Sterling North Caravan Park, Port Augusta, South Australia

Friday August 12th saw us continue our travel East to Port Augusta. The road was good with not a lot of traffic, although the wind had picked up again and was against us. We arrived in Port Augusta before lunch and checked into the Sterling North Caravan Park. This is a fairly old park but the price was right at $20/night for a powered site. The park is in a good location and could be quite nice with a bit of renovation and maintenance. That being said we are self contained so really the older facilities didn't bother us. The amenity block needed a good clean so will only give 2 Stars for this one.

We got settled in before heading out our separate ways to do some shopping. We attempted to find an inlet valve for the caravan as the flow has become poor again. No luck but we were given a place that sold caravan parts that might have them. We did a bit of grocery shopping at Woolworths and some women's clothing stores. Returned to the van for an easy evening.

By Saturday morning the plumbing situation was worse so I headed out again to search for the part. The recommended place knew exactly what I needed but unfortunately hadn't picked up their order from their supplier on Friday. As luck would have it the supplier was closed over the weekend so we decided to wait in Port Augusta till Monday. Sandra kept busy with several loads of laundry using our tanks and pump to get enough water supply. I needed to fill the tanks a few times to keep them full.

Sunday morning we took a trip out to the Arid Botanical Gardens. Quite different as focuses on plants that thrive in the outback. The gardens were very nice but needed some weeding and maintenance. We were disappointed that there weren't any Sturt Dessert Peas out in bloom.  Sandra found a few souvenirs at the Gift Shop there. On the way back we stopped off for lunch. The restaurant had quite a few Gluten Free options and the girls enjoyed some nice meals. Rans and I did OK as well with the standard offerings. We spent the afternoon doing some more cleaning and computer work with a bit of relaxation thrown in.

Monday morning I was up early to fill up with Diesel and be at the caravan place when it opened. They were really helpful and went over to the supplier first thing to pick up the part. I bought a new sullage hose as well as ours was falling apart. Returned to the caravan park to replace the valve only to find out that the non return function didn't work. Back to the caravan place where they confirmed that the part the supplier had given them was different than their last order and not non return. After some to and fro with the supplier they came up with a solution where I purchased a separate inline non return value. This solution worked a treat and solved our problems. A big shout out to Port Augusta Caravan for their help. We were delayed a bit by the whole process but luckily we were only planning to travel some 60 Km to our next destination.