After a quick breakfast of peanut butter and jam
with toast, we were ready at 8:30 to join a Full Day 4WD Tour offered by the
resort. There were 2 couples with us, one pair from the States and the other
from Germany. They were pretty good company. The Tour was advertised as
“Wallabies, Rocks, & Copper”.
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| Emu |
We started off to Stokes Hill lookout which
has a beautiful 360° views of the Flinders Ranges. Though it was early in the
day, one could feel the heat already. I was lucky to get the front seat since
we were the first ones there. The car had air conditioning, but quite useless
in the afternoon. I sweated just sitting there,
especially when the sun was
shining on me.
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| somebody is slightly dwarfed by the huge gum tree! |
We went to two more gorges, Bunyeroo Gorge & Brachina Gorge. If you are into rock formation, this will be your tour since the surrounding areas has rock formations that range from 640 – 520 million years ago. Some of the rocks are so old that one would not find any fossils on them as there were none back then! Some of the sandstones turned into quartz. The colour and shapes of the rocks exposed were quite interesting to look at. We also drove through a couple of one family towns, Parachilna and Angorichina. Parachilna used to be a railway stop, but now only has a hotel and restaurant owned by that one family. Since this is low season, we are not sure if the restaurant is open.
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| the man-made bridge / cavities hollowed out by hand! |
We then went to Blinman, an eighteen people town, to have lunch and visited a copper mine. The tour guide was funny and she made the tour quite interesting by talking about how the miner worked in the 1800s. At the time, they did not have much equipment, and everything was done by hand. The only entrance was from the main shaft, climbing up and down a rope, and everyone had 1 candle that would last the 12 hours shift the miner worked. Only man and boys (over 15) worked underground, while younger boys worked above ground. The miners were all experienced miners from Cornwall, they brought their family and extended family since one needed to have people you could trust to work with. It was amazing how those families survived with no water, electricity and houses in an environment that ranges from 0° - 50°C.
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| yellow footed wallaby |
We were lucky today that we spotted 2 yellow footed rock wallabies (they are considered endangered). One actually was walking towards its hiding hole in a cave on the side of a rocky hill for a nap. If we were a minute too early or too late, we would not have seen it. The stripes on its tail is the only noticeable part for me to tell it is a wallaby rather than a kangaroo (plus somebody has an eagle eye and the best seat in the house (car))! The
other was hopping down the hill side and across the road right in front of us.
The last leg of the tour, the guide took us through a gated area inside the
Flinders Ranges National Park. Now this is a road that needs the 4WD. On both
sides of the road, there were a lot of kangaroos resting in the shades. When we
drove by, they usually scattered and hopped away. It was a beautiful sight to
see a number of them hopping away together. We were lucky to see a baby
crawling back into its mother’s pouch, the baby was not that small, and it took
a while to get back in. It probably was scared since they were quite close to
the road, and the baby was scrambling. Too bad it did not peek out after it was
in, so we did not get a perfect picture of mother and child. We came across a number
of emus along the way too. They usually go in pairs, so if there is one running
across the road in front of you, you’d better slowed down since it is likely
another one will come out too. There were a lot of road kills on the side of
the road and they were mostly kangaroos. There was an injured one beside the road
when we first started, our guide actually turned around and did the humane
thing by killing it with a rock (I did not take a look).
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| baby kangaroo trying desperately to get back to safety |
All in all, it was a good tour. It did not rain, but was
HOT, it was up to 38° in the afternoon. By the time we got back, I was totally
drained due to the heat. Took a nap before preparing dinner, smoked duck
breast, soup and vegetable. Too bad we used up all the allowable internet MB
and no phone reception in our room. Communication with the outside world will
need to wait until tomorrow.
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