Mystery Meander : Day 13 October 3 - Wilpena Pound Campground to Irymple’s Coachman Caravan Park.

Up promptly this morning, as we needed to get going, the plan was to do a walk to look over the Pound, however time got away and we determined that a 3 hour walk would make the day too long. Instead we had a look at the Wilpena information centre and shop. Then plans were made to drive to a couple of lookouts (Stokes Hill and Hucks) and the Cazneaux tree – which was made famous by the photographer Harold Cazneaux – who was struck by the River Red Gum tree and the mountains and the light provided by sunshine, the photo was taken in 1937 and was titled “The Spirit of Endurance”, then a scenic Morolana drive. We ditched the drive and headed south, fuel at Hawker and then hit the road home to put some real kilometres under our belt.

Last night was cool and thank goodness the wind died down. Our campsite was a fair walk from amenities block, but a shower before bed was fantastic, followed by a little catching up on the blog.

Before I forget, I need to record a ‘first’ for the trip. This ‘first’ is a few days old, but I have been reminded a few times that is needed to be documented. Back a while now, when we made a really late camp in the claypan near Big Red, a ‘first’ occurred. We set up tents in the dark and all camps set about preparing ‘quick’ dinners, consisting of two minute noodles, leftovers etc…however one camp prepared their meal from scratch and were still sitting down first – well done to Steve who had Chilli con Carne in the bowls well before the rest of us.

This morning’s plan was to head for Tintinara today which would put us within reach of Melbourne and home tomorrow. When fueling up the plan changed and we decided to head out through Orreroo, Peterborough and Burra, through to Renmark. This required a change to plans for a pub room at Tintinara. We have now booked cabins and campsites at Irymple, where we stayed on the way up. The Willshire-Morgan-Viney’s will put up the tent and the rest of us have opted for cabins again, to make for an early start. Possibly Macca’s however we really could do breaky pretty fast in the cabin.

We stopped in Peterborough for lunch and loos, then on with a detour through Burra for a look, thanks to a Navman waypoint.

We have been in touch with the Dundek-Walsh-Mintern vehicle and they stopped last night in Orreroo and were in Renmark mid-morning, with lunch in Mildura, so it will be late home for them tonight.

Poor Reve, looks like she’s been a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson, her left eye is badly bruised and swollen, she has a bruised tongue – that looks like she has been sucking choo choo bars, also swollen lips, a cut hand and generally knocked around, her nose has only stopped bleeding at lunchtime today, but she is a trooper and is soldiering on.

We struck a bit of traffic, but handy having several cars someone ahead can check for oncoming traffic and assist with passing, we also struck some roadworks which had a 25km speedlimit. We all struggled to keep it that slow. Mary was quite frustrated by it.

The hills through here are lovely, many are dotted with wind turbines.

Hit the fruit fly, we all had a bit of stuff to ditch fruit and veg. Quite a bit in Mary and Phil’s case, as they were carrying the vegies for the mythical roast night – that never happened. So while others take a roast home, the veggies have been ditched. Mary and Phil did an amazing job fitting in the veggies for all 19 of us.

A quick pit stop in Renmark, before heading off on the last leg to Irymple.

Arrived at Irymple, 3 of us stopped for fuel and Steve & co. went and booked in. The Caravan Park was much fuller than last time, there is a country music festival in Mildura, guess we were lucky to get in. Mary and Phil and kids camped near our cabins, pizza was ordered and we all ate in the Davey cabin, of course there was time for pre-dinner nibbles – we are still taking stuff home tho.

Dad has decided to part ways in the morning, so we re-arranged stuff to get Ro into the Davey vehicle and also to transfer Kerri’s stuff from Dads to mine. We have most of that sorted before pizza.

Early-ish to bed to be ready to rock and roll at 8.30 in the morning.