Week One

Armidale to Gilgandra - NSW

I picked up my niece, Kate Blackburn, from Calrossy School in Tamworth and she was official wildlife spotter finding koalas and two tawny frogmouths which yielded some good shots.

Well we made it to Port Lincoln after a fun day of the changes from the flat wheat lands around Peterborough and its old stone railway cottages, through a sharp and interesting range after Wilmington before we came onto the flats of Spencer's Gulf.

 

Then we ran parallel to the water pipeline which goes over 300km from the Murray and must water half of Sth Australia's people! Any wonder they complain when Queensland and NSW takes the water from the Murray/Darling River catchments!

 

The Australian Arid Lands Botanical Gardens are awesome - well worth the visit even if you only know that a plant is green!  And they have the grooviest sundials!!

 

We couldn't believe it when from Whyalla to Port Lincoln there were wheat fields right down to the sea!

 

Only 268 pix today - must be losing it!!

I am going to have major problems - another 200+ PIX TO SORT ETC AND NOW IS TIME TO SEND EMAIL!

 

So I decided to send the first one of the day and just let you imagine the rest. We only travelled 200km today as we 'discovered' the Eyre Peninsula! We spent the day 4WDing through the coastal heath seeing emus and kangaroos as well as angry black snake, dead shingle back lizards and amazing scenery. Will try to find and email the image of Dad sitting in the car at the top of a very steep sandhill - was fun and also a timely reminder of the preparations I still have to do before the 1000 sandhills of the Simpson Desert

Well a great couple of days.

 

The Nullarbor deserves a long slow look - great roads and amazing mallee lands as well as the treeless plain (Get it Null=no arbor=trees!!) And I always thought it had an appropriate Aboriginal name. And guess what we couldn't have heard the Indian Pacific in Ceduna because it doesn't go through there - duh Len! And Kim pointed out that the Sea-lions are endemic to Australia and Point Labatt is the only place ON THE MAINLAND  where they breed - not having a good day or two was I!!!

 

Tonight we are in Norseman - gold town.