$200 for an Avocado!

gomezhome ♦ 06/03/2022 ♦ 3 Comments

It’s Friday and we’re at Port Lincoln. The photo above was taken about 50m from where we are staying in Tank – in the caravan park. Beautiful and peaceful.

This morning, Sir and Madam came to the Tank Cafe (we’ve been downgraded from restaurant status – must be the service). The customers do seem to be enjoying their turmeric lattes, though. 😄 Then there’s play time in the park afterwards.

We’ve met some interesting characters on this trip.

Gad in Madura, WA was on his way back to Perth after living for 3 years in Sydney. After crossing the WA border, he had to get back to Perth in 48 hours to go into isolation for 7 days (covid precaution), even though he was triple vaccinated and just had a negative rapid antigen test. He still had 1250km to go. A long drive on your own.

“Shirl” (nickname since he was a kid) ran the store in Penong. Penong is still on the Nullarbor and in South Australia. He used to be a long-distance truck driver and clocked up 8 million kilometres! He used to do the drive from Melbourne to Perth, 3400km, in 36 hours – non-stop! And he did it every week. I don’t know how. That was until he had a serious accident when he rolled the truck, close to the edge of a cliff. It was a mechanical failure, and it was a miracle he survived. Now he sometimes gets “cabin fever” in the store “because there are too many women.” Still, he looks out for the needy in the town and provides them with food daily.

Then, there was Dave in Venus Bay. I was looking bewildered with the fishing tackle and trying to find something that would catch me some whiting. I picked up a couple of things, then Dave came up. He asked me what I was after, then said to put the tackle I had picked up back. He’d tell me what I needed (in a nice way) and show me how to tie the rigs. True to his word, later, we were having whiting and chips for dinner (the nearest I got to any whiting 😉) and Dave came up, asked if it was OK to join us. He produced some fishing line and swivels and then showed me how to tie paternoster rigs. He also left me with a few bit of tackle – so kind. Dave taught ceramics at the University of South Australia. It was obvious that he was a good teacher.

Oh, and the avocado? Gad told us that when he crossed the border fro WA into South Australia, the quarantine inspector found 2 avocados in his fridge and fined him $400!

So good to interact with other people’s lives.