Flinders Ranges & Outback
Hi everyone,
We are back from our 4 day Flinders Ranges & Outback experience! We began our trip on Saturday morning with a little Wicked Camper 4WD bus. We headed north to the Flinders Ranges National Park, a mountain area about 400km north of Adelaide. On our way to Wilpena Pound (the heart of the national park) we visited different nice towns like Clare, Jamestown or Orroroo (you can find the whole trip on our ‘Been there’ page). And the landscape began to change from a ‘green’ area with farming to a drier, but still plant covered mountain side.
Flinders Ranges
We stayed the night (in our car) at the Wilpena Pound Camping Area and got up on Sunday for a very long walk. We wanted to walk onto the top of St Marys Peak, but it was around 45°C (in the shade) and way too hot! The 22km round began in the valley and after the first 8km (around 6km in the sun) we both were really at exhausted. The problem: there was nobody around and no mobile phone connection! So we had to go further. We didn’t make it up to the top and missed the last 1,5km with 200 altitude difference. And it was good. We already had a good view, but if we had gone to the top, I’m not sure if we both would have made it back to the resort…
View from St Marys Peak (not the top)
The way back was also not so easy, even if it went downwards. The first part was more climbing than walking, but we made it! Totally flattered we came back to the visitor centre, where we first ate an ice and jumped into the pool to cool down and recover. As we had no energy to walk any further we decided to do some driving in the afternoon, which was also a good idea. We drove really nice little unsealed roads through the Bunyeroo Valley and Brachina George.
Brachina George
It was really beautiful and pure nature! The next morning we drove further up north into the inland. Here the landscape changed again and we felt really really like in the nowhere. Wide sandy land, towns with a population of 20 and stock (sheep, cows, horses) and native animals (Kangaroos, Emus) walking on the streets…: the real outback!
The endless outback
But as the time went by we drove back southwards in the afternoon. The next morning we visited the Outback Centre in Port Augusta and then made our way back to Adelaide.
Now we are really exhausted of the one day walk and around 1500km driving. We hope you can get an impression of what we saw from the pictures!
See you
Johannes and Verena
Weather?!
I know, during the first weeks we were complaining about the weather that it is to cold, wet and windy....
The forcast for yesterday and the next few days is: 'Dry and hot to very hot with clear skies.' And the temerature is:
Friday Dry. Sunny. 39°C
Saturday Dry. Sunny. 39°C
Sunday Dry. High cloud. 40°C
Its pretty warm and I am so happy that we have an air conditioning in our room.
But, on Saturday we are driving in the Outback (Flinders Range) for nearly four days and it is expected to be even hotter there. So if you don't hear anything from us on Thuesday or Wednesday, we are dehydrated 😉
Government House – Adelaide
Today was a day of the open house at the government house in Adelaide. Normally you can only see its fence and the gate, but today we had the possibility to look at the gardens and the government house itself. Besides the temperature, which was pretty hot which 37°C in the shade, it was really really nice. Inside the building are several nice pictures of Great Britain’s kings and queens, nice furniture and for sure, beautiful chandeliers (Kronleuchter). Before we went back to uni to do a little bit of work, we had a nice ice cream in the shadow of a tree and enjoyed the music of a little band in the gardens of the government house!
Government House - Adelaide
Canberra
Hi guys,
This morning we came back from a short trip to Canberra, Australian’s Capital City. As it is about 1000km away from Adelaide, we took the plane ;). Canberra is not part of one of the 6 states here. It is the Australian Capital Territory and has 330.000 citizens. Compared to Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide it is pretty small, but t is the biggest Australian inland town. We arrived in Canberra on Thursday evening and took a taxi to the YHA youth-hostel. As we arrived pretty late, we only had a short walk through the city shopping area that evening. The Friday was our ‘Explore Canberra Day’. We rented a car and started our trip at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, which have a really nice rainforest area. Then we drove to the Australian National Museum. First we thought that we didn’t want to spend a lot of time there, but as the building and exhibition was pretty cool, we stayed there for 2 hours (which was still pretty short for this museum). Our next stop was at the Australian War Memorial. It is a big Memorial to remember the soldiers of the first and second world war.
Australian War Memorial
The street which is going to/from the memorial is really big and has a direct view to the old and new government house. We spent another two hours in the war memorial before heading to the High Court of Australia (Oberster Gerichtshof). Their court rooms where open to the public, so that we had a short look at them. From there we visited the Royal Australian Mint (Münzprägerei), where you can watch the workers producing Australian Dollars. As the time went by fast, we then hurried up to visit the old and new parliament houses. Both are very nice buildings and from the new one you have a wonderful view over Canberra.
Us at the top of Parliament house (in the back is the old parliament house, the war memorial and Ainslie Hill)
In the evening we then drove up Ainslie Hill, which is in the direct opposite of the parliament house to have the nice view the other way around. The Telstra or Black Mountain Tower was our last sightseeing point. We waited there until sunset and had another beautiful view over the city during daytime and in the dark.
Canberra
This night we spent in the car before we flew back to Adelaide, where we first tried to catch up on our sleep that we missed in the car :).
See you guys, have a nice weekend!
Verena and Johannes
