Pichi Richi Hill

Today’s original plan was to meet up with our friends Mark & Sue and spend about 10 days looking around the Eyre Peninsula. They are on a 5 month caravan trip from Melbourne to Broome. However they are now arriving tomorrow so we have an extra night to fill in.
We looked at the options and decided to stay near Quorn just south of the Flinders Ranges. Along the way we stopped at Hawker where we visited the Jeff Morgan Gallery displaying some massive landscape paintings and a car collection that included a Model T Ford, famous for being the first car produced on a production line.
Quorn is famous because the Ghan Railway originally passed through this town when the Ghan (real name was the Afghan Express) was a narrow gauge railway. Every train passenger heading north-south or east-west across Australia passed through Quorn. The Ghan service started in 1879 and was finally stopped in 1956 when the Ghan transferred to a wider gauge railway and took a different route which was designed to avoid the many flooding washouts that plagued the Ghan railway line. The railway station at Quorn still boasts a steam train which uses the old railway line that runs through the Pichi Richi Pass to run tourist trips between Quorn and Port Augusta as well as half-day and full-day local trips. We tried to get on one of the half day train trips but due to volunteer manpower problems they are running only one of these trips this month (for Mothers Day) and it is fully booked out. So no joy for us on this occasion.
Instead we walked around Quorn looking at the many historic buildings. Some of these were used in a number of famous movies including Never on a Sunday, Gallipoli, and Wolf Creek, and the town certainly provides a nice reminder of the way things were 100 years ago.
We then headed 10km south to a free camp called Pichi Richi which takes its name from the old railway line which passes right next to the camp. The campsite is a quiet nice bush setting. Another group of 2 cars joined the camp an hour later and kindly invited us over for a campfire and a few drinks. But before joining them there was something else we wanted to do in Quorn.
Quorn is famous for its sound and light show that is shown every night from sunset. This projects a sound and light audio visual show onto the walls of a huge silo in the centre of town and tells the story of days gone past. Visitors can watch this either by sitting in front of the silos in the open on their own chairs, or in their cars while listening to an FM station that plays the audio part of show. This is like one of the old drive-in cinemas and is warmer than sitting out in the cool evening air. So we parked with a good view in front of the silos and sat in our warm car and watched the show!
When we got back to the campsite we joined the other group. They had built a large camp fire and we all had a very nice social time talking about caravanning, places to go and things to do, and trying to solve the problems of the world. A very enjoyable evening.Baca lagi