Considering we'd made plans to divert 120km north out of our way to Broken Hill today (itself 350km away) we weren't up particularly early. After breakfast of cereal and toast we headed up to Wilpena, not quite at the Southern tip of the Flinders Ranges but home to the Wilpena Pound, a natural ring of mountains. Natural in the sense it's not a meteorite impact nor volcanic crater but just the way the mountains formed. At the third attempt we booked our discount AU$45 15 minute scenic flight and went back down to the airstrip to await our pilot, Phil, to set up the four seater single engine plane. The women at the various booking offices had suggested that it was a bad time of day to fly (12 noon) what with the thermals and all but Phil made light work of it as we rounded the Wilpena Pound. Not the best day for sightseeing either as it was pretty hazy beyond a couple of km or so but just being in a light aircraft buzzing the peaks of the pound more than made up for that.
The rest of the day was pretty anti-climactic by comparison, the best part of [a] 500km drive through undulating drought stricken flat plained bush. We made a couple of photo stops on the way back down to Quorn including one where a kangaroo startled Helen and hopped further into the bush. That made me think that that is the only time I've seen a roo hop. All the others have sort of crawled along slowly.
We stopped in Peterborough for a late lunch where the weather showed a little variation and had a short downpour with a few flashes of lightning and a little thunder. We soon outpaced it and back in the arid desert I shot a few moments of one of the many dust devils we've seen over the last couple of days. Whilst nothing of the scale of Tornado Alley in the US they can still develop a column of dust hundreds of metres into the sky. Most of the time, though, they appear from nowhere as they pick up dust or detritus then disappear when the dust runs out. We stopped for one where we saw a small tree shake crazily on its own before the funnel passed into the field.
Eventually, we reached Broken Hill which is a much bigger place than we anticipated. There's a good twenty thousand still in the community and the appropriate number of services for a bigger town. A quick dip in the motel pool followed by some adequate nosh and a couple of beers in the local tavern. There are some sketches of the tavern's womenfolk in a state of undress including one of "Teresa." The landlord kindly photcopied it so I can send a copy back to Blighty. I expect a slap on the face on my return.
The Tourist Motel, Broken Hill S31.96109 E141.46083 Elev. 303m
They reckon it's been 44C today in Broken Hill which you can well believe. It's hot, at 11 in the evening, damn hot.
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.