Days 32- 35

 Day 32

After a fairly leisurely start to the day, we hopped in the car to do some walks - MME and all that 😉 First stop was near where we went squidding last night. It was much less eerie during the day 🙃 We did a walk around the headland and there were these signs showing a a path to a lookout, but it made me laugh because the people were always looking in the wrong direction!

There were some beautiful views of the gnarly coastline.

We then went on a little walk around the Inneston Historic Township Walk, where we saw where they had mined for gypsum, and some of the old houses that were there. It was quite interesting, and a level walk, which was nice 😉 The best bit about it though, was that as we were walking up a trail, we saw the group of emus that the rangers had mentioned! They were a bit far away and quickly disappeared into the bushes, but I managed to get this picture:

We then drove around the park, stopping at lookouts and just enjoying the rugged beauty of the area. We stopped at Shell Beach, which had masses of shells on it, funnily enough. There were so many in tact abalone shells, that we tried to find the most perfect one.

Chris does love a rockpool

The five perfect abalone shell winners!

Then we stopped at Cape Spencer Lighhouse, which was an ugly 80s structure.

We then stopped at West Cape Lookout, where there's a metal lighthouse. I really didn't want to walk to it - it looked so far! - but Chris reminded me of MME, so I blimmin went. Humph. Using my ideas against me 😉

The wind had picked up and it was freezing when we got back to our camp-site. We had planned on going squidding at a different jetty, but neither of us really felt like going, so we got a campfire going and started to feel a bit warmer. It was a cold nights sleep though...

Day 33

Another fairly big driving day today. We'd decided to go back to the Flinders Ranges to see a couple of things that we missed, so we drove to Port Augusta for like, the third time in two weeks, and free camped just outside the town.

We'd had a late lunch, and so we didn't really feel like cooking. We had a liquid dinner of three beers each instead 😂 The sky was very clear and we did some stargazing before stumbling to swag.

Beautiful sunset

Day 34

Drove to Mount Remarkable National Park, where were were going do do a big walk. For MME, of course! The walk was in Alligator Gorge, a 4 hour walk of about 9km. How hard could it be?

It started by descending into the gorge via a LOT of steep steps! I was already dreading walking back up them at the end! The start of the walk was really gorgeous,  along  little creek, dramatic rock cliffs either side. There was a lot of scrambling to do, but it was fun. We ate our lunch about 40 minutes in as all we could think about was our wraps! It was a lot easier to hike after that. We didn't see much wildlife, but Chris did spot quite a few little lizards.

We started coming out of the gorge and then walked an unshaded, really boring path for an age. Our feet were hurting and I was very much regretting my life's decisions at that point. It was a slight downhill the whole way, which sounds lovely, but was actually really tiring! We ended up sitting down in the middle of the path at one point so I could eat an apple. In the middle of eating said apple, Chris saw a kangaroo eating some grass on the other side of the creek. It stayed there the whole time and made that bit of the walk slightly worth it 😂

Coming out of the gorge

It was a very joyous feeling when we finally got back to the car! I thought I could handle a 4 hour walk, but maybe it's a bit too early in the montage yet...

We then drove to the Cradock Hotel, which you may remember have a "buy a beer camp for free" offer. Chris suggested, just before I did, that we have dinner there again, and I was so pleased he was on the same page! I was honestly so tired that the thought of having to cook was just too much! We were very hungry when we arrived, but dinner service didn't start for another hour and a half. They have coin operated showers there so we had our first, much needed, shower in four days and then counted down the minutes until 6pm.

The Eagles were playing on TV in the pub, so Chris was happy, although they did lose. We were asleep by 8pm.

Day 35

We drove back to the Flinders Ranges, and first stop was the Arkaroo Rock Walk, a 3.1km 2 hour walk to some 6,000 year old Aboriginal art. I'm pretty sure this is a walk I did in 2003, and I'm pretty sure that 18 year old me was not very impressed by said art and may have said something along the lines of "I could do better art than that." Yikes! What a knob! The point of this artwork is that it has been there for 6,000 years, and that really is quite extraordinary. The walk itself was fairly steep, and if took a while to get going after yesterday's exertions. But it was a good walk, and seeing the art was pretty cool. 

