day 212 - Adelaide Hills

We did a humble 116km today driving around the Adelaide Hills.  My what a change it was from the golden fields of wheat and barley and the relatively flat country of the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas. While the relative dryness was still evident, it was a pleasure to drive through some lush parts with English trees with their new leaves, roses and rhododendrons in flower, orchards with cherry trees laden with cherries not yet ripe and vineyards, beautifully green in their dresses of new leaves.

041114 A claret ash near Mt Gibson in the Adelaide Hills.
Sorry about the windscreen reflection

041114 A weeping birch tree (we think)

041114 An elm tree near Hahndorf

041114 An orchard near Mt Lofty

041114 Vineyards in the Adelaide Hills

041114 Vineyards in the Adelaide Hills

041114 Vineyards in the Adelaide Hills

041114 The Lutheran Church at Hahndorf

The view from Mt Lofty was the pick of the day.  Unfortunately it was a cloudy day and the sun was struggling to shine through.  A sea mist enveloped the coast too, so photographing went almost without reward.  The sun came out later in the day but by then we were long gone. 

041114 Adelaide from the summit of Mt Lofty 

We lunched at Hahndorf and because there was a bias towards German fare, we opted for what was described as a "Bavarian Grill" for two.  Several hours later we are still enjoying it. It contained Leberkase, Kassler, Pfeffer Bratwurst, Kransky Sausage, sauerkraut, red cabbage, potato salad and a green salad, accompanied by fresh bread and, forgive the owner, a French seeded mustard on the side.

041114 A Bavarian Grill for two at Hahndorf

We took a brief drive through Adelaide city.  It is indeed a lovely city with wide streets, parks and churches.  There are no high skyscrapers and this adds to its charm.  Even the trams are managed well and caused us no troubles.

Day 211 - Minlaton to Adelaide

Toady was our last day on the Yorke Peninsula and we did have to complete the run up its eastern coast to Port Wakefield.

Before leaving Minlaton we had one last task and that was to visit the Harry Butler Red Baron Memorial.  Harry Butler was born in Minlaton and was an aviator who flew in the War and who performed aerobatics locally.  He is remembered for his air mail run from Adelaide across Gulf St Vincent to Minlaton on 6 August 1919.  It was the first over-water flight in the Southern Hemisphere.

031114 The memorial for Harry Butler

031114 The Dehaviland monoplane "The Red Baron" Harry Butler
used for the first air mail flight from Adelaide to Minlaton

It was a mere 51 kilometres from Minlaton to Ardrossan on the eastern coast and then another 40 kilometres to Port Wakefield at the head of the Gulf.  The coastline is not very exciting but there was the inevitable stack of silos at Ardrossan and a Cheetham Salt Factory at Port Clinton.  

031114 More silos at Ardrossan on the Yorke Peninsula

031114 Cliffs at Ardrossan

031114 The main street of Ardrossan

The head of the Gulf is very flat with marshy salt flats everywhere, and the tide was out, as usual.

031114 The head of St Vincent Gulf

By the time we reached Port Wakefield the traffic had begun to increase and by the time we reached Adelaide's outskirts it seemed like we were in a time warp, heavy traffic and traffic lights.  The Gnome knew we were in for a shock when we changed direction at the road signs at the head of the Gulf.

031114 The signs are too big for little Gnomes

The last 20km through Adelaide suburbs was a bit of a "nightmare" with frantic traffic, frequent traffic lights, railway crossings and bad roads, which made it seem like we were riding a bucking bronco.  Thank goodness for the air-conditioning and a patient navigator.

All that aside, it was good to reach our caravan park, which is at Marion, and a pleasure to see some beautiful flowers to soothe our furrowed brows and calm our fractured patience.

031114 Beauty in the caravan park in Adelaide

031114 More beauty in the caravan park in Adelaide.  

Tomorrow's task?  Avoid traffic if we can.

Day 210 - SE Yorke Peninsula

With some relief we awoke to find a heavily overcast day, a cool 15 degrees but ..... no wind.  So off we went to check out the SE area of Yorke Peninsula.  Once again there were no spectacular scenes, although it was a surprise to see a ship loading lime at Klein Point and around 60 wind turbines at Wattle Point.  It was the largest wind farm in Australia when constructed in 2005. 

Eventually the sun came out which put a new element in the mix and the temperature climbed to 19 degrees - wonderful!

We spent a considerable amount of time on dirt roads as we headed south, hugging the coastline as we went. 

There were a lot of limestone cliffs along the coast but they were not very high, say around 10 -15 metres.

021114 Looking south from Mills Gully Lookout

021114 Adelaide Brighton Cement's lime export facility at Klein Point

021114 Looking south from Klein Point towards Wool Bay silos

021114 Silos at Wool Bay

021114 Well maintained home at Edithburgh Beach

021114 Wattle Point Wind Farm - about 60 turbines in all

021114 Looking north to Troubridge Point

021114  Looking south towards Troubridge Hill and its Lighthouse 

021114 Lighthouse on Troubridge Hill at Suicide Point

021114 Looking north from Troubridge Hill

021114 Looking west from Troubridge hill

021114 Harvesting near McEachen's Beach

021114 McEachen's Beach

021114  A pink lake near Yorketown

Flowering gums have been prolific on this Peninsula and red colours have dominated.  It was good to see a cream one today.

021114 Cream flowering gum

We completed a quiet but enjoyable day with a late lunch at a Yorketown pub.

Our visit to Yorke Peninsula is now complete, so tomorrow we head north towards the head of St Vincent Gulf.

Day 209 - NW of the foot of Yorke Peninsula

The Yorke Peninsula does not look very big when compared with the Eyre Peninsula but today we drove 273km and saw only the NW portion of the Peninsula's "foot".

It was sunny most of the day but...... the temperature never got above 17 degrees and a howling SW wind kept us company all day.   It seemed like the apparent temperature was around five degrees at times.

That said, we hopped in and out of the car to take in the sights.  There was always a race to see who could get back to the warmth of the car the quickest.

Sights there were aplenty, so many that we could not take them all in.  Some, read "most", were accessible only by dirt roads but the dirt roads were pretty good.  Gone though is the clean car, clean only for one day.

The coast on the northern side of the "foot" is not very spectacular and it was not until we got into the Inness National Park at its SW point that "spectacular" appeared again.  

We drove through miles and miles of wheat and barley fields a we covered the last 80km to get back to the warmth of the caravan at Minlaton.

The photographs that follow are in chronological order.

011114 Romancing in the harbour at Point Turton

011114 Point Turton township

011114 Burners Beach

011114 The Pines - "cliffs" of dried sea grass

011114 A flock of sheep near Corny Beach

011114 Corny Point Lighthouse

011114 South from Corny Point

011114 North from Point Annie

011114 Point Annie

011114 Berry Bay

011114 Waiting for a customer at Marion Bay

011114 Penguin Point at Marion Bay

011114 Willyama Beach near Marion Bay

011114 Marion Bay

011114 Stenhouse Bay

011114 Cable Bay with Cape Spencer in the distance

011114 Cape Spencer Lighthouse

011114 The cliffs to the south of Cape Spencer

011114 The cliffs to the north of Cape Spencer

011114 The wreck of the "Ethyl"

011114 Pondalowie Bay with South, Middle and
North Islands, with West Bay in the foreground

011114 Looking south from West Cape Headland