Day 20 - Kimba to Wilpena

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Geo: -31.644, 138.625

Todays Challenge - To see if Iron Knob looks like a Knob?

We depart Kimba at 10.00am and it is a cool 14 degrees celcius but very sunny. The stretch between Kimba and Port Augusta would have to be the most boring, desolate, disillusioning drive ever. Nothing but cleared land, grain silos and a long pipeline.The trip meter ticks over to 8000km as Deb spots a flock of Emus on the side of the road outside of Iron Knob the birth place of Australias steel industry. What we though was a mountain range turned out to be a chiselled mountain of mining substances and depending on ones definition of a 'knob' we decide that Iron Knob is in fact a knob and we pass todays challenge. Are we still suffering Nullarbor madness?

Next stop is Port Augusta the Crossroads of Australia. Why are they cross? The biggest question we think, is why the tourist road winds past the town dump, and through the industrial area? We get a feeling of dejavue, was it only 2 weeks ago that we passed through here? We visit the Arid Lands Botanical Gardens but as we are not botanists we are not all that interested, despite it being a very comprehensive parkland. On our way back to Port Augusta we pass the Mathew Flinders lookout perched above the Red Cliffs we took photographs of while on our previous Eco Tour.

Rod refuels at Port Augusta and Deb notices a seafood shop across the road. She come back with some Prawn Cocktails which should go down a treat as we sit on our deck at Rawnsley Park Station in the Flinders Ranges.

We drive through some beauitful countryside before pulling up at the Transcontinental Hotel in Quorn, Rod has roast chicken, his first since leaving Brisbane and Deb has Spenser Gulf shark. We buy some grog to take to our accommodation this afternoon as we dont expect to see any bottle shops for a while.

We see a lot more Emus as we pass through Hawker, the gateway to the Flinders Ranges and its not long before we pull into Rawnsley Park Station at the foot of Wilpena Pound. It is a magical spot and we check in at reception before driving two kilometers on dirt road to our Eco Lodge perched below the pound cliffs. The room is to die for as we chill some wine and sit on the deck viewing the scenery and wildlife until sunset. Deb takes some photos on her iPhone so she can post them on Facebook when we get service tomorrow.

We head down to the Woolshead Restaurant which is sporting a large wood fire and enjoy a nice country meal. We return to our villa, Rod updates his Blog and we retire for the night watching the stars through the observation window above our bed.

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