Last day at Wilpena Pound

Today is our last day at Wilpena Pound, and I must admit I am a little disappointed with the area. I know nothing remains the same and things change but some things should be maintained at a reasonable level, especially when you pay top dollar for a powered site. The facilities are really feeling their age. I was also surprised with the number of goats even around the camp ground.

 Yes there are still a couple of kangaroos around the caravan park.

 There are numerous goats in the area.

 

Some of the area's were heavily eroded by the flash flooding during May.

Road works.

As it was our last full day we decided to have eggs and bacon done over the camp fire for breakfast something we have not been able to do at other caravan parks, and they were great.

 

But it was still enjoyable and off we went to find the location of the Ediacra marker (if you don’t know what this is now is a good time to look it up), anyway this according to my maps was just to the north of the old Beltana roadhouse so off we went just to the north of Parachlina we came across what we though were road works but actually turned out to be a film crew, we don’t know what they were filming but it looked like it involved a Triton ute, well were unable to locate the road and eventually ended up at Leigh Creek, and this time we managed to have a look around. As you may be aware it is a mining town and it is laid out very well with a number of parks, and it has all the services you require. We took lunch with us and decided to have lunch in one of the parks, the weather was beautiful and it was a great location for a break.

 

On the way back we decided, rather than drive back to Hawker we would turn off at Parachlina and take the Parachlina – Blinman gorge, the track was dirt and in places was a bit rough, it also did not help that they were undertaking road works and in these sections it was go very very slowly, and again there were goats everywhere in the gorge, just as we were coming into Blinman we had a bit of a shock as a number of camels were wandering just off the track, I didn’t know that they came down this far.

 

 

We came across large numbers of emu’s and kangaroos all the way down the highway  between Blinman and Wilpena Pound so it took me nearly and hour and a half to drive the 54 kms.

This was dad protecting his kids.

 

 Two of the kids

 

Tomorrow we have decided to make our way back to Adelaide and spend a few days looking around.

Where at Wilpena Pound again

Well here we are back at Wilpena Pound, we arrived here pretty late on Monday night (about 1730), so we set up the basics with the van to get us through the night, we managed to get site 27, which was just down a bit from when we were here with the gang in 2011. Site 27 though is huge and you would have not problems putting another van on the site with us, but anyway we settled in for the night and after the long drive we were both exhausted.

We slept in on Tuesday and eventually arose at about 9, and promptly made a decision that it would be a relax day, we had a few tasks that we needed to catch up on including washing, and trying to sort out why the left blinker on the van was not working, this eventually turned out to be a loose connection on the van plug but it took a little while to trouble shoot.

The site is very large.

 

That evening we decided to have a roast dinner done in the camp oven, Rob said that before putting the roast on she would like to try baking in it, so I did all the prep for the fire and getting it up to temperature and Rob got to mixing the dough. This then went into the cake tin and we had a trivet for the camp oven so in it went, it took a little longer than usual (I did not have the oven hot enough) but when it came out it look sensational. This was meant to be sultana scones, but it came out more like a cake it was light and fluffy, and was great eating. So this is Rob’s “sultana scone cake”.

Preparing the fire for our cooking session. 

 Pine cones add a little bit more heat to brown the top.

 

 Rob pleased as punch for her first effort.

 

 Robyn's new creation "Sultana scone cake"

 

 Later that night!

 

The roast came out pretty good too but we did not get any photos of it!

 

Today we woke late again (it’s a hard life), and after breakfast we decided to go back to the gorges we went through last time but in reverse, that is we drove from the Blinman side of the Brachina Gorge through to Parachilna then via the Parachilna Gorge back to Blinman, the tracks through the gorges were a bit rougher than I remember and it looked like they had been graded as there was a great deal of evidence still present of the flash flooding that occurred in the area earlier this year. I was also surprised that there seem to be less water running through the gorges.

Trying to find frogs again.

The goats are still here.

And tonight we relaxed by the campfire before having baked potatoes and steak on the bbq.

Bye for now.

Our last day at Venus Bay

Well we are still at Venus Bay, this is our last full day here and when we woke up it was reasonably calm this changed within an hour and a strong northerly hit us with some major wind gusts, so the awning came in, the outside mat was packed away and any other loose items was secured or put away. We decided that we weren’t going to let the weather ruin our last day, so we hoped in the car and headed to the sea lion colony at Pt Labatt which is about 50 km’s from Venus Bay, this drive also takes in a location called Murphy’s Haystacks, these are pink granite rock formations that have been weathered over time to various shapes, and they reminded me of the Remarkable Rocks on Kangaroo Island. This drive took us most of the afternoon but at least we managed to get out and about.

 This is our site at the Venus Bay Caravan Park (4) very well protected in all but a northerly wind.

 See if you can spot the seals, the observation platform is at the top of a 50 metre cliff.

 Where's Robyn?

Last night we decided that we would have a break from cooking and go to the pub for tea, now the only hotel in the area is at Port Kenny, so off we went a little dubious, this was as we later found out to be totally unwarranted, the pub has a real rustic charm to it and from the dinning room you look straight out over Venus Bay, the meal was excellent (chicken schnitzel) and the salads were old style served in large glass bowls, they even had devilled eggs which I have not seen for some time, if you are passing though this way I would recommend the food, we also had some early entertainment as a netball group from Ceduna did a pit stop at the pub and some of them did an impromptu bar dance, and they were dammed noisy, lucky for us this only lasted for about 10 minutes and then they all piled back into the bus and headed back home. We were also very lucky in that we arrived early for dinner and as we were leaving we heard that the locals who had been attending the footy at Wundinna were due to arrive back in about an hour, (we forgot it was a Saturday night) but anyway the meal was great.

Tomorrow we are heading off and we have made a decision to go back to Wilpena Pound so will keep you posted from there. Bye for now Peter and Robyn.