April 30, May 1 ...Ceduna

I should have known that a very hot afternoon is too often followed by rain. I think we had a top temperature of 20 degrees today and the drizzle increased as we drove west. By lunchtime it was heavily overcast, very cool and constant rain, quite miserable. However, it was a lovely drive and we had some pleasant experiences.
The park in Port Augusta was right near the highway so there was a lot of noise most of the night from the regular road trains. Next time we will try the park near the river as it has to be more quiet. Anyway, we ended up sleeping in and did not get away till 9am.

Iron Knob

Just out of Port Augusta I saw a large flock of emus and have hopes of seeing many more.Our first stop was for morning tea at Kimba, a really nice little town, where we had an excellent coffee. Garry spied a lookout sign so off we went and, as usual, it was well worth it. He is very impressed by the green everywhere, even though I am sure it is just young wheat, but we had to take some photos anyway! It seems that Kimba is also the half-way point when crossing Australia and the Big Galah is the marker for that.
Continuing west we stopped again at Poochera, only to find there was a Bowls Club, Golf Club, flash Sporting Fields, a school and a huge pub ...but no shop. So we called at the servo and a friendly lady there made the freshest and most delicious hamburgers we have eaten in a while.

Green paddocks from the Kimba Lookout

Kimba and the Big Galah

From here we drove straight through, arriving in Ceduna around 3pm. In good weather, this would be a perfect park. It is right on the beachfront, and only 50m from the jetty and the shopping centre. An excellent location. However, it is now quite bleak, and muddy, and the rain is expected to persist for another couple of days. Guess who now has to and dig out all the recently packed away warm clothes!

Ceduna Amenities

Foreshore Caravan Park - Ceduna

What a lovely Sunday morning ... rain on the roof, no hurry to get up, nothing special to do ...and the Sunday papers! Planned to use this as a catch-up day but it seems to have passed without us having done much. We did indulge in a flash lunch at the Foreshore Hotel Motel. Garry had his oysters and the huge serve of calamari was fresh and delicious. Despite the weather, which was showery and cool, we went for a walk along the beach. We plan to come back here and stay longer as it is a really lovely little town and, even though the tourist brochures all say there is not much to see or do here, we love it. It is really picturesque being on the bay and a very nice place to relax in.

Garry: Finished reading "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follett. A sweeping saga of WW!. We both enjoyed it. 7/10

Ceduna

Garry and his oysters!

April 29 ... Port Augusta

I have the Royal Wedding on the radio as a backdrop to my blogging tonight ... much to Garry's disgust as he strongly dislikes all the fuss. It must be a girl thing!

The Flinders Ranges in shades of green

Today was unusual in that we only drove 107kms so we were able to arrive in Port Augusta in plenty of time to have a good look around. We have been very fortunate to have seen the Flinders Ranges at their peak. Apparently this has been the best season since 1974 and this is obvious by the greenness that is everywhere.
For much of the way we followed the railway line from Quorn. This is the Pichi Richi Steam Train route and it is another thing that we have added to the list for next time.
Also along the route we saw a lot of evidence of the early settlers and their small stone houses still look picturesque today, usually with the ranges as a background.

Port Augusta Waterfront

 Once we got to Port Augusta we found the waterfront for a quick coffee after which we headed for the Outback Centre...Wadlata

The Outback Centre

This was an excellent experience. It traced the history of SA from millions of years ago to the present, and it was very professionally done with lots of original film footage and equal consideration given to the Aboriginal perspective.

Water Tower Lookout

After some hours at the centre we moved on to the Water Tower lookout, and some fantastic views of the ranges that enclose the city.

View from the Water Tower Lookout

Lastly we drove out to the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Gardens where we learned a little more about the history of the area in regard to Matthew Flinders, obviously the person the ranges are named after. There are many kms of walks through the "gardens" 200 hectares but it was just too hot. We decided that it had excellent potential but you really needed to go on a guided walk.

The Flinders Ranges from Matthew Flinders Lookout

Sturt's Desert Pea in the Botanic Gardens

 Today was really warm ... and lovely. At 5pm it was 32 degrees !I guess we should expect some warm weather on the Nullabor. Most of our winter clothes are packed away and already I am finding lots of "holes" in my packing.

April 27, 28 ... Hawker

Wednesday morning and it took us about an hour to traverse Adelaide from south to north but we basically just had to follow one road so it was quite easy. As well as a very beautiful city it is also simple to navigate and we enjoyed our stay very much, but it was good to get on the road again.
We stopped at Clare for an early lunch and a restock of the pantry. It was a nice town with some attractive old buildings from around 1880. From here on the countryside just got more beautiful. The Clare Valley is all vineyards and olive groves. They must produce an incredible amount of wine (Riesling) and olive oil!

