Day 21 / 2025 - Ceduna to Port Lincoln

The continuing saga of trying to get our fridge repaired, after the Easter Monday public holiday I started to ring around to all the Dometic agents. Started with Ceduna, then Streaky Bay then Port Pierie then Port Lincoln, all saying the same thing, no parts available. The Caravan Repairer in Port Lincoln suggested we try EP Temperature Control in the same town as they may have what you are looking for. I gave them a call and finally we found the part, the only spare left on the planet apparently. So our travelling direction has now changed and we are heading for Port Lincoln at the bottom of the Ayre Peninsula. 

Leaving Ceduna we headed south towards Streaky Bay. We had arranged with the Fridge repairer we would be passing through Port Lincoln on Monday or Tuesday of the following week to pick the part up. This week we were headed for Streaky Bay to stay at Islands Caravan Park for a few days. This park has power so running on gas was not needed. 

We were a day early for Streaky Bay so we overnight stopped at Perlubie Beach. We had heard much about this place as it was a favourite rave on all the caravan travellers You Tube channels. You can either stay on the Beach itself for $20.00 or at Pelubie Park about 300 Metres away for $30.00. We had seen too many videos with caravans being inundated with the high tides on the beach so opted for the Park instead. 

Booking in was relatively painless you can either book online or call the owner who will send you a link via email. Once we had book in we were assigned a site which were quite large. The sites were just dirt but you could see they were trying to develop the park. There were some great facilities such as a camp kitchen, toilets, showers and free WiFi. I think there is more planed, possibly to a park with power and water to sites.

We walked down to the beach itself to see what all the hype was about. There are 20 sites which are marked by pegs above the high water mark. The camp is run by the Streaky Bay shire where you can book online. The beach looks nice and is a safe swimming beach especially for kids as the water is quite shallow for a good distance out. There are some wooden and palm shelters near the toilets which is for day use only. The camping area seemed to be packed with vans of all age, shapes and sizes. The sand can be a bit boggy but all the vehicles seem to get themselves in the out.

Next day we headed for Islands Caravan Park in Streaky Bay. We had stayed here before, it is a nice park with generous sites and top facilities. There are family style bathrooms, a pool and play ground for the kids and a dump point for us that do the walk of shame. There is direct beach access where you can walk down and watch the sunset over the water. There is a free shuttle bus provided by the local pub which picks you up at 5:30PM then drops you back again at the Caravan Park. You can the have a meal and few drinks without having to worry about driving. The meal was typical pub fare although they did forget initially to serve our meals. We just thought they were busy but our order had gotten lost. To be fair they did compensate us with a free drink for the mishap.

After 4 days of relaxing by the beach we hooked up the caravan and headed out again. Our plan was to stop at a low cost camp just short of Port Lincoln for the night then head into town to hopefully get our van's fridge on gas problem fixed. The originally we would just pick up the part and I would fit it further down the track. After talking with the Fridge mechanics I felt it was better that they fit the part as they could confirm the diagnosis and test for any other issues after the fitment. I was happy to pay them for the work as they were the qualified people. We stopped for the night at Marble Range Community Centre near Wangary which is a bout 45 Km before Port Lincoln. This was a nice spot with level ground. You can park anywhere except within 20 metres of any of the main buildings and not on the oval of course. You need to be self contained as there is no facilities to use. Cost to stay was a $10.00 donation.

Early next morning we headed for Port Lincoln excitedly hoping to get our Fridge fixed.  Not operating on gas was curtailing our ability to off grid camp. Dropping the caravan at EP Temperature Control on Windsor Ave we left it to the capable team there, they said they would give us a ring when the job is done. We then headed into town with a short list of tasks to do. Firstly off to K-Mart for some clothes retailing. Next was to find where we could vote in the Federal Election as we would not be home in time to vote there. Once finding the centre there was a bit of a wait as there seem to be a number of us out of towner's lined up to vote. It was not a simple process of just voting, we had to fill out forms and envelopes as our votes would be sent to our local area for counting.

After voting we intended to go for coffee then do some grocery shopping at Coles. It was about then EP Temperature Control called us and said our Van was ready and could we possibly come and pick it up as they had another caravan coming in. Skipping the coffee we went straight onto grocery shopping then off to pick up the van. They had it working on gas when we arrived and we could see the fridge was already down to the correct temperature, Anne was a happy person. It worked out I had correctly diagnosed the problem and they replaced the broken part. Only cost us $460.00 including labour we were quite happy with the outcome.