To Lake Eyre | Over the lake | Around Wilpena Pound | North Flinders and return | Movies
Part 1: Journey to Lake Eyre
The first leg (1000km) of our 3750km journey was to Melbourne from Canberra to drop off Anna, then off to Rohan's in Horsham for the night. WE had a ball at the farm, though our stay was to short. Next day was off to Murray Bridge for the night, but we discovered that it was too busy, so headed on to Mount Pleasant, just outside of Adelaide. Then up to Burra, Peterborough and on to Hawker, where the real outback began (and from where all the 4WDs with 'flat-pack caravans' were coming south). After lunch at Hawker, we headed up towards Lake Eyre, stopping at Parachilna (population 7) to stay the night. Before dinner, we headed out for a glimpse of Parachilna Gorge, and a small section of the Glass Gorge track. Next day we had organised a flight with a local, Ian Fargher. Then the journey got even more exciting...

[click for larger images/more detail, including latitude, longitude, elevation]


The route (sort of): down to Melbourne, across to Murray Bridge, north, then home

At Horsham with Rohan and Ella

Note tablecloth, napkins and full wine glasses (rare sight)

I thought that the blurriness was due to the empty wine bottles

A small Horsham strawberry

Rounding up the stroppy alpaca for transport

Rohan and Ella

At Burra cafe, looking bemused

Peterborough: place of three train gauges

Peterborough YMCA - a magnificent place

In the recently-discovered dining room, at Hawker

Hawker: the last outpost of civilisation

The road stretched for miles and miles...

Prairie Hotel, Parachilna (pop 7)

Our room light was fancy

...the room was lovely

View through to the room

The old courtyard in the hotel/pub

Parachilna Railway Station, used by the local pilot to store fuel

Parachilna Gorge after the flood

Pip hugging a river red gum in the gorge

Lovely to see water: but they had 5" rain on a day last week (they get 8" a year)

And the water was sooo cool!

The red gums were truly massive (see car for scale)

Here's one that we really liked

On the 4WD track to Glass Gorge

Heading back to Parachilna (ran out of time)

Prairie Hotel at nightfall

Watching the sunset at Parachilna

Dinner was interrupted by sunset and the train...

Sunset, then the train came

...still passing after 5 minutes (161 carriages, 144,000 tonnes of coal, once a day)

Pip's feral feast!

Relaxing in the 'hotel'

Next morning sunrise just outside

Ian Fargher took us 'fly-driving' to Lake Eyre...

To Lake Eyre | Over the lake | Around Wilpena Pound | North Flinders and return | Movies | itrundle.com     © October 2010