 As we got closer to Jamestown we got into wheat and sheep country and the towns were more"outback" looking, but still appealing. We stopped and read the story of R M Williams as we had been following his road for some time and his history was very interesting.
 

Around Oororoo we started to see some hills in the distance and these gradually grew as we approached Hawker. I expected a reasonably large town but Hawker has a population of 490, 492 tonight, so it is quite small. The Big 4 is pretty basic but quite okay.

The hills out of Orroroo

                      We went for a walk around town (pretty quick!) and climbed Police Hill to the lookout. 

Hawker

Police Hill Lookout - Hawker

It is really warm here. At 9pm we are still in shorts and T-shirts. The stars look amazing and it is very quiet and very dark, with plenty of mossies and crickets ... so we know we are really in the bush!

At the risk of Morgan laughing at my use of superlatives, I have to say that today (Thursday) was a highlight in the trip so far. Wilpena Pound is certainly an exceptional landform. After completing a fairly long bushwalk I have to say "well done" to Garry and Faye...St Mary's Peak, 1188m and a round trip of 23kms ...how amazing that you two managed such a feat. There is no way that I could do that but Garry has added it to his list for "next time"...we'll see!

Wilpena Pound

 We started this morning with a visit to the Panorma of Wilpena Pound painted by a local artist, Jeff Morgan. It was in a purpose built circular building and it took him over 3000hrs to complete. To paint it, he climbed St Mary's Peak (a 14.5kms walk) and took more than 60 photos to get the 360 degree perspective. Needless to say, it was pretty good, as were many of his other paintings. The one below sold for $22000. It is 5.2m x 2.6m.

"Coopers Creek at Sunset"

Hawker has proven to be a bit of a surprise package. The General Store here is a real Aladin's cave. It has incredible things like huge stuffed tigers for sale and an actual sized, rubber chocolate sponge cake, with strawberries! It looked quite life-like as did all the other fake cakes! There was an endless range of "treasures" and Garry was lucky to get me out of the place.

After this dalliance we started our drive out to the Pound, so called because it is an area completely closed in by ridges except for one pass. In fact, it is a remnant valley floor of a mountain range about 600million years old. It is shaped like a giant crater, 17kms long and 8kms wide.  There were a number of lookouts on the way out and each time we stopped the views got better and better.

Eventually we got to the National Park and had an early lunch before our walk. We chose to do the Hill's Homestead walk and then continue on to the Wangara Lookouts, both lower and upper. It was about 7.8kms and the last bit was pretty steep, but the views were worth it. We also had some close contact with an emu and some kangaroos, neither of which seemed fazed by people at all.
The track wove along the valley bottom through beautiful trees and with glimpses of the ridge line.

Hans Heysen Trees!

It seemed incredible that anyone had ever actually lived in such an isolated area but one family actually grazed sheep and grew wheat inside the Pound for many years. The sheep were their undoing as they grossly overstocked and pretty soon there was no feed left. The house is still in good repair but it must have been a very lonely and hard life. Of course it would have been paradise for the indigenous people as the Pound has a permanent water supply.

This sculpture illustrates a local aboriginal legend.

The Hill's Homestead

After our walk we continued our drive out towards Blinman which is now a SEALED road!! We wanted to see two more lookouts and I would have to rate them as two of the best in Australia ... definitely not to be missed. Hucks Lookout showed one of the ranges and Stokes Hill had a 360 degree view of the whole area ... really spectacular. Because of the scale, there is no way any photo can do it justice but this might give some hint of the panorama.

 

It was now time to call it a day so we didn't meet any of the wildlife on the way home. This was certainly a wonderful experience and we are so glad we made the small effort to take this detour before our trek west.

April 23-26...Adelaide

It wouldn't be me if I didn't have a list of things I wanted to do while I was visiting Adelaide. Fortunately Suzanne is as easy going as her brother so my wishes were willingly met. While we are here we are keen to help Suzanne establish her new garden so we decided to visit some markets and try to buy some cheap, suitable plants. Meadows had an Easter market which was quite good and we spent some time there before moving on to McLaren Vale, where we enjoyed  a delicious almond slice, Port Willungra and finally Hallet Cove. We had read that Hallet Cove Conservation Park was very good for fossils but, whilst we enjoyed the walk, we didn't see any fossils! However, the coastal scenery was exceptional and we fully enjoyed the drive.

