Returning to Adelaide

The last post for my trip in South Australia! All that I had left was to drive back 450km to Adelaide from Flinders Ranges. By this stage, I was sick of the music on my iPod and struggled to find radio reception; the only clear radio stations were talkback stations. In fact, I tuned in once when the presenters were discussing different types of potatoes. Yes, really.

The drive back was pretty uneventful and what I have discovered in remote Australia is that the roads are really friggin straight.








I parked on the side of a relatively busy stretch of road, squeezed past shrubs and jumped over the fence for this photo. I actually have a scar on my left hand from a scratch that I got from the shrubs.



The coolest part of the drive back was when I was stuck behind a vehicle that was going at 40km/h on a 110km/h stretch of road.

How cool is that? I have never seen a L plate that large before! 

One of the many things that I learnt on this trip was that leggings are awesome for hiking/long drives. Comfort aside, they make peeing so much easier. Especially when driving. It is simply so easy to just do my business quickly at the side of the road in the bushes or even just behind my car door without having to worry about buttons or zippers.

There are still two states (well one is a territory) which I have yet to visit in Australia; Tasmania and Northern Territory. To be fair, I have yet to properly explore Western Australia however South Australia is my favourite state and Adelaide is my favourite capital city. I love the city and I love the area. Job aside, I would move to Adelaide in a heartbeat. What do I love about South Australia? Well it has such disparate landscapes. With the incredible Great Australian Bight (which I have only seen from a plane) to the pristine areas such as Kangaroo Island and to remote country/ outback regions further north in the state. I would love to go back to explore the coastline of the Bight and also to the salt lakes such as Lake Eyre. One day.

Flinders Ranges (Part 2)

Wilpena Pound

After my long hike the day before, I decided to have an easy day and drove for 150km in total. As you do. I was visiting the park right before the school holidays started and during the week, so the national park was very quiet. I was lucky to see another car on the road and the roads were super easy to drive. The speed limit was 100km/h but I cruised at a steady 60km/h (since I was in no rush). It actually took a lot of concentration to not go faster than 60km/h.

My little Ford Focus Hatchback.

Spot the kangaroo!

I also drove on unsealed roads (shhh despite not being covered on my rental insurance) and it was going reasonably well until I reached a point where the road dipped down and there was a large puddle in the middle of the road. This happened on two separate occasions. First when I was driving to the gorges and second when I was trying to reach Parachilna from Blinman.

It is never too cold for ice cream; it was around 12 degrees that day. A quandong ice cream. I had never heard of the fruit before but it is basically a plum that is native to Australia. 

I had to stop halfway on the unsealed road between Blinman and Parachilna which was disappointing however it was very cool to find this dry river bed. The photo doesn't show how wide the river would have been which is just crazy.

After 5hrs of driving, I was quite tired and didn't want to return back to the campsite where I had nothing to do. As mentioned before, I didn't have phone reception (so no access to Pandora) and I was sick of my music on my iPod. Thankfully, at one (and only one) of the lookouts, I had a little bit of radio reception and listened to the crackling radio playing today's popular music for 3 hours as I waited for sunset. It sounds a little silly to have travelled so far to sit in a car and listen to the radio. But it was such a cool experience sitting in the middle of nowhere and at one point, there were 15 kangaroos just chilling within close vicinity of my car.

Although I really did enjoy the solitude and serenity at Flinders Ranges, I was glad that I was leaving early the next morning (and also the final night sleeping in the car!) since I was missing civilisation. I was also starting to feel lonely. I very rarely feel lonely even if I am alone, so this was a little unusual. One night, I actually sent an SMS to my good mate via the Telstra payphone (yes really). There was also a power outage at Wilpena Pound Resort (including campgrounds) for a few hours which was a little scary. Firstly, this meant that I had no food (I had been eating at the restaurant for dinner every night) and secondly, I wasn't very keen on showering in darkness.

I'm not sure if I would return to Flinders Ranges. Admittedly, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at this national park and it is probably the craziest thing that I have done in 2015. I am actually super proud that I challenged myself. It proved quite a few things to me. Firstly, I am perfectly capable of travelling by myself. Secondly, I am reasonably capable of driving around country Australia (not confident in busy urban areas) so hello Tasmania! (I've been wanting to visit Tasmania for two years now but always put it off since I couldn't drive). Thirdly, I am capable. But like a lot of things, there is so much to see and just not enough time. One day, maybe.

