We did the 200 odd km to Ceduna, fuelled up, did a circuit of the town and, because we were a few days early, we booked in to the caravan park on the foreshore right in the town. This is a pretty nice place and isn't too expensive.
We went into town to replenish supplies having had to dispose of ALL fruit and vegetables under the state quarantine regulations.
To celebrate our return to civilization, we had dinner in the pub. The fish of the day was local Orange Roughy and very nice too.
We thought we should do the mandatory sightseeing so we headed off down the coast road. It turned into a pretty rough gravel road, so we returned to the bitumen and drove to Smoky Bay. This is a real one horse town. It has one shop, one caravan park, one pier, and one beach, and that's it. We saw all the sights and bought some food to keep us going.
On the way back into town, we took a little diversion to Laura Bay which isn't a town at all but rather a nice Conservation Park on a headland overlooking the Nuyts Archipelago. We saw a fair number of water birds including, to my surprise, Black Swan which I thought were exclusively fresh water dwellers.
On our return to Ceduna, we visited Thevenard, which is the local grain handling port. Its pretty much like all other such places except that one gets a good view of the archipelago. One of the information boards reminded us that these islands are the site of Lilliput in Gullivers Travels. While the local legend has the islands inhabited by giants, Swift took a little writers privilege and, in the interest of his political satire, had them inhabited by little people.
The airconditioner has failed and I found a local guy able and willing to mend it. Unfortunately, the compressor is cactus (again) and the nearest replacement is in Sydney. It will be put on the overnight bus to Adelaide tomorrow and, if all goes well it will be fitted before we have to head off to Adelaide.
I found a laptop internet connection in the Tourist Info Centre and was able to download the new version of iCab and to update the web site, all for $1.50 (plus the call cost which goes on my telecard).
After breakfast, we moved to the racecourse site. There were a couple of motorhomes already there and we chatted and waited for the organiser to turn up.
By tea time, half a dozen had arrived and we started the process of siting people on their pre-allocated sites.
I went into town to buy a paper but forgot to take money so all I could do was fill up with rain water from the supply installed by the town for the use of travellers. This place is very friendly. Not only do they provide water and a public dump point, but all the people serving in the shops greet you with a smile and even say hello in the street if they recognise you from an earlier visit. The town has obviously done a lot of cleaning up for the Festival but even so, this is a really nice place.
I spent most of the day doing parking duty. We had fewer people in than expected but there was some shade ( the temperature reached the old ton) and the wind wasn't too bad.
Because it was so hot, we decided to have dinner in town and one of the ladies who had been working all day on the desk, a solo, came with us. The bowling club was not doing dinner so we tossed a coin and chose the pub rather than the Chinese restaurant. The meal was excellent, the airconditioning was working and the g&t was really refreshing.
After we got back to the Motley, the wind got up and caused quite a bit of grief. The fridge kept blowing out so I had to put on the generator so that I could switch to the electric element. Then the gas ran out in the middle of the night and I had to go out and change over to the full bottle. Finally the thermometer battery died but the display kept on showing a high temperature even though the sensors were not working. When I replaced the battery, I was pleasantly surprised that the fridge was indeed working again and we weren't going to lose a freezer full of food. All is now back on track and I guess I'll recover from a very poor night's sleep.
Went into town to shop and took one of the other ladies. We also visited the gallery and the Aboriginal Arts Centre - both very good.
I happened to meet the airconditioning guy in town and he gave me the bad news that the compressor had not got out of Sydney. I'll have to get the repair done in Adelaide or Sydney.
The weather was a fair bit cooler with less wind but if it doesn't improve we aren't going to see the eclipse.
We still have less people than expected so there will probably be a rush tomorrow.
Happy hour was organised and most people gathered in the club room for drinks and chats.
Most of the day was spent attending to the newcomers. I did go into town briefly to buy beer and to take another couple in to shop.
The weather started very overcast but it cleared later so maybe we won't be disappointed tomorrow.
There was a presentation about the eclipse by a CMCA member who is an amateur astronomer and avid eclipse chaser. The Benekes, who were on his bus tour to Ceduna, came out with him and we entertained them to morning tea before dropping them back in town.
As the weather look very unpromising with lots of clouds, we decided to watch the eclipse, if it was going to be visible, from the camp site. This nearly didn't work out as we had slightly different cloud cover to that in the town. In the event, we all had a view of totality through some cloud. We didn't get to see the full glory of the corona but we saw the chromosphere and the prominences and we saw Bailey's beads which was tremendous.
The experience of the eclipse was all too short but I'm extremely glad we made it as we might not get another opportunity. Being optimistic, we might still be on the road in ten years time when the next eclipse is due in Cairns.