The countryside around Adelaide is amazing. We were surprised by the extent of the vineyards, but there are also lots of olives, alpacas and various fruit / dairy / beef  farms. It is also a beautiful city. This morning we went for a long walk around Cumberland Park and every street was lined with trees and the houses were so interesting, many of them being quite old but well looked after with lovely gardens. It seems that Adelaide is full of trees and that must become a bit of a problem in Autumn.

Port Noarlunga

The Murray mouth

A unique "shell" plant

Easter Sunday and another wonderful day of touring the Fleurieu Peninsula. Fortunately today we had sunshine and blue sky, and it was a bit warmer. We headed off to Goolwa first thing and ... much to Garry's pleasure!!! there we found another market. It was a good one too and Suzanne got some great plants for her garden. Goolwa is also a beautiful old town and we had a coffee looking out over the Murray which had sailboats and other watercraft zipping about. Then we drove across to Hindmarsh Island to see the actual Murray mouth which is surprisingly small. The river is so full and healthy looking that I am sure there will be a huge bird resurgence come spring. We stopped at the Flying Fish Restaurant in Port Elliot for lunch and already we know we will have to come back and spend some time there. We then drove on to Victor Harbour and it was another surprising place ... very English, very old, very quaint. There is still a steam train that runs between Port Elliot and Victor Harbour, and there is a old tram that is pulled by clydesdales from the mainland across to Granite Island along a connecting jetty. By now it was getting cool so we decided to postpone the tram experience until our next visit and we headed home.

Monday, Anzac Day ... and we managed to avoid any of the fuss. After a late start we headed to Glenelg for a great lunch at the Surf Club and a walk along the beach esplanade. It is an older suburb and reminded me a lot of Manly except the beach is not as nice.Again the weather was excellent but we were surprised to see so many people swimming ... it was only about 21 degrees and there was a cool breeze! That night, Garry's second cousin Derry joined us for dinner and we had a very pleasant evening.

Tuesday was "garden" day and, unfortunately, Adelaide soil contains quite a bit of clay so it was not as easy as Garry was hoping. After some hours of pretty good exercise we had all the plants in and the trellis up ready for the passionfruit. Our contribution was a lemon tree aptly named "Lots of Lemons" and we hope it is also an accurate one. The rest of the day was spent in generally getting ready to move on tomorrow. It has been a wonderful few days and we will have to plan to get back this way soon as there is so much we still want to see. We have seen lots of lovely places and enjoyed many delicious meals, plus we will need to check up on this garden!

The horse drawn tram at Victor Harbour

Lunch at Glenelg Surf Club

April 22...Adelaide

We made a few phone calls and quickly realized that it would be hard to find somewhere to stay in SA because of the school holidays, so we decided to travel through to Adelaide and we were able to do it pretty easily as the roads were long and straight. All around Swan Hill there was lots of surface water remaining from the recent floods and the Murray River was very full. It was all so good to see after the many years where the river has been a mere trickle. On the way to Ouyen we stopped in at Tooleybuc where Geoff and Jan had been teachers. It was a very pretty little place, right on the Murray and very close to Swan Hill.

Tooleybuc Central School

Tooleybuc Central School

Both Ouyen and Pinnaroo were lovely towns. They are a little bit isolated but they had nice parks with good amenities and we enjoyed our brief visits there. The countryside included many vineyards and, surprisingly, rice farms. In fact, Australia's first rice farm is just near Pinnaroo which is in the Mallee. From here we headed across to Tailem Bend and we were in Adelaide by 4pm. It was lovely to see Garry's sister, Suzanne, again. Because she has always lived so far away we have not had a lot of contact in the past and we were looking forward to having some time in which to relax and catch up.

April 21... Swan Hill

The Murray River

River Red Gums

Our walk along the river

         
On the road again ... south on The Kidman Way in persistent fog, to Jerilderie. Here we had morning tea in the park with the Steel Wings Windmill, a huge structure with an 8m diameter fan. It was also in Jerilderie that Ned Kelly robbed the Bank of NSW and held 30 residents hostage for three days. He locked the local police in their cells  so this was one of his more successful ventures!
From there we took a minor road across to Deniliquin which was like an oasis, hugging the river and with a huge green park in the middle. Just now there was quite a lot of water lying about but usually this area would be hot and dry.  We had lunch in Deniliquin and a walk around the town which had an excellent tourist office and museum. It documented the history of settlement and wool in the district, as well as the early history of the town.

