Semaphore Beach, SA
Semaphore Beach, SAWe left the Barossa to return to McLaren Vale for Womad.
Took a sentimental detour to RAAF Edinburgh 20 years after we delivered the Ground Support Facility for P3C Orion aircraft which we had built in Sydney and delivered to RAAF Edinburgh in a convoy of eight oversize semitrailer loads plus eight escort vehicles. The trip took five days because we travelled at 50 kph and only during the day.
Stopped at the Edinburgh City Centre which could have been any shopping mall in Australia and which was inhabited by urban Australians who are intent on satisfying their own needs but who take little or no care for the people around them.
We decided to stop overnight at Semaphore Beach. It must be a beach because it is made of sand and is bordered by the sea. In all other respects it is not a beach. The sand is hard enough to drive on and vehicles are allowed. The waves are a few centimetres high. The smell is more effluent than ozone.
It make one feel particularly privileged to have lived on the peninsula where beaches are beaches, well mostly.
Every day brings new experiences. Today we met the Scandinavian Bakery in the caravan park in a small van and doing very brisk business. It makes one proud to live in the clever country.
In the caravan park we met Maurie and Lauris Williams (CMCA Member No N2524) who bought a 28 ft Winnebago last November and have sold the house in Colyton in the lower Blue Mountains and are now real Grey Nomads. They have been motorhomers for some years but only on holidays and long weekends. The layout of their Winnebago is quite strange as the back eight feet is the bedroom, just forward of this are the kitchenette and bathroom toilet, then the door and two swivel armchairs with a table between on the near side, and a three seater settee on the off side, no dinette. Over the cab is a big TV with a slide-out single bed underneath. To my way of thinking the extra room for sleeping results in too little room for living. Clearly, each person prefers a different compromise. I think our layout is much better but then I don't have any trouble climbing into and out of bed . . . yet.