29 Sep—3 Oct—Port Augusta, SA
After a fantastic week of catching up with extended family it was time to move onto the next town. We headed out through the mountains, through Stirling and left onto the M1, which took us on the eastern ring road around to join South Rd/M2 north west of Adelaide. This lead us back onto Highway 1 and all the way to Port Augusta. For the whole trip we were running into a hot and gusty headwind which made the trip very tiring and on arrival it was 35⁰C, the hottest day yet as we drove to the Discovery Park to set up.
As we drove through Lake Bumbunga we noticed all the pink lakes so we stopped to get photos and the towns people had added a Nessy monster (very cute) or 2.
We headed out early on Tuesday morning to the JM Deli & Bakery for morning tea and then on to check out the Water Tower Lookout; it was a little hazy. We visited the Australian Arid Lands Botanical Gardens hoping for colour but it was very dry and no colour so we drove to the Red Cliff Lookout and looked over the town and Dean liked seeing the train leaving Port Augusta.
The Information Centre was at the Wadlata Outback Centre which was well set up with brochures and info and a metal mural of ‘Ships in the Desert’ (camel & South Australia). We then drove to the Mural on the Hill and took lots of photos of the continuous mural which went around a corner of the All Saints Catholic Church (Dean is working at making it a long line of all the photos). We couldn’t leave without visiting the Pichi Richi Railway centre which had wall murals and lots of interesting items on display.
On Thursday it was a lovely sunny day with a cool breeze blowing and we drove 45 minutes to Quorn to go on the Pichi Richi steam train ride up through the Flinders Ranges. We stopped for lunch at Woolshed Flats station and enjoyed a sausage roll and scones with jam and cream; very delicious. We thoroughly enjoyed the ride and the scenery and how the volunteers made it seem like a train ride back in the good old days.
See also 2025 “Morisset to Tumby Bay, SA to Granville” trip.
