Flinders Ranges

We spent Wednesday morning packing up and headed to Big W in search of butane, basket and rear rack. We ended up with only the butane and then found a bike shop where Kitty bought the flashest bike basket around, quick disconnect and carry handle making it great for shopping. After the doctors visit we started the drive up to Willow Springs Station, near Wilpena.
We couldn't resist the urge to visit an old mine on the way up, which was discovered by Wombats.

Old Copper mine near Burra.

Overall, it took around five hours to get there and we setup and settled in for our best camping sleep yet, the weather was perfect! Willow Springs is a working sheep station and was recommended to us by Andrew as they had stayed there in the past and had family friends in the area. Our campsite was great and secluded, we were the only guests and were around 1km from the homestead and hot showers, though we had our own loo.

Artwork sign at the entrance to the property

Campsite at Willow Springs Station

No need to unpack our table and chairs!

We were on the edge of a creekbed.

Thursday we headed to Wilpena pound for a walk up Mt Ohlssen Bagge, which took around 1hr 10min to climb, the temperature steadily rose to 38 during this time. We enjoyed a cool drink and salad (+ham) rolls, enjoyed the vista and some not to nice ants!

The start of the walk and the only really flat bit!

A view of the pound from half way up

The view from the top

Lawrie getting his bearings

View to St Mary peak

The descent (circa 500m vertically) was a thigh killer so we made a beeline for the shop (ice-cream!) as a reward then drove to sacred canyon to look at the engravings. We were baking at this point and the sun was relentless so our stop was brief.

Walking into sacred canyon

View up the canyon towards the second waterfall.

Friday morning early we drove to Skull rock, another tip off from Andrew. This is right in the corner of the national park and only really accessible from Willow Springs and by 4wd. The track took us past some spectacular formations and views, past old barite mines and to the scull, made of a tufa limestone formation.

Heading to the Skull

Skull Rock

Barite mine entrances.

A view from the track

Andrew's advice had so far been on the money so we decided to do a loop through Blinman, Parachilna and back through Brachina gorge. At Blinman we stopped at the old copper mine & smelter. Interestingly, the town gets its water from the lower levels where it can be pumped easily, the old miners must have done a good job as the water is not tainted or acidic.

Adit into the mine

They stoped up to the surface

On the drive to Parachilna

Gums in the riverbed, we followed gorges the whole way

The water was still flowing.

After Blinman we went to Parachilna for a feral feed, refer to photos!  (NB: Kitty maintains her vego status)

Parachilna Pub

Feral Mixed Grill (FMG)

Lunch!

We left Parachilna and followed the Brachina gorge geological trail, glimpsed the rate yellow footed rock wallaby and back to Willow Springs.

Near the Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby area.

View of the Ranges

View of the range again...pictures probably don't do this justice!

Emu and his Babies

Barossa Valley

We left Dianne and Andrew in the afternoon on the 2nd of Jan, headed up to Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley and checked into the Barossa Tourist Park. The facilities were pretty good but $27 per night for an unpowered site we thought was a bit steep. They seemed pretty full so it must be supply/demand thing. We set up, bought some food and had a pretty early night.

Campsite at Barossa

The next day we started filling our Butcher, Baker, Winemaker hamper (a wedding present from Di and Andrew). We went to the SA Company Store at Yalumba Winery in Angaston for breakfast, which was pretty good except that we didn't get our free coffee. After that we headed back to Tanunda to the Jacob's Creek Visitor Centre where we went on a tour and learned about different grape types and how the grapes are grown. They had a show vineyard but it was difficult to tell the varieties apart as they were all still green. This was topped off with a tasting. We mainly stuck to whites here. To walk off the tasting, we strolled along the creek and saw their resident kangaroos and emus.

Breakfast

Kitty in the Vineyard outside the SA Company Store

Old building at SA company store

Massive tree at Jacobs Creek

Jacobs Creek itself

A friendly reminder as you leave Jacobs creek on how to drive

We headed back to Angaston to continue to fill our hamper. We got fruits and cheese here and then on to Truro for an olive oil tasting. The lady here was great - we got a warm mini loaf, oil, balsamic and dukkah to enjoy before we bought some olives (bush and Koroneiki) and some caramelised balsamic.

We collected some wine on the drive through Seppeltsfield at Barossa Valley Estate. We tried a few of their wines and selected 3 to take away. We stopped by Maggie Beer on the way home and had a look around. We finished off the day making our own tasting plate with all the goodies!

Kitty at Maggie Beers

Our stash from the day.

On Tuesday (Jan 4) we jumped on our bikes, Lawrie loaded with the Barossa cool bag full of water. We rode along Linear Park (is that name an SA thing? basically the park that goes along the river) out to the back of Nuri heading to Tanunda. We ended up riding through the vineyards on dirt roads thanks to some awesome (???) map reading of Lawrie's (but Kitty reckons she would have gone the same way because it was shorter!).

The start of the dirt roads

We left the bikes parked up and made our way through Tanunda on foot, Lawrie noticed a wurst shop so we made a mental note to come back for one later.We spent some time at the local museum which contained a history of German pioneers in the Barossa. After all this German stuff Lawrie was hungry so we headed back for a wurst roll.

The entrance to Tanunda

Lawries Lunch

After lunch we walked the other half of Tanunda and tried to pickup a prescription for Kitty but the pharmacy wouldn't distribute because the original script was too old, even though it was filled by another pharmacy the month before! Because of this we had to make a doctors appointment for the next morning, which delayed our departure! We worked out our plans over a cup of coffee, jumped on the bikes and headed back towards Nuri.

There is a rode Nth of Tanunda called Para Rd (lots of things in SA have para in their name, not sure why) which has four wineries located close together. We had booked in for a winemaking tour at Richmond Grove so we checked out the area surrounding and then headed towards our tour.