Chris also spotted some lizards on the way back.

One of the lizards

Chris taking photos of a lizard

After stopping for a bite to eat, it was only about 1pm, so it felt too early to just leave the park. So I found what looked to be an easy walk in Wilpena Pound. It was only 6k (!) and on mostly flat ground, how hard could it be?! It started along Wilpena Creek, with massive gum trees towering above us. We ended up at the historic Hill Homestead where early settlers made a very good go of farming sheep in the area, but ultimately failed, as they really didn't understand the new climate they were in. And then we walked back. Feet aching and wishing the walk was only 4km long 😂 We had a much deserved, well, much needed anyway, ice cream when we got back to the visitor centre.

These were the only photos we took on that walk 😂

We then hopped, well, more like heaved ourselves, into the car and set back off for the free camp at Port Augusta. I did make dinner this time, and Chris got a good fire going. Big day!

Roadtrip 'Rithmetics

 One month into our trip, I thought I'd share some numbers:

Amount spent on fuel: $2019.57

Average mileage per tank: 812.41km (507.76 miles)

Distance driven: 7971.3km (4982miles)

Amount spent on accommodation: $740.45

Average accommodation per night: $26.44 

Echidnas: 2

Wombats: 0

Platypus: 0

Black cockatoos: 5

Kangaroos: countless

Emus: even more countless!

Days 27 - 31

 Day 27

Gather Round day! We packed up and drove back into Adelaide. I dropped Chris off where he was meeting a couple of Eagles supporters he knew to go watch the game.

I wandered around a shopping centre for a bit, then headed into Adelaide itself for some lunch. I whiled away the afternoon looking in shops, getting some groceries and having a hot chocolate. It wasn't the nicest of days - bit cold, bit rainy - so my entertainment options were a bit limited.

After the Eagles losing (unsurprisingly 😉) their game, I met Chris and his two friends at a pub then we drove to Pink Gum Campground in Onkaparinga River National Park where we were staying for two nights. It was pretty much dark when we got there, and rather cold as it's up in the hills. We had sausages in bread for dinner and that was that day done.

Day 28

After a lazy-ish start, we drive to Hahndorf, a very cute little German town. The maple trees were changing colour, so the main street was awash with pinks, oranges and reds. It was very lovely and there were lots of people around, which felt a bit weird, as pretty much everywhere we'd been so far was a bit devoid of people. I guess lots of people had stayed for a few days after Gather Round, and Hahndorf is a very touristy place. We had lots of fun spotting other Eagles supporters in their blue and yellow.

We had lunch at The Haus, which had been recommended to us by one of Chris' friends. The portions were HUGE and I actually felt far too full for far too long afterwards!

Chris enjoying some gluhwein

After strolling the town and doing some window shopping, we hopped back into the car and went on the hunt for water and firewood. After the previous evening, we definitely wanted a fire! Collecting firewood in the national park was prohibited, and we thought we were bound to see some house on the way back with bags of firewood for sale. We had a bit of a wild goose chase with the water, with one of the spots on Chris' app ending up not being drinking water, so we drove even more than we needed to and saw no firewood for sale! Two places where we could buy horse manure, but no firewood 🙄 We ended up finding some at a little general store though, phew! It was nice to have a fire and be a bit warmer than last night.

Day 29

Sometime during the night, it started raining, and then it did not stop raining. We had left pretty much everything out, so everything was soaking. We probably spent 2 hours sheltering in the swag before admitting defeat and having to pack everything up wet. It was very miserable.

I'm not sure this photos shows just how wet it was...

