Day 2 Barmera, South Australia to Pochera, South Australia.
Like my last road trip, by this day’s end I was slowly realising I had again made a mis-calculation with the timing of my journey.
Not a major one.
Just a small minor one.
Today’s journey on paper was 7 hours 20 minutes, or 710 kilometres from Barmera to Poochera.
I say minor mistake as when I was planning my journey I optimistically thought I was going to stop and look at lots of touristy sites along the way.
Except that’s not me.
I don’t really have a hankering to stop off at places like the so called “middle of Australia” town of Kimba.
What I actually enjoy is driving and road tripping.
I like being on the road and seeing the landscape roll past.
Although really, I also know my limits, a maximum of 9 hours on the road is really all I think I’m safely capable of doing.
Also in planning my journey I had to take into account time and distance considerations. Especially crossing the Nullarbor. There’s only so many places to stop in at and that cascades back and forwards to determine where and when I could stop.
Poochera appealed because it was on the Eyre Highway and was a pub.
Had I not been able to stay in Poochera I’d thought I would need to detour down to Streaky Bay.
Fortunately I was able to book and get a room the Poochera Hotel, so I knew that was ready and booked.
Lake Bonney, South Australia
But first, departing Barmera.
I had a filling breakfast in Barmera overlooking Lake Bonney, which is a rather glorious large lake there.
Travelling from basically one side of South Australia to the wheat belt of South Australia again made me marvel at its diversity. When I travelled through South Australia last year I marvelled at its range and diversity of landscape and I still marvelled this time.
I found myself wondering if it was because I’d not visited South Australia when I was young.
I’ve never been to the Northern Territory. With the other states I’d visited them when I was younger as a kid or in my teens.
But South Australia is a state that I’ve only visited as an adult, and I wonder if that means I look at it differently, unformed or influenced by childhood thoughts and considerations.
South Australian farmland.
The landscape in particular inspires me, the diversity of it. Travelling west north-west across the state, seeing the farms of canola and grains as I drove along, the farms of sheep and cattle.
How you go through elevation changes as you go from the river through the countryside towards the coast. It’s just a fantastic diverse flowing set of changes across the landscape.
On the way to Poochera I did stop off at one touristy sort of location. Port Germein. Location of “possibly” (although not) the longest timber jetty in the Southern Hemisphere.
I admit I pulled off to Port Germein in part to have a look and in part to have a piss. Not the nicest of reasons to pause on my trip, but I thought I’d have a look once I’d relieved myself.
Driving into Port Germein was something of a surreal experience.
It looked, through my sunglasses very washed out, almost apocalyptic. Even taking them off did not alleviate this vision. It was not helped by seeing a guy driving a horse drawn carriage down the main street. The buggy that he was driving looked like it had once been part of a trailer or something but now was drawn by a horse.
He was talking to someone as he road past, so I am sure it wasn’t some sort of solo driving induced imagination.
Port Germein coast.
Looking at the jetty it is indeed long.
I don’t really have much to compare it to, mentally it’s longer than all the timber piers that I’ve walked along on the Mornington Peninsula, or anywhere else in Australia.
I admit I did not walk along the jetty, because it was extremely long. It’s (according to the information sign) 1,532 metres long.
Too long to walk along on what was a sunny though cold and windy day.
Also while I probably had enough time to walk it...well I didn’t want to.
Port Germein jetty
Following this I travelled north up to Port Augusta, the last major point of civilisation in South Australia.
Leaving there you’re presented with two options, turn right and and head towards Darwin or continue, left-ish heading for Perth.
It was leaving Port Augusta, seeing the, they’re probably not high enough to be called mountains, but hills, gateways almost, signalling that you’re departing one piece of Australia for another.
It was an awesome sight, in the traditional sense of the word, inspiring awe. It made me feel like my journey began at that point.
The way the the road curved around them it looks like you’re passing between two vast gate posts, signalling your exit from civilisation for a moment. In fact, the road just seems to drift off between them and it’s not clear at first even where the road is going.
At this point it looked like it was going to continue being the desert-like rocky landscape, but then it slowly gets greener and becomes farm land once more. Grain silos become the signal that you’re passing through a town, or at the very least an area with some sort of population.
The grain silos are the tallest thing in every direction, they are the tallest thing on the landscape.
They’re also oddly awe inspiring.
Onwards I drove towards my accommodation for that night; Poochera.
Had I not been able to get accommodation in Poochera I would have headed onto to Streaky Bay, which is about an hour away from Poochera and is more of a tourist town being on the coast.
I didn’t, need or want to. Poochera is on the highway. Streaky Bay isn’t.
Poochera Hotel bar
Poochera is a town with a pub, grain silos, a memorial hall, and a train line that runs past it, and not much else.
The Poochera Hotel has standard pub-type accommodation, with shared facilities.
From what I gathered the publicans (they who own / run the pub) live in the pub as well. The outbuildings of the pub are used for storage.
Which I wouldn’t think is ideal.
Not ideal to keeping your business and home life separate.
When I was shown to my room and given the ‘tour’ in the bathroom there were two shower cubicles and I was asked to use the one on the left, only, when later that night I was taking a shower did I realise they (the owners) also used these showers. Again, I wouldn’t have thought ideal to have that situation, living and working around your patrons.
Poochera Hotel bathroom
What I was surprised by was how cold it was at night, actually not even night, just drifting on towards the afternoon it got cold. They provided me with a blow heater, which was efficient at heating the room, and needed.
The pub also got surprisingly busy, well busy enough, especially considering that Poochera is not a large town but it seemed there are active families there.
I appeared to be the only person staying in a room of the pub, there was one other couple staying in a caravan. The pub is also the caravan park for Poochera with space outside. From what I could see I think they were unpowered sites but I honestly did not look too closely.
Surprisingly the price of accommodation ($40) also included a continental breakfast the following morning.
However the following morning I just didn’t really feel like toast of cereal.