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