As it was still quite early we continued across to Kerang via Barham. We had a look around the little town because we had often heard Marian and Larry talk of it fondly as they had been teachers there many years ago.

The Lift Bridge

From Kerang we travelled on to Swan Hill. Here we were very lucky to get a site at the Riverside Caravan Park in the middle of town and right on the Murray River. It was beautiful there and we enjoyed a lovely walk along the river. We had not realized that Easter and the school holidays would affect the availability of sites so totally but, apparently, anywhere along the Murray is highly sought after.

April 20 ... Griffith

We made a bit of an effort to "move" along today (19th). I was especially keen to spend a couple of nights in Griffith so we continued on through Parkes, Forbes and West Wyalong with only brief stops to eat. However, we were remiss in not stopping at "McFeeter's Motor Museum" in Forbes, but Garry has added it to the growing list for "next time". The countryside throughout the whole drive has been interesting and scenic. There are still large areas with water lying around but all the recent rains have certainly been of benefit. The paddocks are all green and the dams full. After we checked in to the Tourist Park in Griffith we went for a walk through town. It is an  unusual but nice city with a lengthy main street and we spied out some promising places to eat. The shops are mostly on one side and there are parks and a few municipal buildings on the other. It was really warm so our huge gelati was perfect as we appreciated the circular city design of Walter Burley Griffin. Apparently he designed Leeton as well but his "piece de resistance" was Canberra.


Yesterday's warmth was an indicator that today (20th) would be heavily overcast and rainy! We spent the morning shopping and I bought myself a retirement present; a leather Pandora braclet. We were surprised by the extreme friendliness and helpfullness of all the people we met. Their attitude created a very positive feeling about Griffith and we enjoyed our stay much more because they were all so lovely. We had a delicious early lunch at Miel Amici and then drove out to the Catania Fruit Salad Farm. Joe, the owner, came from Sicily in the area of Taormina, and he was a friendly and generous host. Despite the wet weather, we toured the farm which grew a variety of plums, nuts, citrus and grapes, hence the term "fruit salad". We sampled all of these and ended up buying some wine (it's okay), prunes and Italian biscuits. We also got a recommendation for dinner!

Catania Fruit Salad Farm

Despite the weather, we did the scenic drive around town and then had a few quiet hours before going to dinner at La Scala. Garry ordered the mussels and I had home made gnocchi ... both delicious, followed by tiramasu and panna cotta, and then the best coffee! It was certainly a restaurant to recommend.

April 18... Narromine

Whitegum Lookout

Warrumbungle National Park

Siding Spring

 




After an early morning walk around Manilla we got on the road heading south, joining the Oxley Hwy at Carroll. From there we drove down to Coonabarabran where we stopped at the Tourist Information. They had a museum attached where you could see the map of local sites where ancient mega fauna, like the giant kangaroo, had been found, and the bones of a diprotodon (giant wombat). We were also advised to take a scenic route through the Warrumbungle National Park. While completing this, we stopped for a short walk at Whitegum Lookout and the views were wonderful. The deviation was only a few kms longer and it was well worth it. 



We continued along the Newell and branched off at Eumungerie to stop the night at Narromine, another town we had never been to before. The park was very nice but the town was reasonably ordinary; though a visit to the Aviation Museum might have made a better impression. Unfortunately, it was closed on Mondays!

The nights are still really cold but the days are pleasantly warm. It is so good to be on the road again, and we are really enjoying the scenery, "new" towns and different sights. Still travelling way too quickly, and that won't change for a while as we need to be in Perth by May 6.

April 17 ... Manilla

Bingara Countryside

We eventually got away in the late morning of Sunday 17th April, our 35th Wedding Anniversary. The house and yard looked great! and we were a little bit sorry to be leaving Caddie, but it was good to know that someone was in the house and looking after things.

It was cool and showery so we stopped in Inverell for a hot lunch. The drive down through Bingara, and Barraba was very scenic and we noted that both would be nice places to stay in the future. We called briefly at the Myall Creek Massacre Site and read the inscriptions. In Australian history Myall Creek is important because it is the first time that a white man was tried and hung for the murder of aborigines.
In the late afternoon we arrived in Manilla and immediately we could see that it was a lovely town with very wide streets and lots of beautiful old houses and buildings. The park was beside the river and it was excellent. It was quite a happy surprise to be joined for afternoon tea by Trish and Andrew who were in Manilla visiting relatives. As soon as the sun set though we were satisfied to have an early night after a fairly tiring day.