Advertisement
Published: March 15th 2022
Edit Blog Post
We spent this morning exploring the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Gardens in Port Augusta. The number of Australian plants that have adapted to survive in Australia’s harsh arid interior is astonishing. Although I was very concerned about the number of warning signs asking us to stay on the paths to avoid snakes it proved to be the ants that were more of a problem. They were everywhere! Big black ones that inevitably made it into my sandals and delivered a bite or two. Fortunately their bites do not seem to be as bad as those delivered by their smaller ant cousins.
After completing the ‘Regional Walk’ circuit we took a break for some morning tea. A highlight was sitting beside a small pond which seemed to attract quite a few birds including a wattlebird, who took a very thorough bath as we watched. After our refreshments we completed the circuit behind the visitor centre and café which is almost entirely dedicated to the genus eremophila which comprises some 200+ species. The name means dessert-loving and was bestowed by Robert Brown, the botanist who travelled with Matthew Flinders aboard the Investigator.
We took a drive out to the Matthew Flinders
Red Cliffs Lookout where we were able to look across the Upper Spencer Gulf towards the Flinders Ranges. Signs along the cliff top recorded that we were standing in the very spot that Matthew Flinders described in his diary on the 11th of March 1802. We missed the anniversary by just a few days! Matthew Flinders sailed as far as he was able to navigate up the Spencer Gulf looking for an inland sea or possibly a sea that separated the western and eastern parts of Australia. He came to the conclusion that Australia was a single land mass.
When we bought our morning tea we noted that the café offered some tasty options for lunch. Rather than go looking for lunch elsewhere we decided to spend some more $$ at the café. We had enjoyed the gardens for free so it seemed reasonable to spend some money in their café. As we walked back to the visitors centre and café from the car park after our drive to the lookout we saw a reptile on the path. Fortunately it was one with legs, a stumpy-tailed lizard. Back in the café, Bernie and I ordered the BLATS which were,
without a doubt, the biggest bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwiches ever made!
Before leaving Port Augusta we bought food to cook for the next two nights. When we booked the holiday house at Point Lowly we were under the impression that it was only 10 kilometres from Whyalla. Hmmn, that would be as the crow flies. It is 35 kilometres by road so, if we drove into Whyalla for some dinner it would be nearly an hour of travelling! So much easier to cook at ‘home’.
We eventually found the beach house at Point Lowly. It was a bit tricky and involved retrieving the email that included the instructions for finding the house and reading them very, very carefully. The house is lovely, but the location is … interesting?! If we stand on the back deck looking out to the sea we have a very picturesque lighthouse to the left and, on the right, is the Santos Gas Fractionation Plant!! The industrialised zone to the right includes a 2.4 kilometre wharf jutting out into the gulf.
Despite the proximity of the diesel storage facility we ventured into the sea??!! It has been so hot again today
and we missed out on a swim yesterday so the water was just too tempting. It was actually lovely in, but three out of four of us opted not to put our heads under the water!
After dinner there was a lovely pink sunset happening behind the wharf. Hmmn, pretty colours, but unattractive infrastructure. I had the bright idea that if we walked up to the lighthouse we might be able to take a photo of the lighthouse with the sunset behind it. But no, the angles were all wrong! We did, however, manage some photos of the lighthouse and associated buildings with the moon behind them. Not a completely wasted effort and enough of a walk to help us reach our ‘Move’ goals for the day.
Steps for the day: 14,487 (9.8km)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.103s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0618s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb