We were off the road and safely ensconced in our nice motel room in Port Pirie when the biggest storm in 50 years hit South Australia yesterday bringing very high winds, torrential rain, lightning and flooding. To be honest it wasn’t really that bad – I can think of one or two summer BBQs in Scotland where the weather has been worse. 😃

As we sat reading and relaxing to pass the day away Susan asked me ‘do you think the power could ever be cut?’ I replied ‘of course’. Right at that moment, that exact moment, we lost all power! I looked at Susan and thought that was blinking clever. ‘What have you done? I asked. ‘Nothing, the power’s been cut!’  Well it just goes to show – I’m right again! 😃

It so transpired the whole of South Australia lost power – that’s an area the size of France and includes Adelaide. Last night we were in total blackout but it isn’t much of a hinderance as we are fully equipped for outback camping -it’s just like camping without the snakes and spiders. So we were quite comfortable in our room drinking wine. Here’s a photo of us enjoying ourselves and coping admirably in the blackout. I did tell Susan to put more clothes on but you know what’s she’s like, a bit of an exhibitionist!

Sorry it’s a bit underexposed (well apart from Susan of course) but it was a blackout.

We walked into town this morning and everywhere was closed due to the continuing power outage. You know it’s pretty serious when the Golden Arches of MacDonalds are blacked out. Dominos pizza and Subway were also shut! Where’s the State contingency planning and why has the army not being deployed to keep those essential services open at a time when people have no light, heating and can’t cook! 

The storm continues and today we are unable to cycle again as high winds and rain are affecting our road south. It’s a reasonably busy main road and our main issue is visibility when the rain is heavy. It actually looks like it will be Saturday before we can safely restart our journey.

In the meantime we are enjoying our enforced rest and I’m able to catch up on my reading and beer drinking. It’s not all roses, however, as Susan has limited me to low carbohydrate beer when I’m not cycling. It’s not easy being a beer drinking layabout cyclist. 

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