Chris doing a stellar job with the swag

We drove north, and as we got more north, the nicer the weather became! It was like the morning had never happened! It ended up being a bit of a chore day. We first stopped somewhere to buy roll up waterproof coats 😉 We then went to a launderette and did a bunch of washing and drying. Chris had been complaining of a "mouse smell" for a couple of days. I couldn't really smell it, but did occasionally get a waft of smelly feet, which Chris said was the mouse smell. I think that he was a bit paranoid that a mouse or mice had got into the car when we back at Mallala. At the launderette, I got a lot of wafts of the smell. Pretty much every time Chris and I crouched down at the machine, there it was. Chris emptied out our clothes tub, but there was no mouse in there. We were flummoxed. Sitting on plastic chairs, watching our washing, Chris put his foot on top of his knee, and there was the smell again! I sniffed his flip flop and there was the culprit! They have fabric straps and as he's been wearing them every day AND were still wet from the morning, they had gotten really pongy! Next stop was a shoe shop to get him some rubber flip flops 😂

Then we drive to our next camp at Parham, a little town next to the water. We unpacked everything and hung it all out to dry. Thankfully there was a fairly decent wind, so the swag and sleeping bag (lesson learnt for next time to not leave the sleeping bag in when the swag is wet as it soaks through) were dry by bedtime.

A lady arrived just after us and spent probably an hour setting up a tent, a tarp and a little fenced area for her two dogs. It was a lot of effort! Her two dogs, pugs, I think, would bark at anyone walking past. She would yell "eeee-nuff! Quiet!" every time, but the dogs always got the last bark in. "Johnny! Quiet! Dolly! Eeeee-nuff!" It was a bit much. It did remind me of a dog called Buck who lived next door to us when we first moved to Brisbane. The neighbours were a bit bogan and would yell at Buck all the time, but it always sounded like they were swearing 😂 He was a really big dog but would howl so softly when he heard emergency services sirens going past - it was adorable! 

Day 30

Chris had quite a lot of computer work to do, so it was a (much needed for me) pretty lazy day. Did I mean to catch up on the blog whilst Chris was working ? Absolutely! Did I? No. (Which is partly why I'm two weeks behind now...) I did do a bit of housekeeping in the Jimny though, and I did read a whole book too, so it felt very restorative, well, amongst the shouts of "Johnny! I said eeeee-nuff!"

We did go for a walk out to the beach, which I didn't take photos of. The tide went a loooong way out, and we had to walk over a huge amount of seaweed to get to the watery bit. We didn't see much sealife, as has been the case for the south coast, really. It's that algal bloom.

I did take one picture at Parham: the seaweedy beach at sunset!

Day 31

Chris had an urgent request from work, so he had yet more computer work to do. I was like "I'll just pack up what I can without Chris and then write the blog," but it turns out packing away by oneself takes a hell of a lot longer than with two people, so I had just got to the end of what I could do by myself when Chris came back, having finished his work. The best laid plans and all that...

We drove to our next camp-site which was in Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park, right down the bottom of the Yorke Peninsular. We made a stop at a place called Foul Bay, and if this is foul, I don't know what the early explorers were on about...

This is the sign we've been seeing everywhere about the algal bloom:

...and seeing so much of that seaweed, I wondered if the two were connected. After a little google, I found out that yes, they were. So, essentially, this algal blooming event has been happening in SA since March 2025. It's been a "perfect storm" of conditions for this to hapoen: first, a large amount of nutrients were flushed into the sea from flood waters in the Murray River in 2022-23. Second, during the summer 2023-24, a major upwelling event transported additional nutrients to the surface and pushed them towards the coast. Third, a marine heatwave that began in September 2024 elevated water temperatures to approximately 2.5°C above average. The algae is toxic to marine life, and the more fish and other sealife that die, creates more food for the algae. The extra nutrients from the decaying marine life also gives more nutrients for the seaweed, so there is more seaweed too. If you want to read more about the bloom, this is a great website: https://www.algalbloom.sa.gov.au/

We rocked up to our site late afternoon and the park rangers came over to chat to us and warn us of a few things in the park. They mentioned that there's a dad emu with five young walking around. I was like "dad?" And yeah, apparently, female emus lay the eggs, then they bugger off, and the dad looks after the young. I had no idea!

After some dinner, we went to a nearby jetty to try our hand at fishing for squid, or, as it shall be called from here on in, squidding. Chris thought we had to wait until we got to WA to do some squidding, but then read that this part of the world is great for a bit of squidding! The jetty in question, Stenhouse Bay Jetty, had no lights on it, and it was very creepy. To me at least. Chris didn't seem fazed. I think the combination of the dark sky and then the dark waters below is what did it. I felt rather uneasy.

