Gismo Queen and her King

Flinders Ranges

The wind started to pick up again in the night, and we heard Neill get up to put his awning in very early in the morning. Shortly afterwards, the familiar sound of rain on the caravan roof was heard again.

Come daylight, the rain had well and truly set in and the wind was blowing. So much for the clear skies of the night before. As we had a cuppa in bed, the likelihood of doing our 6 hour walk today was diminishing. Neill had planned to light the campfire at 8am for our breakfast fry up, to fortify us for the big day's walking. 8am came and went and let's just say it wasn't fry-up weather.

After breakfast, I went to the Bushtracker to revise our plan of action (after wishing we had an intercom or handheld radios in the vans so I didn't have to get wet). It was agreed that we weren't going to be walking today and that perhaps we should do our lunch plans (originally scheduled for tomorrow) today. However, the more imminent problems was that Neill's caravan power supply was insufficient and he really needed to charge the batteries, seeing as there wasn't enough sun to use the solar to charge them. The Station rules say no generators but given we were so far away from other campers, we thought it would be OK, but Neill went to check. He came back with bad news and instead, upgraded bookings to powered sites within the main caravan park. So, in the rain and mud, we packed up our vans, hitched up, engaged low range and headed out. Very disappointing.

Re-set up on two long side by side sites in the caravan park, we had morning tea in Cafe Patriot (our van) then booked in to the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna for our lunch. An hour and a half drive there, we arrived to the well known pub to find quite a crowd there. Good thing we booked!

It was lovely and warm, and the famous "feral mixed grill" - listed as one of the top 100 gourmet experiences in Australia - sounded appealing so we all ordered it. We also had mobile service so we were all checking iPads and uploading blog entries! Our mixed grill appeared with a kangaroo fillet, an emu mignon and a camel sausage and it was all very tasty.
We got chatting to fellow Melbournites on the table next to us and swapped 4WD and camping stories before ordering quandong pie for dessert and coffee. Three hours later we came out to find it was still raining, which is really starting to worry us. The road between Lyndhurst and Maree (only about 150km north of us - almost the start of the Birdsville Track) is closed again. We may have to wait somewhere around here for a couple of days to allow the roads to dry out before we can try the Track.

Neill had some optimism in trying a gravel road back through the Flinders Ranges to our Station so we turned off the Outback Highway but after a kilometre or two of dancing down the very muddy and slippery road, we abandoned that idea and turned around to go back to the bitumen. Especially as neither of us had a satellite phone with us!

We got home before 6pm and headed to our respective vans for a night of R&R in warmth and dryness, without the need for much dinner given we ate so much for lunch. It's still raining so the likelihood of spending some extra days around here is becoming more and more likely. While we had service today, we saw some photos of the Birdsville site for our concert. It really does have blue skies and red desert dirt so we can't wait to get there - assuming we will in the not too distant future! We have time up our sleeve so it's just a matter of some patience.

posted by Tracey @ 10:14 pm