Flinders Ranges (Part 1)

Hi I'm Natalie and until a month ago, I hadn't driven since I did my driving test to get my Red P's back in June 2010. 

I wanted to use this trip to challenge myself and I decided to learn how to drive again and drive from Adelaide to Flinders Ranges, a distance of 480km one way. Before I went on my trip, I drove 4 times on the streets in my area and decided that I was reasonably okay to drive the 480km by myself. Not only was I going to drive that distance, but I was also going to sleep in my car for three nights and complete a 22km hike. Ambitious. It was a little stressful in the beginning of the drive since I had never driven on a highway/motorway before and driving at 100km/h was a little scary. However, I got into the groove of it and the highways were really easy since there was no one on the road. I admit, it was a little lonely driving for super long straight stretches of road with maybe one other car on the road every 30-40 minutes. South Australia is so beautiful and it was quite cool seeing the landscape change. To keep myself entertained, I had a lot of sing-a-long sessions with my country music station on Pandora. I love Pandora.








There were lots of abandoned farmhouse ruins. It's actually incredibly amazing that a family lived in such a desolate landscape. The drive just made me reflect on the difficulties of the first explorers or farmers who lived there once upon a time. I already found it so isolating and I was driving in my car at 110km/h, let alone people on horses back in the day. 

I drove through many country towns that looked like this. Absolutely deserted and quite eerie.

The funniest part of the very very long 7 hr drive was frantically messaging my mate about fuelling my car (since I had never done it before) #prepared.

Now the question, why did I sleep in my car? Short answer: to save some money. To stay at the resort in the national park would have cost me $250 pn. To stay in the nearest town 60km away would have cost me $100pn. Or, I could sleep in my car at the campground and only pay $15pn. I had brought with me my Black Wolf sleeping bag and thought I was reasonably prepared. I was expecting 6 degree nights, but in reality they were 0/1 degree nights. The first night, I woke at 4am (I also had no phone service and had nothing to do so I went to bed at 8pm) because I was freezing! Luckily, I learnt from my mistake and slept slightly better for the next two nights but it was still really really cold. Every night I would wake up around 4-5am and end up burrowing my face into my mummy sleeping bag so I was literally in a coccoon. I don't think I would have surived another night since I was so frustrated with sleeping in the car. Granted, aside from the temperature, it wasn't too uncomfortable. But it was a little annoying being restricted physically due to the mummy sleeping bag. It is times like that where I am grateful for being short. I had only rented a Ford Focus hatchback and folded down the back seats so I could lie down (when I picked up the car, I didn't know how to fold down the seats so I had to YouTube it in the carpark #prepared). In fact, sleeping in the car like that was more comfortable (for my body) than the times I went camping on the ground.

I was a little worried about the 22km hike at Wilpena Pound to St Mary Peak since I was hiking by myself. But it was a really nice, reasonably easy and an amazing hike!


Part of the hike. See the blue arrow? That points to the path. The hardest part of the hike was climbing up to Tanderra Saddle. I am short and consequently my legs aren't exactly the longest. At one point I had to slowly shuffle myself up by using my legs and butt (since my legs weren't long enough to allow me to easily get up onto the rock ledge).


Flinders Ranges. Absolutely breathtaking.





The photo doesn't show how massive Wilpena Pound is. I guess you might see if you compare the trees to the rock formation.


Flinders Ranges is not a massive national park by any means. The images don't really do it justice, but I felt so isolated, insignificant and also quite liberated at times too. I wanted to be immersed in nature on this trip since my new job is located in the CBD and I'm really not much of a city person (too busy for me) but I don't think I've ever felt so isolated physically in my life. A weird but very cool experience.

