Day 10 Monday 20th June 2011
Today is our 18th wedding anniversary, I really can’t believe we’ve been married that long, it doesn't feel like it has. We had bacon and eggs as our special anniversary breakfast.
I gave James his anniversary card and present which was an engraved brass Celtic bookmark that I bought from a shop in Ireland. I wanted something that was small enough to carry on our trip and that James wouldn’t find.
James gave me a beautiful card but my present is waiting at Cowell at the Jade factory where I’m picking out a piece of jewellery made from local jade. Cowell on the south east coast of the Eyre Peninsula is the only place in Australia that produces jade, and before my research for this trip, I didn't even know we had any jade.
James drove and I was the tour director for today. We drove north to Wudinna to visit a few local granite landforms similar to Ayers Rock except a bit smaller. Wudinna is on the Eyre highway about 80 kilometres north. We passed through there on the way to the Nullarbor but didn’t stop as we wanted to save it until now.
The first rock we visited was Polda Rocks about 7 kilometres north of the town. There is a picnic area and a small dam with water in it as well. It was quite windy when we climbed the rock with the dogs.
It wasn’t steep and trust us to take the longest side to climb which we didn’t realise until we were coming down again. The only animal we saw apart from the birds was a large black spider with a red mark on its back but it wasn’t a redback. It kept crawling towards me when I was trying to take its photo. I had to keep backing away and refocusing the camera as it was moving so fast.
The next rock we visited was Mt Wudinna about 5 kilometres further along. This was a massive rock and is 260 metres high and covers an area of about 112 hectares.
The walking trail took us up one side of the rock
Looking up from about halfway up.
I was nervous looking down where I had just climbed as it was a steep drop. The climb itself wasn’t that challenging except it was a bit scary, especially when you turned around and looked down and saw how far you’d climbed.
At the summit, we had magnificent 360° views of the area including the Gawler Ranges to the north.
James at the summit which was extremely windy making it hard to stand still long enough to take photos, but as you can see we managed.
Our path downwards hopefully somewhere ahead.
The dogs coped really well having four short legs. The real challenge was finding a way down again as after we followed the trail across and down the rock, the path died out and we had to guess which way to go. There was no question of going back down the way we climbed as it was too steep.
As we climbed down we spotted what we thought was either an emu or a kangaroo in the open paddock next to the park. I zoomed in with my camera as far as I could go and took a picture so that we could see what it was later on the computer. It turned out to be a kangaroo, the first live one we’ve seen on this trip so far.
We saw some very interesting rock formations during our climb.
Eventually, we found our way down and just in good time as I needed to go to the toilet.
After leaving Mt Wudinna we made one more stop before going back to Wudinna. We had to go through someone's property to get to the landmark known as Pygery's Rock. It wasn't as impressive as the others but interesting to view and from the top which we could drive to, we had great panoramic views over the landscape for many kilometres around.
This is a close up of an interesting rock formation we saw at Pygery Rock.
We don't know why the rock was called by this name except we passed by a large concrete constructed water trough about 7 metres deep by 7 metres wide and approx. 20 metres long. We theorised that there may have been a pig farm onsite during the pioneering days as evidenced by the spelling of the word "pig".
At the entrance to Wudinna township is an 8 metre statue symbolising an Australian Farmer that was erected to acknowledge the commitment and spirit of rural people of the area. It took two years to create and is made from local granite blocks weighing a total of 400 tonnes.
Next on our agenda was Ucontitchie Hill 32 kilometres south of Wudinna. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it though.
When we arrived at the carpark to the rock we had to sit in the car and eat our lunch because there wasn’t any picnic facilities and it was still quite windy.
This was the only rock we couldn't climb, instead the walking track led around the base.
We started off along the trail that led around the base of the massive rock, taking lots of pictures as we went.
There was also a dust storm moving pass which was impressive because it was like a red fog covering the landscape. Unfortunately, this photo doesn't do it justice.
As we made our way around, we saw many fabulous rock formations. They impressed us so much that we couldn't stop ourselves from taking lots of photos. Here is just one sample.
About half way round the trail died completely and we had to make our own path through the bush blindly. We spent about half an hour climbing up and down gullies, passing through thick overgrown vegetation and over rocks and fallen trees until we came out near a neighbouring farm. I knew we were heading in the right direction from having read the map on a sign near the entrance to the track.
We then had to get through a wooded area which brought us out by a wave rock before reaching the carpark again.
We were supposed to pay $2 entry fee and place the money in an honesty box which was inside an old fridge at the carpark.
We didn’t leave any money because we felt that if they were going to charge money they should at least upkeep the walking trails so that people visiting wouldn’t get lost trying to find their way around. Altogether, we had a great time looking at the different features of this beautiful landmark.
On the drive back to camp we were attacked by tumbleweed that was blown across the road by the wind.
The dust storm was still blowing across the fields and in one spot we saw a mini whirlwind dance across a bare paddock for a few seconds before collapsing.
We also saw a skink (lizard) out braving the wind and dust storm. He was crawling across the road so we stopped to take a photo.
It wasn't hard to understand why we ended up having an early night after all the climbing over rocks and such. We were nice and warm inside our camper as we had the gas heater on. Later on during the night after we went to bed, we could hear the wind howling outside. It was very strong making it hard to sleep with the canvas flapping on all sides of the tent. We also had a few heavy showers of rain during the night. It seemed colder tonight as well but we were warm and snug in our beds.
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