, and Nathan updated his diary and blog. The kids rode around, played in the dirt and had a hit on the pole tennis. We drove into town after lunch, did a load of washing, grabbed a few things at the supermarket, got some ice and then went to Steamtown where we bought the tour and the lights show.

The tour was great. They had a roundhouse with different engines and carriages that we could look through. The guide told us lots of interesting history about the trains and the general workings of a train town. There were steam engines, Diesel engines, passenger carriages from various times, a maternal and child health carriage, carriages with beds (one had the kids’ bed virtually in the ceiling of the train which the kids thought would have been a great place to sleep) and a very fancy, spacious carriage complete with piano! After the tour we wandered around an area which you could explore without a guide. Nathan was pretty impressed with a train carriage that had a zigzag hallway with tiny compartments for one person.

After Steamtown we took the kids to a playground and had a counter meal at one of the pubs before heading back to Steamtown for the lights show. It was essentially a movie about the history of trains in the district, and how they related to other South Australian and Australian railways. The whole rail gauge issue, in hindsight, seemed like such a waste of time and effort, having to move people, stock and goods between trains where the rail gauge changed. Nathan found it really interesting, Toby didn’t want to but he fell asleep. I thought it was really well done.

While we were having the tour of Steamtown Andrew fell down some steps and hurt himself. We are hoping that there is no serious damage, but his arm/elbow is pretty sore at the moment. Our good camera, though, is now out of action, as it hit the steps quite hard when Andrew fell.

Breakfast

A grasshopper-like bug

Loo with a view, toilet at our campsite

Snacktime

Roundhouse and turntable

Zigzag hallway in a carriage

Interesting bug in the light on our tent

We thought about spending two nights at our campsite in the Morgan Conservation Reserve, but in the end we decided to push on. Our destination is the Flinders Ranges, but it really was a lovely spot we had.

We drove to Burra and went to the town and copper mine lookouts, had some lunch and kept going to Peterborough. This town has a steam place that Toby has been looking forward to, and the tourist information centre was in an old train carriage. That was pretty exciting for the kids, but it got even better when Andrew pointed them in the direction of an old steam engine they could play in.

We decided to stay a couple of nights at a property about 15 km out of Peterborough called Willangi. We paid at the tourist information centre, though the lady who served us didn’t seem to know a great deal about it and actually asked why we wanted to go there (according to her there was nothing there and lots of creepy crawlies). As far as we were concerned, the local caravan park wasn’t our style and there seemed to be no decent free camping places nearby.

So we followed our map out to the property and followed the signs on the property to the shed campsite, which is the one we were told to use as the others weren’t currently in use. We met Neil at the shed and he moved the mob of sheep that were in the paddock somewhere else, but even so we were disappointed that there was little shade and loads of fresh sheep poo around. Still, we’d paid so we started setting up the camper when a lady drove up to tell us that she had just received her message that we had come for two nights and they usually put campers for multiple nights in a different camp. It had more shade, no sheep poo and a dry creek bed for the kids to play in. We decided to pack the camper back up and move, and it certainly was a much nicer site. They supplied some wood so that we could have a fire, which we made use of and cooked our dinner on it and also had the obligatory marshmellows afterwards. We looked at the stars and listened to the wind in the trees, Andrew took some photos of the stars, and we went to bed. Ahhhh, the peace and quiet of no mobile coverage.

Playground in Morgan

Old open cut copper mine at Burra

From the open cut mine lookout

Yet another steam train to play in, at Peterborough

The human Venus fly traps

Trouble for one

Dinner

Campsite