A trip to the Flinders

Now... I told a good friend who professes to be an avid reader of the blog that we were off to the Flinders this weekend... I then gave him a link to a couple of websites which had nice pictures of the ranges on... I was then told to blog all about it- Apparently he hadn't spotted the last 2 blog entries! LMAO... Well Runky Dunk Spunk... I hope you're paying attention now!



This is a picture that LOF took of the beautiful ranges at sunset. The ranges are 400KM north of Adelaide which meant that LOF and I have driven around 700miles this weekend. Driving in Australia is a very different experience to driving in the UK and the miles, down straight, lonely roads always seem to go much faster than you'd think. 700 Miles doesn't feel much more harrowing that the 3hr drive we used to make to Barmouth now and then.

On this road trip we had two new guests; LOF's dad and his other half. They were quite amazed at just how flat the landscape was and were very amused to discover that there are towns around that are even more remote than sleepy 'ol Arthog. We even stopped for a Cuppa in Redhill "Bryn Coch" which must have felt like a home from home - especially as P could make her tea just as she liked it whilst LOF's Dad was tucking into a meat pie.

The main aim with the Flinders is always two fold. The beautiful landscape, which holds such a contrast to the hundreds of KMs of flat land that you drive through to get to it, and the Wildlife. A huge population of Kangaroos and Emus just love to hang out at the Flinders.

The roos were a little evasive at first. I think it must have been a little cold under the trees for them. Thankfully as we drove out (at prime roo time - Sunset) they were all out in the fields, sunning themselves and bouncing about like well erm.. Kangaroos!

As we were walking around the Wilpena Pound, we fully expected to see the huge numbers of Roos that are usually munching on the leaves at the side of the path. Unfortunately they were no where to be seen. We walked as far as the Homestead which is the house where the original owners of the pound used to live and LOF and his dad decided to use the Bush toilet just around the back of the house. I was sitting quietly on a nice, square bench listening to the sounds of the birds and reminising about my back garden in Fryer Rd when I heard an almighty
"OH MY GOD!" from P followed by "ITS HUGE! WHAT IS IT? I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! OH MY GOD"
This is what she had spotted. And this is it's acutal size

It's a great Orb spider and LOF's dad noticed it dangling just above the rather tall LOF's head as he went for a PEE. Instead of being freaked out like any normal person LOF thought that this was ace and saw it as a good opportunity to add another creature to his "possibly the deadlyist creatures ever!" zoo. We have dubbed her Nigela. It was going to be Big Nige but we learnt later (from consulting the amazing book of spiders) that this is a girl spider.

We also saw some really cool eagles and a Vulture/Buzzard who was feeding on an ill fated marsupial. Ohh and some really cool, slightly elusive green birdies who were eating leaves!

we stayed in Port Augusta, as we always seem to do :) and then we drove back through the wine regions. We only visited 3 this time and they were the big ones. Penfolds

Jacob's Creek


and Wolf Blass



Needless to say we all had a good time and the wine was flowing freely. LOF's dad was heard to remark at how great it was that they could get sloshed for free.

It was a lovely weekend but I was glad to get home, put my feet up and have a cup of tea after all that driving. ;)