Port Augusta

We're in Port Augusta, at the top of the Eyre Peninsula, the lands of the Barngarla people. Port Augusta's the place where all senior nomads like us stock up on supplies before heading "up the guts" towards Uluru and beyond; or across the Nullarbor.

In our case Port August has the last Coles, Woollies, and pet store for nearly 2000kms so we have been doing a bit of shopping. Bearing in mind we have to eat all our fresh fruit, veg and honey before we can cross the WA border. And that's still well over 1200kms away from the next decent supermarket. Needless to say all of Loretta's crevices are packed with stuff to sustain us until we the reasonably big smoke again.

Port Augusta's not really known for its tourist attractions, but it does have a nice view of the distant Flinders Ranges, and is home to the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Gardens. Australia's arid lands produce thousands of plant species that have adapted to thrive in extreme temperatures and prolonged droughts. The Arid Land Botanical Gardens were established to conserve and understand these unique flora and arid zone ecosystems.

The gardens are dispersed across Port Augusta and we took a few strolls through those surrounding our campsite. To our untrained eyes, the plants looked a bit scrubby and unspectacular, but I'm sure there's plenty there to excite a botanist.

We roll on tomorrow, laden with all sorts of goodies that in reality, would probably last us several months rather than the week or two we'll take to get to the other side. But better to be safe than sorry, as the Labs always say.

Here's a few uninspiring photos, including one of the Labs looking like two hairy little Hannibal Lecters, test driving the muzzles designed to stop them being poisoned by the nasty 1080 baits that are all over WA. If they look unimpressed, it's because they are.