Day 64 - 8/2/14 – Point Turton -> Weeroona Island SA

Today was officially marked down as travelling day. We had been on the Yorke Peninsulla for a while now and while we have loved every second of it we needed to move on, there is too much to see! Beside the van park is the Jetty and it was already pretty warm by 9:30 so we decided we would pack up and then have a swim before moving on.

There was two pontoons near the jetty with steps leading down so the boys were pretty keen to jump of the pontoons. However once we got there a young lad named Levi was jumping of the jetty. We have been jumping of progressively higher jetties since our first go in Frankston but this was taking it to another level at 5+m. (Don't worry Mum I checked the depth first) I was the first to go and as you can hear from the video I let out a bit of a groan as I felt my stomach approaching my nose. Jacko wasn’t really keen but challenged himself and did a great job. Once the two of us were in the water Sambo had no choice! Somehow we couldn’t convince De to join in the antics.

We headed off in huge anticipation of going to the Thurton Point store to have Witchetty Grubs for Morning tea. They have become a bit of a delicacy in the area and everybody raced about them at the tavern last night so we decided we should have a go. De was a bit squeamish but we agreed it was one in all in! The store has built its self around the grubs and have even trademarked it, the problem is that when when we got there they were all sold out. They were just putting a fresh batch in so we would have to wait 12 minutes! De saw

it as her out but we out voted her 3 – 1 to stay! A dozen minuted later our order arrived in a white paper bag that even had the witchetty grub logo on it. Coming straight out of the oven it was bloody hot, but so not to loose momentum I tore into mine first and to tell you the truth I really liked it. This kind of meat isn’t De’s favourite but she took and bit and was pleasantly surprised. It was wrapped in puff pastry and had ham, mustard and cheese melted around it, and once it had cooled down enough the boys both agreed that we should try and replicate this when we have a chance.

These guys now how to make a treat. They gave us the overview of the recipe but wouldn't give us all of it!

The rest of the day was pretty unexciting as we drove through wheat field after wheat field. We pulled into Maitland to have pies for lunch as because it was so hot (42o) they were closing at 1, so the pies were discounted to $3 each! We pulled into Moonta and Wallaroo for a look and then kept heading north. In the distance we could see a massive plume of smoke so we checked with the CFA and they said as long as we stick to the coast we were safe! Weerona Island is about 10kms north of Port Pirie and as we got closer we could see that the fire was in  the hills about 4 or 5 kms to our west.

It was bloody hot and thankfully the free camp had a cold water shower so we spent the remainder of the evening having a shower in our boardies every 15 minutes to keep our body temp down. As darkness fell you could see the fires and the flashing lights of the CFA trucks that ringed it keeping it at bay from the small town nearby. We were suffering from heat exhaustion in our boardies, and the CFA guys were near the fire and in full kit - Amazing people!

It was completely still so the van was far from comfortable until a breeze blew up around 11pm making it now only unbearable rather than completely unbearable!

We had decided to go to visit the Flinders Ranges tomorrow, but only for the day, as it was going to be comparatively cool at 38oC!