Seaduced's Web Diary - Kingston, South Australia,

Kingston, South Australia,

Seaduced

John & Jane Craven

Mon 2 Feb 2015 23:18

Plan A did not work out quite as well as we had hoped - does it ever? We drove through Coonawarra on our last drops of petrol, and arrived to find that at least the petrol station here was open - being Sunday, a lot of the towns we had driven through had been deserted! We did get a good piece of advice from the attendant though, the campsite here was just outside a huge roadwork area, which would not be obvious on a Sunday and really was not the place to stay, so on we went. The next town was absolutely dead - not a thing moving, but we did at least manage to find a shop that was open selling blankets. Sleeping in the evening has been a challenge to say the least, with the night-time temperature around 10 degrees and sometimes even as low as 8 degrees, sleeping in a tent is not nice. We bought a sleeping bag a few weeks ago in Katoomba, which we open out over the bed, but this has not been enough recently. There are no shops selling blankets, probably due to the fact that it is summer, and a duvet is too bulky to fit in our already overloaded car, so we have had to resort to suing the picnic blanket as an extra layer! We are now however, the very pleased owners of a pale blue merino wool blanket. This sounds a lot grander than it is - the blankets were over $300, so quite dear for a what we hope will only be few nights use, but the shop did also deal in off-cuts sold by the kilo, which is what we now have - brilliant! A good nights, warm sleep was had by both last night.
Kingston is a strange town, quiet as it is the end of season. Most restaurants only open Friday and Saturday nights and we arrived on Sunday - great timing. Also, it is currently so cold and windy that the tourists aren't coming, they have no need to escape the city heat, as there isn't any! The sun is out and the car tells us it is 25 degrees, the hottest we have seen in two weeks or more, but with the wind chill, it is about 15! It is howling constantly. It has been like this for about two weeks apparently, but is due to improve by the weekend - we live in hope!
After spending an interesting evening in the local pub on Sunday, we went exploring and wine tasting today. There are 3 local wineries with open cellar doors. We had bought wine from 2 of then yesterday at the bottle shop, so stopped first at the third one, Robert Fowler Wines. We got some great red wine, I am even getting converted to Australian Shiraz whilst I am here. We also went to Cape Jaffa winery and bought some sparkling and rose wine - a good day all in all. While we were out and about, we also went to the next town, Robe which, with the benefit of hindsight, is where we should have stayed, a much nicer town, but again with limited open shops and cafes at this time of year. I can't imagine what these places will be like during winter!
Local food and produce is also a big thing here. We stopped of at a local farm shop and bought homemade muntrie and qoundong jam, two local fruits, the first are small blackcurrant sized fruits that taste of apples, the local native apple, and the second is a local peach type fruit. Having never heard of either of these fruits or some of the others they were growing and using, we made sure to taste all products and walked out with a good selection.
Due to the wind we had to collapse the gazebo - it just wasn't going to make it, and we are once again eating in camp kitchens. This has happened to us more often than not on this trip for various reasons. Here it would take at least half an hour to boil a kettle for tea on an open gas stove outside! At the last place we put the kettle on before starting to dismantle the tent and had nearly finished by the time it boiled.
Tomorrow we are off to Adelaide. A day earlier than expected, but this is meant to be fun, not an endurance test, or so I keep telling myself. Two nights in a luxury hotel, followed by a week on our train tour will be bliss. Camping again afterwards may not seem quite so appealing.....