Four nights of free camping

In four different locations. And there will be many more.

I know it's only been four nights, but first impressions are that Australia is a free camper's dream. Yes, there will be special times where we know that we will have to pay for our overnight spot (National Parks?), but most of the time we don't see any need to pay to park somewhere overnight.

Remember yesterday, I mentioned that Australia is only slightly smaller than continental United States? The massive difference is that the U.S. has 330 million people. Australia has 26 million. Yes, less than 10% of the population of the United States.

So when you figure in the relatively sparse population, and the fact that most areas are very RV friendly... you have a winning combination.

Here's where we woke up this morning.

Unfortunately a rainbow is a sign of.. well... rain! It had rained heavily overnight, and it was also our coldest night yet. We still didn't unpack our heater yet, but we were really close!

Instead, we packed up and drove the short distance into the town of Meningie (pop 1,300).

They have a pretty waterfront area on Lake Albert.

Australian pelicans.

We used the nice pubic toilet facilities, and visited the tourist info center to pick up some maps of towns along the way.

Heading out, we decided on the route taking you through the Coorong National Park. It's a fairly desolate area, with a few unserviced campgrounds that cost $12 per night. With so many free options, we don't see the point in paying. We drove through one of the empty campgrounds to find out that most people apparently agree with us.

Very few vehicles out and about.

We took some gravel roads.

This particular national park has no fees unless you overnight.

It's a remote, desolate area.

Does Ruth look cold?

Well, it was our coldest day yet. High of 11C (52F) and windy. But at least the sun came out... occasionally! Check out the tree in the photo above. I think it is always windy here!

We carried on to the community of Policeman's Point. No idea where the name came from. We parked at a trailhead (another place where we could have spent the night) and went for a walk...

The sun came out for a few more minutes. 

This is an inland waterway, but still affected by the tide.

Ruth, with the odd shoreline.

We didn't come here specifically for this, but we found that the shoreline at one section has some really odd rock formations. Very strange.

On the other side of this sand dune is the ocean. 

We think this is a wombat.

So we're driving along this dirt road, and we see what looks to be a big rock near the side of the road. We realized as we got closer that it was an animal of some kind. We think it was a wombat, and it may have been alive. Hard to say, because you can see from the photo that several other vehicles had gone around it to avoid it, so it had been there for a while. Still, we both thought it was alive when we drove by.

We pulled into the roadside parking area called "the granite".

Once again, we could have stayed overnight.

But it was really windy.

The Granite gets it's name from the five odd granite rocks at this part of the shore.

It was too windy, so we carried on to the town of Kingston SE where we had seen a couple of different overnight possibilities. 

Larry the lobster lives in Kingston SE!

We also put in some expensive diesel fuel here, at $1.55 AUD ($1.50 CAD) per liter ($4.12 USD per gallon). Only enough to get us to Mount Gambier where it is ten cents a liter cheaper!

The town has an RV parking area with bathrooms, fresh water, and a dump station. But no hookups, which we don't need anyhow. But it costs $10 AUD a night. Not that it's unreasonable, but why pay $10 a night when there is are so many free options?

In fact, only 6 kms (3.7 miles) down the road is a free camping place at Pink's Beach with parking and washroom facilities.

We headed down there.

This beach is a two minute walk from where we are parked for the night.

We picked up a few pretty sea shells.

Yes, we are still bundled up, but the wind is dying down.

Sunbeams.

There was a kangaroo on this road one second ago!

We had walked along the beach for a kilometer and a half or so, and then back along that dirt track. There is another great free camping spot at the end of that track. Maybe we will head there tomorrow night. We'll see.

In the meantime, this is where we are parked for tonight.

GPS -36.872970, 139.814406

We actually put on some miles today!

Today's drive, 170 kms (104 miles).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice price drop on the Anker PowerCore External Smartphone Battery Pack.

And in Canada...

Handheld Oral Irrigator Water Flosser