Wednesday, 18 August 2021

Ceduna and beyond

 

Ceduna

After scraping off most of the mud caked on to Ned, we headed to the coast and the town of Ceduna.

The highway was damp and rain was on the way. Not a bad thing as it washed off most of the remaining mud.

Found the supermarket in town and stocked up again. Fuel next and water. A couple of ks out of town we found an out of the way campsite and settled in for the night.

Our Goal at this time was to cross into Western Australia across the Nullarbor Plain. After some reserching while we had phone signal it was apparent this wouldn’t be so easy, as WA had shut it’s border with SA, we couldn’t cross till SA was deemed a very low risk state re: Covid. This could take up to 28 days if the situation in SA stayed stable.

Another way was to go through the Northern Territory, which was very low risk, according to WA. But we would have to spend at least two weeks in NT before crossing into WA.

We decided to head up into the Gawler ranges near where we had come through the Lake Gairdner road to weigh up our options.


Minnipa, south of Wirrulla, where we had come out on the highway, is the next road leading into the Gawler Ranges, so we headed there. Just out of town is Tcharkuldu Rock, a camp ground which is easer to spell than it is to say.



A pile of huge rocks scattered over a rock formation which had been pushed up out of the earth many millions of years ago.




The resent rain was evident in the surrounding country with green, the depth of we hadn't seen for some time.




A beautiful place, and quiet.



Spent a couple of days there and moved on.

Just up the road was another rock, Pildappa Rock. It was on our way so we called in.



 This rock is likened to Wave Rock in WA and it is similar. We liked it so much we stayed another couple of days.



The Organ Pipes


At the entrance to the Gawler Ranges National Park, there is a side road leading to a place called the Organ Pipes. Never wanting to leave any road untraveled, we turned down it.

The Organ Pipes are a set of rock formations in a small valley, after a short walk from the car park they appear on the hillside. A rock terrace a little further on glisten in the sunlight with water trickling down it.








Back to the Ranges road and Old Pany Homestead was our next call in. A well preserved slice of the pioneering days, with story boards telling of the various aspects of daily life back then.





Back on the road and we were joined by an emu running along side, then without warning, as they do, he swerved in front of us and crossed the road. Fortunately I was anticipating this and he crossed without harm to himself or us.




With an overnight camp at Waganny campground, it was off again in the morning. Shearers Quarters was next on our agenda. This sheep property was operating up to 2003 when it was acquired by SA parks. They have preserved the shearing shed its equipment and the quarters the men used to live in. Very interesting to look around.



 






Now we were on the road out of the park and on our way back to the Highway. Except, one more detour, we came to a turn off going to Sturt Lake. Why not? The road skirted this salt lake, we went for a look.

Good clay road to start then becoming sandy, not a problem.

A sign directed us to a place called The Coloured Rocks, ended up at a small turnaround at the lakeside. On the shoreline were rock shelves and fragments displaying an assortment of colours.

After a wander, we decided this was our camp for the night.



In the morning, we carried on around the lake. Not too far up the track the sand got softer and the track got narrower. A couple of times we couldn’t go under overhanging trees and so had to find a way around. Also scraping through a lot of narrow patches we had a new set of pinstripes on the side of ned and a new garden on the roof.

With the tyres down and in low 4x4 we crawled along, till at one spot , ned stopped and stayed put. A bit of digging and filling the wheel ruts, as the diffs were dragging in the sand as the ruts were so deep, we finally crawled out.



Being about half way around the lake, it was a case of keep going, it can’t get much more difficult, can it?

So a bit further on a flat area next to the lake came up and we set up camp and I cleaned off the rooftop garden and checked everything else was OK, it was.


Ended up staying a couple of days there, the first afternoon a dad emu and his 4 kids came around in front and wandered about.




A lovely visit.

Also a couple of ring neck parrots landed in the tree in front of us and frolicked about for a while. These are the moments in these isolated places we love.




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