Melrose, Flinders Ranges & Port Augusta

Melrose, Flinders Ranges & Port Augusta

Hello avid blog readers, apologies for the delay in the latest blog however nai and I have been busy clocking up the km’s, some required, some not – I’ll explain later.

Melrose SA

A nice little town nestled at the bottom of Mt Remarkable in the southern Flinders Ranges.

The campfire outside our trailer was a great change, and required for the cool evenings.

1^st pic above: Half way through the 12km return hike up Mount Remarkable – the views were worth the effort, however I nearly blew a poofer valve 1km in when Naomi hit the skids after a friendly snake fell from the adjacent cliff onto the track infront of us. “Stop, don’t move!” she yells “you don’t want to startle it” too late, I had already legged it half way back to the start line! Needless to stay Naomi led the rest of the climb, she’s a good snake watcher!

2nd pic above: Alligator gorge. Spectacular views, however no water. Not surprising in South Australia though.

Our Weaver Drive Laundromat no.1 – does the job!

Flinders Ranges National Park (Wilpena) SA

At the top of one of the highest peaks in the National Park (Mt Ollsen Bagge 923m). Great views at the top! So good that we were almost higher that the scenic charter flights.

View to inside Wilpena Pond from the top of Mt Olsen Bagge. Well worth the steep 6km trek!

The trip to Flinders Ranges wasn’t all roses though. 2 nights out of four we had kangaroo’s inside our tent annex/kitchen at 2.30am in the morning. Lets just say Nai almost had a heart attack...twice, but we got our revenge............

Kangaroo burgers at the Parachilna pub, yum.

Our Weaver Drive Laundromat no.2 – did the job again!

Port Augusta SA

Well, unfortunately theres not many pics of the two nights spent at PA as most of our time was spent making a return trip to the Flinders Ranges to pick up the 5 fishing rods I had left standing next to a tree in our campsite as we were packing up! All good we got them back thanks to ranger Stacey!

We quickly found out that Port Augusta was a hole anyway, hence our caravan site besides the Alysum Seekers detention centre! Slept with one eye open those nights! Note the barbed wire fence to high level in the background – comforting stuff. See ya Port Augusta!

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned folks for our trek to the red centre. Shits gettin real!