The Magnificent Flinders Ranges

RAWNSLEY

CHASE RANGES

Wow, this area is so spectacular and it is very hard to take photos that do it justice. We are staying at the caravan park at Wilpena Pound at the base of the ranges, lot's of kangaroos and birdlife. As you can see there are differing rock formations, driving in you wonder why there is no undergrowth under the pine trees, the reason being the very red dirt/rock base.

Yesterday coming here we had to stop before Hawker for about 20 minutes as the road was closed whilst they did some filming for an Australian movie "Roadtrain", so what a great back drop.

Some of the sights the last couple of days - ECHIDNA that we saw on one of our walks, the funny little thing sidles up to a tree thinking that you won't notice it. GOAT saw some of them by the Wilpena original homestead and then more on some very rocky hills. CROW has stolen an egg from somewhere and then went and hid it under a log. CAMEL well this man has just arrived near here after leaving Port Augusta two weeks ago and is heading up to Darwin, he expects this trip to take about six months, so we may well see him again on the road.

Very Rural

DARES HILL SUMMIT Amazing views from here across to where the Murray River is, apparently in the days of paddle steamers you could see the boats steam. We are currently in Jamestown which has a really nice community feel as it services all the local farming areas. It is one of the top five growth towns in South Australia and there were 11 new homes built last year!

ONE OF THE LOCALS on our drive to the Dares Hill Summit. Emu's just tend to ignore you yet some kangaroos we saw in the Bundaleer Forest bounded off as soon as they heard us.

More of Yorke Peninsula

Wheat and barley are the main crops throughout the area. Wallaroo has this huge tunnel taking the grain from the silos to the boats. There is also a passenger and vehicle ferry that takes you from here to Lucky Bay on the other side of the Eyre Peninsula saving about 4 hours.

WALLAROO Throughout the Yorke Peninsular are lovely buildings from the late 1800's and in the main towns there appears to be a lot of pride. Where we are at Port Hughes there are a lot of new homes being built and a Greg Norman golf course estate. At Moonta there are remains of copper mine buildings and hills of tailings.

Yorke Peninsula

PORT HUGHES Today we left Adelaide and drove here, about two and 1/2 hours, the scenery changes along the way with the land quite flat before Port Wakefield with really scrubby bush and then heading to here the road was really straight for a while before some small hills with a water pipe running beside the highway. The area is supported by grain and barley crops and of course us tourists. This week and next weekend is a big Cornish festival - the largest in Australia, there will be something wrong if we can't buy a good Cornish pastie. We have a lovely campsite with this ocean view, have had funny weather with high cloud hovering, just wish the sun would burn the cloud off. The nights are really cool, fortunately we have a beaut heater.

Fleurieu Peninsula

VICTOR HARBOR About an hour away from Adelaide is the picturesque seaside town of Victor Harbor rumoured to have a lot of aged folk and nicknamed 'God's waiting room', not a bad spot to be waiting for him. Driving here you pass through Mclaren Vale which has rolling hills and hectares of grapevines. We walked to the top of the bluff in the background of the photo.

GRANITE ISLAND From the esplanade you can walk along this 500 metre pier or hop on the horse drawn tram across to the island, we walked. The island has scrubby bush and the only wildlife we saw was a mouse but there were lot's of birds - shags, pelicans, seagulls and hawks, fortunately we did not see any of the 42 species of snakes found in South Australia. A great coastline and islands with granite rocks, such a contrast from the Great Ocean Road.

We have spent the last couple of days looking at the great Art Gallery, Museum and Botanical Gardens in the city of Adelaide.

Out and About Again

PICCADILLY VALLEY Yesterday we went for a drive in the Adelaide Hills, it was pretty with the autumn colours and the wineries looked lovely with the grapevines a golden yellow. We also visited the oldest German Australian town Handhorf, it has lovely old buildings and arched tree lined streets. GLENELG Although Glenelg is famous for it's beach it does have this lovely marina at the back of the apartments that front the beach. Today we went and visited the Art Gallery and Museum, both spectacular buildings in the city with great displays, very easy to spend a few hours there.

I'm back

FAMILY At the end of last week I flew back to the Gold Coast to spend a few days with my Mum and Dad. We popped around to see our old cat Sam, thank you Heath for giving him such a great home and lot's of TLC. The good thing was that Sam did recognise us on our visit. Paul stayed here in Adelaide and looked after the home fort, it was funny being apart after 15 weeks together 24/7.