Chris was on the other side of the jetty and said to me "I keep thinking I see bioluminescence when I throw the jig in but it must just be the stars reflecting on the water." I was like "it's the stars!" as I was not looking down into the water if I could help it! I then went to his side and threw my jig in and sure enough it was definitely bioluminescence! We had fun making the water splash and lighting it up. Turns out, the algae is bioluminescent, so that's one fun thing about it, I guess? We didn't catch anything, and as I am writing 10 days in the future, I can now tell you that the algal bloom has sadly very much affected the squid population, so all odds were against us, I think 😔

This is the jetty we squidded from. In daylight, obviously 😉

Days 23 - 26

 Day 23

We left Coober Pedy early as we decided we were going to drive pretty much the whole day to get to the Flinders Ranges. We had to drive the same way back as we had going there, as the other road to make it a round trip was closed due to flooding. There didn't seem much point at stopping at Lake Hart again, when there's not much to do there, it just made sense to make it a really long driving day instead. 

And it was long and boring. We did see this fella on the road though:

One thing did happen at breakfast before we left: A couple of children were having breakfast with their parents, and there were a lot of flies around. The boy saud "its getting a lot easier to swallow the flies, Mum!" and I thought that was very funny.

My fly swallow count: 4.

Our final stop was a place called Cradock Hotel where, if you bought a beer, you could camp out the back for free. We bought five beers (between us, not each 😉) and dinner, so it really wasn't that cheap in the end 😂😂

Beautiful sunset at Cradock

Day 24

First day in Flinders did not go quite as expected. I thought we'd be going some walks, but we accidentally chose driving trails rather than walking trails! We thought there'd probably be somewhere to park and get out, but not really. Anyway, our first stop was The Grest Wall of China. First, we saw The Grand Canyon at The Grampians, and now the Great Wall of China - who knew we'd be so international 😂 I thought this was something we could walk up to, but it was just a viewing area. The rocks really do look like a wall had been built along the top of the ridge though!

We then did a couple of 4WD tracks. Chris had fun driving them. I did not have much fun as the passenger. The scenery was beautiful though. Here are some pictures:

We then drove to what was to be our home for the next two nights: Mt Little Station. It was costing $25 per person per night, so at $100 for two nights, it was one of our more expensive camps. It's a working sheep and cattle station and as Chris said "how often are you going to get to camp in one of those?"

We rocked up to the house to check in and pay, where a young kelpie eyed us off suspiciously from the porch. We said hello and let her sniff us and then she seemed much happier and trotted off to play with a kangaroo leg. And by kangaroo leg, I mean an actual leg off of a kangaroo, tendons still attached so that the foot sort of flung around as she chewed the other end! Country dogs sure have it different!

We were given a pack of all these things we could do on this 24,000 acre property - hikes, walks, ruins, 4WD tracks - we had no idea there was so much to do there. We had plans for exploring the northern end of Flinders the following day, but decided we could just explore here instead. After two days of a lot of driving, it would be nice to not have to drive too much.

We made some dinner at the camp kitchen. It was raining at this point, and the rain was getting on the BBQ, so I had to cook whilst holding an umbrella! We had a shower and then went to our camp site called The Lazy Log and set up for bed.

I was hoping for some excellent stargazing but it was quite cloudy, so there really wasn't much to see, sadly.

Day 25

Chris had some computer work to do, so we had a fairly late start to our day of exploring. 

It's a different kind of office!

Trees in our camp

Lazy Log Camp

Our first stop on the property was Mayo Gorge, which was a lovely little walk along a stream, which led to a water hole. On a warmer day, it would have been great to jump in! 

The rocks were very interesting around here - so many different colours!

There were also some really impressive dry cracked earth patterns going on too.

We got back into the car and chose another walk to do from the map we'd been given, and chose Pirate's Cave. It looked like a small walk on the map, but it was a lot trickier in real life. There's lots of scrambling up rocks! We imagined that the treasure at the end would be a solar powered fridge with bottles of cold water in it! There was actually a treasure chest at the end, but it had 10c pieces in there. Not quite so exciting for us!

Chris made it to the cave!

The pirate waited a bit too long with his treasure!