Richmond Grove

Kitty relaxing at Richmond Grove

We were a little early so started out with wine tasting. We were the only ones on the tour so it was very personalised & we got to ask lots of questions. It was a good thing (for Kitty) that the tasting was first so we could get back on our bikes (Lawrie carrying more new wine) and started on the ride home. We stopped at a place that made Mead, we had seen this the day before & Lawrie always wanted to try mead (Mainly so he could say "Bring me my mead!" in a ye-olde king type voice). We bought a bottle of spiced mead, which kind of tastes like Chai tea. We stopped through at the IGA and then rode back to camp. Lawrie was carrying four bottles & 5kg of shopping on his sholders and handlebars, Kitty always wanted a basket for her bike, now it looked like a necessity.

Lawrie Loaded up on his bike

Kitty posing with her bike

Matt and Majella's Wedding

So the original plan for our trip was to spend Xmas in Canberra, New Years in the Snowy Mountains and then work our way to Adelaide in Mid January via the Great Ocean Road and the Limestone Coast in SA. But... Matt and Majella sprung a surprise on us at our wedding that they were moving their wedding forward from October 2011 to December 2010 - a whole 10 months!
It worked out the best for us though because we got to spend Chrissy with family and we'll get more time in SA and WA, which are harder to get to.

We flew back to Brisbane on the 28th and got in around midday. We had a Simmonds family get together in the afternoon. Jacob got a black eye while Lawrie was supervising but he reckons you should see the other guy...

We caught up with Kitty's mum and Boots in the morning of the 29th. Boots is doing fine but I think seeing us made her a bit confused, especially when we left her again. We headed up the coast to Mooloolaba and checked into our motel, got ready and went to Buderim for the wedding. Matt looked very handsome in his wedding suit and Majella looked absolutely stunning in the dress her mum had made her (with only 6 weeks notice!) The service was lovely and I think everyone shed a bit of a tear.

The Vows

The bridal party

The reception was a Harry's at Buderim, which is situated in an old Queenslander on the edge of the rainforest. Absolutely lovely. Everyone had a great time and suddenly it was 11pm and time to go home. Highlights of the night were: the amazing food, the obvious love that everyone had for the bride and groom and the very inappropriate Eagle Rock far too early in the night!

Majella being cheeky!

Wedding Cake

Speeches

First Dance

Majella getting down with the Eagle Rockers

Jane, Matt, Kitty

The beautiful bride

Bride and Groom

Garter Toss

The next day we packed up and had breakfast with Dalby and Courtney in Mooloolaba and then headed back to BrisVegas. We dropped the car back at Sally's and saw Chris and Robyn in the afternoon to pick up our professional wedding photos!

We had an early night and got on a plane back to RAdelaide at 6:30 the next morning

RAdelaide

We arrived in Adelaide on the 24th after leaving Little Desert that morning. We spent the afternoon on the deck catching up with Lawrie's relatives, Aunty Di, Uncle Andrew and Cousin Ashby. While we knew that tomorrow would be a big day, Lawrie couldn't resist the offer of aged Canadian Club at the end of the night.

We awoke with a fright and Di yelling "Santa's come, Santa's come!!" with screams of protest from the other household members. The day was spent meeting and catching up with relatives and friends, a massive feast and a brief dip in the pool.

Everyone at the table at the start of the day

Action Sequence....

Ashby had to drive later in the day...

Boxing day we went on a tour of Adelaide city and down to Glenelg and the beaches, it had changed a fair bit in the 15odd years since Lawrie had seen it. We had a nice coffee protected from the wind at Grange beach and headed back.

On the 27th we headed out to the hills in search of where Kitty spent the first 6mths of her life, Nairne. We then continued to Mannum Waters where we pretended to be interested in the properties, only to scope out the land prices! Then had a big lunch overlooking the Murray river, enjoying the show as people parked massive houseboats, contending with the flood and windy conditions!

Paddleboat on the Murray

Kitty and Old steam train

Looking at the Bridge, the water level was right up!

That night we went for dinner with Lawrie's Aunty Sheryl & Uncle Geoff, who aside from feeding us a great dinner with suitably chosen wines, decided to give us some warm sleeping bags, after hearing of how we nearly froze, thanks guys!


We arrived back on the 31st from Brisbane on the early flight (thanks Mary for the drop off!) and we collected by Di with the intent to go visit the central markets together. Unfortunately Di had hot water issues at home so we went through the markets alone, wishing we could take more with us.

We then walked through the city to the old Adelaide Goal, in 37deg heat and spent time walking through the buildings and gallows.

One of the old buildings - Adelaide Goal

We then started our search for some cheap bikes. We had been toying with the idea for some time, given that hire is around $70/day it made sense for us to get a couple. We tried many stores in the city all at prices >$150 each with no gear, so we jumped a o-bahn and headed back to Di and Andrews, onto the net and found that Target were having a 40% off sale on bikes. A quick call, drive and disclaimer signing later we were the proud owners of two new bikes and gear for $240 (paid back in <4 days riding). For New years eve we built bikes, ate a BBQ, chilled out and saw out midnight with a shower of sparklers, hitting the hay soon after.

Di and Andrew had a traditional get together at their place for new years day, so we chilled out, ate some more and got a few more hints on where to go in the Barossa.

On our last day in Adelaide we rode to Lawries grandparents place to catch up on family history. This has made us want to work on our own trees (combine and grow them back), maybe we can see a few more historical family sites while we're overseas. We left around 2pm to head up to Nuriootpa.

A Big Thanks to Di, Andrew & Ashby for feeding and sheltering us over the Christmas period!