Tastes Salty

Woke early and headed into town to get some supplies...Mt Ives has no extra supplies for us, merely a bed.

After the normal frisson between husband and wife surrounding packing etiquette we headed west. We stopped at Iron Knob, though we took no photos. The mine tours were not on so we visited the Iron Knob Museum. It was run by  a lady who had retired to Iron Knob after she and her husband gave up their sheep property.Yep surprised us too. She put on a video and pointed out the highlights. Basically they had a mountain of iron and now it is mostly a hole. It has been started up again by that Indian rich Gupta family. We purchased a couple of industrial machinery postcards for Dom and Theo, posted them at the post office and used the facilities...tastefully labelled Dunnies by the locals. If I get a chance I will post the iphone photo.

SO a couple of hundred metres out of Iron Knob we took the outback road. It seemed fine but I dropped the tyre pressure to 30kpi anyway and off we set through the salt bush country. As always there is the odd character in the bush who decides to liven things up.

It was very and cold so we did not exit the car much even though there appeared to be some decent wildflowers. However we did stop at a dry creek bed where Marjan added to her rock collection and joy of joys we spotted Sturt Desert Pea. We had never seen one in the wild and finding this little clump was the highlight of our morning.

And where there are flowers....there are bugs

We managed the road fairly well, it was a little rocky but not too bad and we could get around 70kph. We had traversed some different arid country with passages of casuarina, others of salt bush, others of lowish scrub. We were now in country surrounded by lowish, reddish hills: The Gawler Ranges. Turned left at the submarine and we were at Mt Ives. The young Scottish lass gave us instructions and keys and we checked out our Stone Room accommodation. Quaint. We share bathroom and kitchen facilities with the shearers....who aren't here as they are NOT shearing.

Anyway a quick bite to eat and off we headed. Firstly we headed to a Rhyolite formation called the organ pipes. Tough roads in made up mostly of red rocks. Much like the Organ Pipes on the Calder Highway but Rhyolite rather than basalt. Really beautiful views down the valley and the reds were stunning. It was a shame it was not sunny. We did get the odd bit of sun and we did spot the odd wildflower.

Next we headed down to Lake Gairdner. It is the third largest salt lake after Eyre and Torrens. It actually had water in it. Not much by the look. It appeared very shallow and the edges very salty with crystal salt encrusting the Rhyolite rocks around the edge. The crystals were quite hard and difficult to get off.  Yes I tasted some and yes it was salty. I am not planning on dying from it.

Finally we made a trip to the wombat holes. An area where wombats have taken over. Quite impressive holes.

All these trip were on private roads on Mt Ive station.

We finally headed back. Opened a Grencahe and some olives and sat outside our stone hut after an enjoyable day. Yes it was cold....yes Marjan is wearing her sleeping bag coat.