We then pretty much did some more 4WD around the property, stopping at looking at ruins and a few other things. One was the Skull Tree, which had lots of animal skulls hanging from it. Chris is very keen to find a cow skull to attach to the front of the Jimny, but only one where "the ants have done their job." He doesn't want any flesh or anything on it! There was one really massive skull on the tree, which I was sure must be fake, but it wasn't. Chris thought it could be a horse, but later we saw camels and I reckon it's from one of them. (I have literally just googled it as I just remembered that's something I have the power to do 🙃 and can confirm it was a camel. Mystery solved!)

Chris choosing which skull to take (not really, he didn't take any. He wants to find his skull out in the wild...)

We then drove up Mt Little, which was a gnarly 4WD track. I got a bit seasick and didn't really enjoy it at all. This was the view from up the top:

The way down was just as bumpy, but definitely see heaps of kangaroos, which I always love.

There is a kangaroo in this picture, promise!

Once we got back to camp, we made some dinner, had a beer around a fire and it was a very nice end to a lovely day.

Day 26

At the very beginning of when we decided to do this lap around Australia, Chris ordered this table that was also a shelf for the Jimny. It finally arrived a couple of weeks after we started our trip 🙄 A big thank you to Steve who sent it onto a friend who has a shop in Adelaide where we could pick it up from. Thank you to Mark for holding onto it for us! We raced back from Flinders to get to the shop before it closed at 1pm. I was really sad to leave Flinders, as it felt like we'd only just scratched the surface and I would have loved to have stayed a couple more days.  We also had to get back to Adelaide for Chris to go to the football on Sunday (it's Saturday today). It's a special round called The Gather Round, where all the AFL teams come to Adelaide and play each other there. Mark told us that there was a Gather Round festival that you could go into where they had food stalls and entertainment and stuff. We didn't have much else to do that afternoon, so we headed over there, parking at the entertainment centre and taking the free tram the rest of the way.

It had rained quite a lot on our way down from Flinders, and it must have done here too-  this festival area was sodden and muddy! Still, everyone was in good spirits. We had some lunch, wandered around for a bit, and then headed back to our car with surprisingly clean feet.

We drove back to Mallala to stay for the night and sure enough, two people who we thought were living there were still there. It was VERY windy and cold there. Chris had some more computer work to do and I just went and hid in the swag, where it wasn't that much warmer, but at least I was out of the wind.

Days 19 - 22

 Day 19

When we woke, it was still cold and windy and although I was sad to be leaving the island, I wasn't THAT sad you know? 😉

We made the hour and a bit drive over to where the ferry goes from. And guess what?! Chris spotted another echidna! They're common as muck now! 

Echidna no. 2

As soon as we boarded the ferry, an announcement was made that it would be a very choppy crossing, and boy was it! I was not a happy camper 🤢

After making it to dry land, we then drove to Mallala (north of Adelaide) our home for the night. It had been very difficult finding reasonably priced accommodation around Adelaide, but luckily Chris found this place just before I paid $100 for a shared dorm in a backpacker's 😂 Anyway, the town has an intersection like this, which was very confusing!

The camp was very full. There were mice everywhere in the camp kitchen, and I think there were some people living there rather than just passing through. There were coin operated showers, so had our first shower in three days -yay!

One the mice in someone's shoes!

Day 20

Easter Sunday! The bunny did not visit us. There was no chocolate for us - can you believe it?!

After trying, and failing, to secure camp-sites at a reasonable price for the next few days, we decided to change our itinerary a bit, and go up to Coober Pedy, an opal mining town where due to how hot it gets there, lots of people live underground. This was one of the first places Chris mentioned he'd like to visit on this trip. I have been before when I was 18 on my first backpacking trip to Aus in 2003. Twenty three years ago. I'm feeling old 🙃 There will be a lot more references to my 2003 trip coming I'm sure, and also some from my 2008 trip - the year Chris and I met, awwww!

We didn't want to make the trip in one go as it would have been a seven hour trip, so we drove to a free camp (more of a road side rest stop, really) called Lake Hart. The flies started up immediately. The cold of KI kept them away - we didn't know how good we had it 😂 We went for a little walk to the lake, and then sat and read until it went dark and then all the moths came out. I was writing the blog at this time, so hid in the swag to do that and Chris took one for the team and cooked. Amongst all the moths. I didn't hear TOO much swearing...

