Last weekend we headed 500 km north of Adelaide to visit the Flinders Ranges, staying at Rawnsley Park Station just outside Wilpena Pound. This is a natural amphitheatre which measures 8 x 17 kilometers - as you can see it is absolutely beautiful, particularly at sunset which heightens the red rock at Rawnsley Bluff.
It was much too hot to go walking far - a lot of the walking trails had been closed as it was over 40 degrees (continuing this week at that level here in Adelaide) but we did stroll through some of the trees before carrying on to Brachina Gorge.
The locals didn't seem to be too worried by us. Brachina is a 'time capsule' which, through volcanic action, has been tipped up so as you drive through it, you go through different geological eras. The Gorge also gives magnificent views of the Pound.
We had decided to see if we could go on a camel ride (this is very much the off season here after Christmas in the height of the summer) so went to Blinman further up towards the outback, which has only just had its access road tarmacked. This is a delightful town of 20 inhabitants - all very friendly so we soon found out (at the general store) that there were camels locally, that we could book onto the sunset ride and that the owners would call into the store at 2pm to see if there were any bookings. As you can see the town is fairly deserted which seems to be the case in all these very small communities especially on Saturday afternoons when everything shuts. Lyndsey the young barmaid (from Leeds) in the pub was delighted to see us to chat to as she hadn't had a customer for five hours.
When we turned up for our ride it was to find Ryan and Natalie waiting for us with our camels saddled up and ready to go. They have a camper van on their newly acquired 20 acre site and are waiting planning permission to build their house. Their neighbour owns the 800 acres adjoining their land and is pleased to have them use it too as "she'd only be able to run a dozen sheep there". They do all sorts of activities related to camels - charity treks, holidays and last year they provided the camels for a film that is due out in 2014. On our ride on three camels, we were accompanied by two baby camels (one with special needs), a camel on maternity leave and one who was meant to stay behind but escaped from the pen to forage for acacia leaves as you can see from this stop where Ryan was explaining about the terrain. My camel Polly, seen here, was the leader and that's Timmy, one of the babies.
Our ride ended at sunset and then we were faced with a one hour journey in the dark back to our cabin. This is actually quite serious here as the kangaroos are most active at sunrise and sunset although I had been somewhat sceptical of how bad it could be ....
Well, it was bad. The roos, who had been sitting under trees or ambling about quietly all day, seem to congregate by the side of the road as the sun sets so you need a spotter as well as the driver. When you see one you have to slow right down because they do not, like other animals, move away from the noise of the vehicle, but want to play chicken with you. You go left so they do too, bouncing up as close to the front of the car as they can get without actually falling under the wheels. You go right and .... you get the picture. The bodies of the failures are to be found on the sides of the road. Then there are the surprise leapers out of the undergrowth, and the ones who start to move away and then change their minds as they want to make friends with the big black car. We had two very near misses - and of course, you don't want to hit a six foot roo on a totally deserted road in the middle of the Flinders in the middle of the night. We met no other vehicles on our journey back and there were no lights to be seen at all on either side of the road and I could then see why Adam had put a huge water container in the back of the car before we left. In the morning, of course, you couldn't see a roo for love nor money.
On the way back we stopped at the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens for lunch which was really lovely especially to see the South Australian State Flower - Sturt's Desert Pea - in bloom. Sturt was an early explorer as was Stuart, so you get a lot of places here confusingly named for them eg Stuart Highway and Sturt Stony Desert.
As I said, we have a forecast of a week of 40+ degree weather here - just a few days ago we were in Ugg boots and thermals (I kid you not) as the temperature was down in the mid teens. So we get up early and do any chores and then find activities for the children that keeps them cool and relaxed, so today I am taking them down to the South Australia museum for fossil time.
(PS - this was a very good idea as the temperature today peaked at 45.1 (the highest recorded in Adelaide is 46.1) which resulted in an enormous storm with great flashes of lightening grounding all along the ridge of the Adelaide Hills. Some started fires (most out of our area although we've got the radio station tuned into the emergency service to make sure) and others put out the electricity to some of the small towns around us).
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