Port Augusta

We moved on to Port Augusta yesterday without any high expectations but I immediately took to the place.  It is modern in a small scale way and for the first time in my life I heard a group of aboriginal people talking an aboriginal language.  It was a bubbling sound. 

 I had a small medical problem that needed antibiotics and so we went to the Information Centre to enquire about doctors and we got directions to one which we found easily, and we lumbered to a stop in front of it.  Grant decided to turn the van around for some reason but I, being preoccupied with my quest, didn’t notice.  I leapt out of the van and entered the nearest sliding doors – not exactly like a doctors office but then. I thought, this is South Australia.  A nice young man came up to the counter. “I rang earlier” I said.  “Oh” he said “Who did you speak to” “I’m travelling,” I said “I think it was a Scottish name.”  He looked bemused and by this time I could see everyone behind the counter was looking at me too.  “We don’t have anyone Scottish here” he said and as an afterthought “This is the Centre for Corrective Services” When I explained myself he pointed over the road to the Ghan Medical Centre.  I apologised profusely and thanked him and said I was obviously in need of a bit of correction anyway and left them all chortling in there.  The doctor as it happened wasn’t Scottish anyway but Indian and very nice to me.  And that has been the way in this town, not wealthy but kind and helpful, including the library which has helped me send off this blog.

You get into town by way of a bridge over a generous sprawling waterway called Spencer Gulf.  And the centre of town clusters round a green square with a bandstand in it. There is an Outback Centre with a museum and a video on how Gondwana broke up into continents.  There's a video of Dreamtime stories too, enacted by aboriginal actors which usually end up with people flying into the sky to be stars. I do like this place.

There is a sort of forthrightness about the signs here.  One sign says the police will be called if children hang about the shops when they should be in school.  There is a sign for a Lingerie bar with a professional bra fitter.  I think I might look in.  Grant says it's probably a nightclub but I don't think so as it mentions Mother's Day.

We stop in a cabin in the caravan park as I am slightly under the weather and it is amazing how one appreciates space after living in a little van.  I curl up in the proper bed while G goes to do the laundry.  He comes back with a pensive look on his face. "I met a big black American in there. He asked me where I was heading and I told him and asked him about himself and he said he was working here. He didn't want to say what he was doing. Military? I asked and he nodded.  Don't tell me any more I said or you'll have to kill me won't you.  He didn't laugh."

Today we are off to Port Lincoln where the fish is meant to be nice.  I shall be sad to leave here.