Always Second Best

We left Baird Bay with a little reluctance. The place, accommodation and hosts had been so lovely we felt amazingly comfortable.

Because it was a weekend we had not been able to get the Sunday night at The Camel Beach House, I had decided to head back inland a bit and check out some of what we had missed by rushing through from the Gawler Ranges. We drove north through more grain growing areas and huge stretches of mallee scrub. They even have mallee fowl here. We noticed some hose along the road leading for miles and imagined a farmer walking into Bunnings and saying “Can I have 40,000 metres of gardena garden hose?” Just pop it on the ute mate”.

We eventually got to Wudinna where we planned to break for a coffee. Unfortunately the town appeared to be closed. Eventually we found a servo on the main highway that was open. It seemed to be The Bogan's Rest Servo and breakfast joint. Sausages and baked beans were de rigeur as opposed to smashed avocado. They did not have bread, so we went to another servo that did sell us a loaf of plain white sandwich with which we might make our lunch later. We had missed the Wudinna show yesterday and it seemed to have taken the oomph out of the town. A little discouraged we set off. We discovered that there was a little oomph left with a gymkhana running at the show grounds and quite a few people there.

The major attraction around here is rocks. Truly interesting and historical rocks, but still.....rocks. Geologically this is part of the Gowler craton and a large part of the volcanic activity several million years ago, when I was young, brought up a bunch of lovely pink granite (Hiltaba Granite). That granite has been exposed here and there, you would already know this if you had been paying attention. Around here those granite outcrops happen as hills, 'mountains', or just rocky outcrops. The aborigines of the area had soon discovered that on these rocks there we small water holes and around the rocks where the water poured off was a source of good tucker. When white man came through they struggled, until they learnt from the aborigines. They then set about circling the 'rocks' with low walls (inches only) that channelled run-off water into ditches and channels to direct and store the water. Once there was security of water agriculture could flourish. Water is very important. We have seen three actual creeks and about half a dozen dry creek beds since we left Port Augusta, and the creeks were essentially a bit of run-off from some hill sunning a few hundred metres into swamp and then the ocean.. There is just NO reliable surface water.

Anyway we visited several, and drove by/saw several others, of these 'rocks'. We started at Polda Rock which had quite a well developed water collection system. There was life on the rock, because there was water. There were also wildflowers all around the rock.

We decided to give Turtle Rock and Little Mount Wudinna a miss and head straight to the big one. Mount Wudinna. It was a 1.5k walk up to the top and back down and it was incredibly windy and getting hot, about 28C. A couple of spots were a little steep and crumbly, but the view from the top was amazing. This really is very big country. I had to hold on to the tripod at the top to stop the wind buffeting me about. We had climbed the second biggest monolithic rock in Australia.

Next we drove west to Tcharkuldu Hill, where they still had the old surveyors quarters. These guys were paid to survey the land, plan the little dams/channels and provide a safe water supply so that agriculture could follow. These rocks were more weathered and quite spectacular looking.

Finally we got to Pildappa Rock. The twist with this one was that it is the second most famous wave rock in southern Australia. Also it has windflowers among the rocks on the top.....and the wind was a little scary. The Gawler ranges were visible behind us.

These days water security all the way to Ceduna comes via a pipe and the Murray. Straight (well maybe not straight) from rain and snow on the Victorian and NSW Alps.

Before resting for the day, we checked out some big agricultural machinerey. Specially for Dominic and Theo.

Net we washed the car and checked in........It turns out our rooms are right next to Bogan's Rest....so we have fled to the pub.