And now for a quick hike review! The hike for St Mary Peak can be completed in two ways: the outer or inner trail. The recommended route is the 22km which involves taking the outer route (so climbing outside Wilpena Pound) and then taking the inside route back to the campsite. The much shorter route is around 15km where you take the outside track on the ascent and descent but it is challenging as you need to climb back down Tanderra Saddle (see the rocky picture above). I was a little worried initially since quiet a lot of people said that it was challenging. A little information about me. I enjoy hiking (nothing hardcore) but I am also not the fittest and I basically don't exercise. The climb up Tanderra Saddle was definitely a little challenging (perhaps more intimidating than anything) however do-able. From Tanderra Saddle to St Mary Peak was pretty easy except for the last 10 minutes where it was a lesser version of the 'Tanderra-Saddle-rock-scramble-up'. I could have completed the walk in around 6 hours but near the end, I took longer breaks and finished the entire hike in 7ish hours. In fact the hardest part of the entire hike was the last 5km where it was completely flat and just felt never-ending.

As an aside, I read this horrifying blogpost where the girl was unprepared and completed the outer trail (the 15km) hike in 13 hours and finished at 1am and she didn't make it to the peak, so just up and down Tanderra Saddle, so in fact less than 15km. Okay, that just makes me so angry. Why would you even start the most challenging hike in the national park at 12pm (when everyone recommends 8-9am in winter months since the sun sets at 4pm). It could easily have been one of those stories on the front page about a tourist dying due to their own stupidity.

All in all, I would recommend the hike. It's not overly challenging in my opinion, but the key point is to be smart. But truth be told, that's a given and really doesn't need to be said. Like most things in life, just don't be an idiot. 

Kangaroo Island

Kangaroo Island is Australia's third largest island and is known for its untouched beauty and the abundance of wildlife (the island doesn't have foxes or rabbits although feral cats are a big problem on the island). I had originally wanted to self drive however logistically it was very difficult and also very expensive ($600 for three days seems a little absurd to me). In the end, I settled on Kangaroo Island Adventure Tours and I am very glad that I did settle on this route. I have never been on a multi-day tour (aside from the dodgy Chinese ones as a kid) and was a little worried however everyone was super nice (I was the only solo traveller) and I had an amazing time! The funniest people were definitely this Danish family who had three adorable and well behaved kids. The father was absolutely hilarious and just funnily inappropriate. For example, the amazing tour guide had mentioned that penguins when ready to mate make this weird noise and the father goes, "sounds just like my wife". Haha, absolute gold.








The tour took us around the island and I fell in love with the place. It is simply breathtaking and definitely worth the effort to get there. I saw amazing coves, beaches, seal lions and NZ fur seals.






Little Sahara.



I also saw the most incredible sunrise! It was overcast and so I didn't have very high expectations but there was a lot of mist and when the sun hit the mist, it turned this incredible golden hue.





I was the only Australian person in the tour (aside from the guide) but I still get excited about seeing koalas and kangaroos. I actually saw a wild koala up close as it changed trees!






Breathtaking.




I also got to hold a koala! #tourist. I did pay $15 for it (which is actually very cheap compared to places like Australia Zoo in Queensland where I think it costs $30+) but there are only two states in Australia where you are allowed to hold them. I am in love with koalas now. They are so soft and compact and are a close tie to wombats (I love wombats).



Kangaroo Island isn't the usual place to visit for tourists (most people focus on the east coast) but I would highly recommend! This tour also made me more confident about multiday tours (since that was one of the reasons deterring me from going to Kakadu/ Top end in Northern Territory).

Adelaide

A week ago, I came back from my trip to South Australia! I start a new job on Wednesday (and I am quite nervous actually) so this trip was my last hurrah before full time work. I originally had three weeks of potential holiday time and instantly, I thought about going overseas. However, I thought it was about time that I spent more time exploring Australia and South Australia has been on my radar for quite a while now. In the end, I settled on visiting Adelaide, Kangaroo Island and Flinders Ranges for 8 days in total.

Adelaide is the prettiest and cutest capital city that I have visited in Australia thus far! I usually am not a big fan of the grid system, but Adelaide just makes it work. It's a planned city and it is organised in such an efficient and lovely manner. The roads are so wide (unlike Sydney) and I honestly love the city!










This was such a lovely morning in Adelaide! My waffle set was quite nice, a country music playlist was being played and I was having a wonderful FB conversation with a friend.

I also headed out to Hahndorf in Adelaide Hills. Hahndorf is Australia's oldest surviving German settlement and it was so weird to see the German influence in the architecture of the buildings. What was also weird was seeing the typical German souvenirs being sold.