Flinders Ranges & Wilpena Pound

We hopped into the Rangie at 8.30am next day, ready to do one of the 4WD tracks up to Mt Gill, rated as 'hard' by the homestead managers.  It's a 54km round trip, and should take around 5 hours to complete - sounds like a slow and steady day!  Well, Trev started the car and 'bang', she backfired.  Trev said a couple of choice words, then went to check what had happened - the lid of the air filter box had completely blown off and broken in about 4 places.  Not a good start. 

So it was out with the toolbox, the super glue, the epoxy glue and other assorted bits and pieces.  None of the above seemed to work at fitting the jigsaw back together, so then he tried his little butane soldering iron (thanks, Pete!) and tried 'spot-welding' and melting the plastic pieces together, and it seemed to work.  He put it all back together, tied the lid on with a strap, and 2 hours later we were ready to go.

Coober Pedy Slideshow

Click here to view some photos from Coober Pedy

William Creek and a Flight over Lake Eyre

After refuelling and stocking up at the local supermarket, it was off to William Creek where we planned to do a flight over Lake Eyre.  It was another beautiful day, around 22 degrees, and we were heading into red dust country.  The scenery was amazing - miles and miles of nothingness, followed by plains of red gibber pebbles which looked red/purple from one direction, then as you passed and the sun caught them, they changed to shiny black.  Then big open claypans, followed by long red dunes covered in green shrubs of varying hues and a variety of wildflowers.  You could see 360degrees of totally flat land followed by red or white mountain ranges dotting the landscape. 

We went through Anna Creek Station, a working cattle property, which is bigger than Belgium or half the size of Britain!  We arrived at William Creek on the Oodnadatta Track,  where we had a drink at the hotel, then went across to the airfield to book our flight at 3.30pm.  We booked into the local campground and had lunch. 

Mildura to Coober Pedy

We left Mildura and headed to Renmark, hoping to find a nice spot to camp then have a Paddlesteamer cruise.  No luck, as the weather was still not good, so we carried on to a little town called Burra, where we camped at the local showground.  Good value, only $10 per night, with power, showers and toilets.  We'll have to look out for more of these on our travels - beats caravan parks hands down.

Bright and early next morning we packed up and headed for Port Pirie.  We dropped into the local tourist info centre and viewed the white pointer shark that had been caught locally - all 5.4metres of her!  Quite impressive.  The tourist info centres at each place we visit are a mine of information - most of the staff are really well informed about their area and have lots of tips for visitors - we love them.  We had lunch at Port Pirie at Barnacle Bill's, which was actually in an old church - quite different and a bit weird!

Trying to outrun the rain - and failing!

Well, Trev decided it was time for us to visit the Flinders Ranges and also check out Lake Eyre while it still has water in it - so, despite the fact that it's winter and we're heading west instead of north, here we are on our next adventure.

We left on Friday morning and arrived in Yarrawonga, Vic in the afternoon.  We dropped into the visitors information centre (very helpful), got some maps then set up camp at Forge's Bend on the Murray River, just past Yarrawonga.  It was a nice area and we got a fire going to cook a tasty beef stroganoff in our camp oven.  It started to get a bit chilly, but we enjoyed sitting by the fire eating and drinking to a beautiful moonrise over the river.  Very pretty.  A couple of drinks, then bed.

I was fast asleep when I was suddenly woken by Trev saying: "Something just crawled over my head!'  He switched on the light, and we checked the bed, where I discovered a small furry animal, (bigger than a mouse but smaller than a rat) crawling along the channel at the top of our slide-out bed - it quickly ran along the edge, then disappeared through a tiny hole to the outside!  Seriously, this was a little unsettling!  But we were both happy that it was something like a marsupial mouse, rather than a rather large spider - I don't think either of us would have slept well.  Trev called him 'My mate Murray, the Marsupial Mouse.'

So, next morning we were off to Echuca.  The plan was to spend a couple of days there, have a trip in a paddlesteamer, check out a couple of wineries etc.   We found a campsite near Christie's beach on a really pretty bend on the river, then headed into town to find about Paddlesteamers and wineries.  We were in the old Port town which has been restored really well, has lots of character, where we found we could do a paddlesteamer and lunch at Morrison's Winery trip for a reasonable price, a perfect combination.  So we planned to come back the next day and do that, weather permitting.  Back to camp where we again got the fire going and had chilli con carne in the camp cooker - lovely.

Of course, overnight the rain started - not too heavily, but enough to spoil our plans  for the next day - neither of us particularly wanted to sit on a paddlesteamer in the rain and pretend we were having a good time, so early next morning we packed up and decided to try and outrun the rain and head for Mildura.  So we are now sitting in a caravan park just outside Mildura enjoying the pitter-patter of rain on the roof, hoping that tomorrow the weather will clear up and we can either do a paddlesteamer cruise here or in Renmark.  So, a good start so far.  Hopefully my next instalment will be a bit more interesting!  

Moonrise over the Murray river