Day 22 – September 22 2012

This morning we got away a little bit later than we had thought, a bloke was very interested in the Karavan so I showed him through & chatted about things for a while.  It was around 9.30am by the time we left Quorn & headed down out of the Flinders Ranges towards Port Augusta.  There were some nice views out over the top end of the Spencer Gulf, than as we re-joined the Stuart Highway the view east to the Flinders was impressive.  The further south we went the better the vegetation until we started seeing lush wheat fields, a long way from the deserts we have been looking at for weeks.

We turned off into the Mount Remarkable National Park & pulled into the Mambray Creek camping area & set up, then a quick bite to eat for lunch.  We started out on the Sugar Gums Lookout Hike, but after 3km took the turn up into Alligator Creek on the Hidden Gorge Hike.  We walked in around 7km before resting a while, some nibblies & water, then 7km back to camp.   Lots of very old & very big gum trees have been through a series of fires, so they have a burnt out trunk at the base, however, they still cling tenaciously to life, with branches seeming to grow out of dead parts of the tree.  There are a lot of wildflowers out, so the colour & smell was wonderful, we stopped a lot to look at them & take a few photos.  The birds are everywhere, there are a lot of bird calls I have not heard before.  It was interesting to hear a couple of tawny frogmouths calling through the forest during the day – their voice carries a long way.  We saw & disturbed lots of kangaroos & wallabies as we walked along, with a special treat near the end of our walk when a yellow footed rock wallaby let us get very close before it scampered up a near vertical cliff.

The sun had just set as we got back into camp, Tereza’s knees held out long enough to get her home, it was a 14km bushwalk so it was pretty tough on her, only 10 months ago she had surgery on both knees & they have recovered remarkably well considering the pain she was in before surgery.

We had a nice BBQ, salad, a hot shower & I think tonight will be an early night to bed.