We left early this morning for the Flinders Ranges,an area of outstanding beauty a few hours north of Adelaide and the edge of civilisation in South Australia.
We soon left the vines of the Barossa driving through pastureland until we reached the Clare valley,another world famous wine area .The vines left as fast as they came and we drove through more pastureland with sheep and new born lambs in the fields. We arrived in Jamestown,once a bustling agricultural and mining town with many fine traditional buildings for a mid morning coffee stop. Rain that had been threatening ever since we left the Barossa started in earnest. The countryside now became much wilder and there was little sign of order,a few derelict homesteads were visible occasionally and we followed the traces of the original Ghan train line to Hawker where the old station is well preserved as a cafe but closed today. Instead we went to the other in the town for lunch and had a quandog tart for pudding. A quandog is a kind of wild cherry which grows locally.We were now deep into the bush and travelling on dirt roads. We stopped to look at one of the surveyors cairns from the original survey of the area early in the 19th century. Next to it were some old telegraph poles in use until the 1970's. Taking a very rough scenic road we finally saw a kangaroo but the emus were more plentiful. There was also an old bullock queuing station from when they were the local transport.
we finally arrived at our motel for the next two nights as we explore more of the Ranges. The rain subsided a bit for us to have a quick trip to a lookout nearby to view the emptiness.