Day 2 - Adelaide / Parachilna

Started the day with the leftover Chinese for breakie. Yum!

Proceeded down stairs to meet the tour bus that was picking us up from our hotel. 4 other people that had also stayed at the same hotel and were on the same tour were already waiting outside. The bus pulled up and there were 2 other tourists on it from a different hotel, bringing our number up to 8, plus 2 tour operators.

Left Adelaide, it is only a small city so it does not take long to leave it and get into the country. Most of the morning was marred by foggy windows that took a long time to clear up.

The landscape started out as vineyards and small towns nestled amongst small hills, followed by lots of vast open landscape being farmed at a large scale. The crops grown here are mostly grains, we were told.

The plant life is also unusually green, owing to a large amount of rain they have had recently.

Beautiful weather all day.

Tasty sausage roll and coffee at a bakery called The Little Red Grape, in Sevenhill. The shop has many awards for it's food lining the walls. We had sausage rolls and cake. The sausage rolls were quite decent but not quite up to award winning level IMO.

As we proceeded from the bakery, the large-scale agricultural fields started dying off, giving way to herds of animals.

Stopped at Qourn, a quiet, small town. Used to be really busy during WW2, sending troops up north, but after the war the volume of trains dropped off and the town declined.
At the cafe we had a cold drink made from quandong, a fruit that grows in the desert, it was ok. After that we had a pumpkin soup before departing.

This is also where we first heard about the legend of the Marree Man. Someone (aliens probably) created a huge outline of an aboriginal man stretching 4.2kms long in the desert near Lake Eyre. The artwork was created in 1998 and nobody knows who did it, despite heavy earth moving equipment needed to be used in it's construction (hence aliens).

In the afternoon the terrain got significantly more hilly, and the weather more overcast and chilly.

We stopped at the museum at Hawker, containing a vast collection of rocks and other antiques. As well as impressive wall paintings.

From there we ventured into the canyons of the Flinders Ranges. Very rough driving. Loads of tourists with their 4wds and trailers out for the weekend. Spotted some rock wallabies along the way.

Stayed the night at the Prairie Hotel. Excellent food and accommodation despite looking like a shack in the middle of nowhere. I had "The Ferals", a selection of meats consisting of Emu Rissole, Goat Chop, Camel Sausage, and Kangaroo Steak. Was all very nice. The Kangaroo was cooked rare and a bit difficult to cut up, and my favourite was the Emu. Yum!Read more