Lovely sunset

The fly nets made a comeback!

Day 21

After a terrible night's sleep - trains went past often (there was a track about 250m away from where were sleeping) and we could hear road trains* going past. Other people camping around us started packing up and leaving from about 5am. The only good thing about the place is that it was free. And the lovely sunset 😉

*A note on road trains for my non Aussie readers: road train are lorries/trucks that have at least three trailers. I thought three was the maximum, but on our trip up to Coober, we saw four and five trailers - madness! One road train had a sign on it saying it was 60m long and it had 4 trailers. It was massive!

We then drove to Coober itself. There has been a very wet spell in Central Australia, so the vista looked very green. We were expecting to see the red, dry, dusty earth but it was just green everywhere, very odd!

We finally hit the town, had some lunch and then made our way to our underground camping spot. That's right, we were setting up our swag underground for the next two nights! Last time I was here, I'm pretty sure I stayed in an underground hostel, but I don't think I have any pictures of it from back then, unfortunately. This was before digital cameras, so couldn't waste film, you know? Anyway, camping underground was definitely a new experience for both of us. 

Coming back into the light

Our campsite 

We walked down a ramp, to the underground cavern. There were several dug outs for the tents, and we picked the one we liked. Noise really eachoed down there and I said to Chris "I really hope no one snores, cos it's gonna be loud!" Subtle foreshadowing there, dear readers!

Chris has some computer work to do, so we went to the TV room where there was free wifi and no flies. We then went to get some groceries, and came back to cook some of those groceries in the camp kitchen. Then we went to sleep underground, where someone snored very loudly for the whole night. Earplugs were employed. And why, I ask, is it that snorers are always excellent sleepers? Just something I've noticed over the years of sleeping in hostels. And now in underground camping accommodation...

Day 22

Our first stop of the day was to do an opal mine tour at Tom's Working Opal Mine. We were two of four people taking the tour, although another four adults and two children arrived just after the tour started. One of the owners was telling us that they should be absolutely heaving with customers at the moment: it's just been Easter, it's school holidays, and it's the start of tourist season as the weather cools down a bit. The caravan parks are practically empty and he's just never seen it like this, with the exception of Covid time. A lot of the miners are not digging very much as the cost of fuel is prohibitive there. We've been paying about $2.40 per litre of unleaded, before the tax was halved. In Coober, it was $3 a litre. Most machinery and trucks use diesel, and that was at about $3.60 per litre.

Anyway, we did our bit to support the tourism and did this tour. Mila was our guide. She's been in Coober since the late 60s and had seen how the mining changed from picks and shovels to all the high end machinery now used. She was a wealth of knowledge and the tour was so interesting!

Looking very fetching in our hard hats

At the end of the tour we were served scones and tea and coffee, which was all delicious! All the tour takers sat down and started chatting, which was really nice. There was a couple from the US that were working in Alice Springs, a couple from south Victoria, a couple from NZ and us. Very multicultural.

We went for some lunch (no, the scones had not been enough 🤪) and then went for a drive around the Kanku- Breakaways Conservation Park, which promised otherworldly rocks formations and landscapes. It was nice there, but I couldn't help but think that maybe if it wasn't so green, it might have looked a bit more "otherworldly."

Some cool rock formations (and a fly making a cameo)

After some dinner, we went noodling - not a euphemism, guys! Noodling is what they call fossicking through rubble leftover from the mining. There are public noodling areas in the town and you go with hope and a black light (as opal glows white under it) and rifle through the dirt and rocks hoping to make your fortune. Being in this town and doing the tour really made me feel romantic about becoming an opal miner. I think because literally anyone can do it, it's not just big corporations out here, it feels like you could be the one to make your fortune, you know? However, after about 20mins of noodling and not finding anything, my romantic ideas of selling up and moving to Coober drifted away 😉😂 We did persevere for a good hour though. Chris was hoping to find a scorpion - they glow under UV as well - but alas, we came up short on that too.