Stalked by big birds

Monday, June 20, 2011
South Australia, Australia
I'll do an entry for each state in Australia, except the two largest states, which we didn't visit. From Broken Hill, another long day of driving by our standards -- generally we don't like to drive more than three or four hours a day. We stayed at Rawnsley near Wilpena in the North Flinders Range. Usually the best value throughout the outback (other than camping of course) was a trailer park -- a trailer or cabin with kitchenette was $70 to $85, occasionally more.

The final days of our drive turned out to be the best, with some great walks at Wilpena Pound, Rawnsley, Bunyaroo Gorge, Alligator Gorge, and our most ambitious outing at 5 hours, Mount Remarkable at Melrose (affording superb views of Mount Ordinary and the Mediocre Range) . The North Flinders area around Wilpena had by far the most wildlife we saw in Australia. There was a profusion of kangaroos and wallabies (some of them roadkill), and at Rawnsley Station we were stalked by a group of nine emu, which was a little scary. (Later I happened on a book called See Australia and Die, and although it contained an account of a man who had been knocked unconscious by a cassowary, which then attempted to claw his face off, there was no mention of emu.) The two gorge walks were particularly enjoyable, and we were the only visitors in each case (two to three hours). We never saw any snakes in Australia, by the way.

Melrose Cemetery: From the beginning of Melrose in 1846 until 1872, there were 129 burials (listed, I didn't have to walk around). Only 12 of them had attained 50 years (just one over 70), while the majority, 58 souls, were under 5 years old at the time of death.

Adelaide had been referred to dismissively, I won't say by whom, but we liked it. The botanical garden in the city centre is very good, with an impressive tropical house (the only part you have to pay for) and a little gem of a museum. And there is another botanical park up on the hill that looms over the city. The downtown museum and art gallery are both also worth a visit, not only free but when I asked after a donation box they didn't have one. We spent an extra day in Adelaide when our flight to Alice Springs was postponed by the ash cloud from the Chilean volcano. (In case you are surprised that the ash could spread that far, this was its second time around the earth.) But that extra day was all-expenses paid by Qantas at the Stamford Grand Hotel on the seaside at Glenelg.

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