A better day was all we could hope for after the exhaustion that caught up with us yesterday. Despite this hope, I was up and out before 8:00AM, hoping to get ‘The Beast’ looked at after the dash lit up again with a warning light yesterday. I’m still not too concerned about it, but want to get a definitive answer, just in case. So I was off down to the local Dodge dealership to plead with the service staff to work their magic for me.

I was relieved when I was told to leave it with them for the day and not only would they take a look at it for me, but also provided me with a loan car so I could still get about. This was a great relief, because it was otherwise looking like I would be spinning the cogs on the pushbike for the day again.

With the benefit of the car, I was left with a bit of spare time before I was needed at the information centre, from which a tour of the ‘Onesteel’ steel works was due to depart at 9:30AM. I had booked myself onto this the other day, after Bec declined my offer of taking her along with me, so I was flying solo for the morning.

The steelworks tour saw a couple of dozen nosey tourists squashing onto a mini bus, for a drive around the enormous parcel of land on which the works resides. Originally a BHP plant, it is now owned by a new parent company and trades under the ‘Onesteel’ name. As well as raw steel, which is transported out by ship or rail, the plant manufactures a range of products, including being the only rail track manufacturer in Australia. Our tour guide took us through the plant, showing and explaining along the way, the sequence of events leading from the arrival of the iron ore from nearby mines right through to the final product. In the past, the plant also had a thriving ship building yard, which was responsible for the construction of 66 ships between 1941 and 1978. It was an informative, if not overly exciting tour.

Touring…

…around the…

…steelworks…

…plant.

Interestingly, my next stop after the steelworks tour was the Whyalla Maritime Museum, which is attached to the information centre where we were to be dropped at the conclusion of the bus trip. The major draw card at the maritime museum is the original HMAS Whyalla. Not only named in honour of the town in which it now finds itself, retired and sitting on blocks, a good two kilometres from the waters of the Spencer Gulf, it was also the first ship to be completed and launched from the Whyalla Ship Yards.

Up on blocks, the HMAS Whyalla.

Before getting onto the 12:00PM guided tour of the ship, I had enough time to take in the surrounding gardens and the actual museum section of the complex. A good part of the museum is dedicated to the 4 war ships that were constructed and launched from Whyalla, all sister ships of the behemoth moored outside. Designated as ‘Corvettes’ their main assignment was as minesweepers.

Inside the…

…maritime museum.

A further gallery showcased displays relating to the other ships built at the yards while a third gallery housed a gigantic table top model train diorama. The miniature trains were zipping up and down the narrow gauge tracks, with the display modeled on the local area, including the loading and unloading areas I had not long toured through at the steelworks. It was all good fun, and I was like a little kid, with my nosed squished flat against the glass leaving oily smudges as I went, while I waited excitedly for the trains to pop out of the shadowy tunnels.

Waiting on the next train to show up.

At the allotted time of midday, I met up with another two couples and our tour guide for the jewel in the crown, a tour of the actual ship. We boarded by a very modern looking stairway erected alongside, but upon stepping aboard, we were transported back to another age. For the most part, the ship has been restored to as close as possible to how it was during its wartime service in the 1940s. The basic nature of the seaman’s quarters was tragic, with only the more senior ratings getting a hammock, with the junior members of the crew sleeping on the hard cold steel decking, maybe lucky enough to get a thin straw filled hessian sack as a mattress. By contrast the officers quarters were almost palatial, while the captains suite of cabins was more than generous.

At the wheel.

By the time I finally made my way back to the van, Bec had not only had time for a generous sleep in, but also managed to knock over a raft of housework that I have been putting off for weeks. That left us with enough time to take the dogs for a walk down along the beach, a treat that they enthusiastically enjoyed.

It was almost 3:00PM by the time I got a call to say that ‘The Beast’ was all in good order, some stray dirt getting into an electrical connector and setting off the warning light. Fingers crossed that a good clean of the connectors is enough to prevent any further reoccurrences. My compulsion to pay for the work was heartily rebuffed by the mechanic though, which I was most surprised at. Despite my insistence, I was sent on my way without so much as a bill, so I must give a big thank you to the staff at Emanuele Brothers, the local Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge service center in Whyalla.

With ‘The Beast’ back under my pilotage, I collected Bec and the dogs to go do what we had planned all along to do here in Whyalla. That means shopping of course. Our first stop was at the ‘Teddy Bear Shed’. It was with almost perverse pleasure that I rang my teddy bear collecting parents as we scoured though shelf after shelf of gorgeous fluffy bears. I am however a little hesitant to admit that we even bought a couple of the furry little critters.

You can see the resemblance.

The big shopping centre was next on our agenda. I’m not too sure who decided that this shopping centre was to be declared as ‘big’, because it is at best a medium sized complex compared to what we are used to at home. It did however have everything you could ask for, although we bought little other than a fresh load of groceries, before our time ran out as the shutters came down, the shops closing for the day. Don’t worry though, because I am sure we will be back for round two tomorrow.

It was back to the van then where we had dinner, before Bec decided to cook up a couple of big trays of lasagna that we can cryovac and freeze. They’ll make for easy meals after a long day on the road. This operation involved her sitting in the cold camp kitchen for over an hour, warming her self in front of the cooker while staring at the oven door. It would have only been half that long, but she had trusted me to switch the oven on to pre-heat it. How the hell was I to know that there was two dials that needed twiddling with to get it working? I think her comment was something along the lines of: “I should’ve just done it myself!”

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.