The Rime of the Ancient Subaru Driver

It is a slight cheat putting this post under a blog mentioning ticks, since there shouldn't be any paralysis ticks in the area we are visiting.

However: if there were any drought resistant Ixodes holocyclus in Western NSW, Eyre Peninsula or the Barossa Valley, I am sure Tammy the Wonder Dog (hereafter TWD ) would draw them in like flies to a mouldy rissole.

In a previous epic folk had trouble navigating as the publication dates are not the dates of the events.  To overcome that I have created an Index Page for this trip.  Each post will conclude with a link back to that (and another on to the next page in the narrative).

The plan is to drive to

• Sunraysia (NE Victoria, SW New South Wales); then to 
• Coffin Bay on Eyre Peninsula; then
• Barossa Valley SA;
• Marino (a suburb of Adelaide SA); and 
• Home.

Following the precedent of the trip to Sri Lanka, each day, after my usual waffle, we will try to comment on:

• Bird of the day;
• Plant of the day;
• Most interesting thing of the day; and
• What we learnt today.

Following Frances recent poetry readings we will compile a poetic version of the trip.  Specifically we will adapt a verse of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge  The entire epic will appear in an appended post.

In our discussions there appears to be a fair amount of interest food and drink en route so I anticipate having a special page on piggings.

Most of this trip will be just the three of us, but we will meet up with Rob and Carol (from the Sri Lanka trip) and their progeny on Day 2.

TO INDEX PAGE

Day 8: to the Barossa

Another transit day.  This is 670kms so should give us enough time to call in at the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens in Port Augusta.

In fact we decided that we had done enough plant watching, so lets get to the Barossa while the light is good.

We ended up leaving a few minutes late due to investing  little time in watching two dolphins patrolling the beach,  If only the tossers of the financial industry offered a rate of return on investment like that!

After cleaning the dew off the car we headed out, avoiding the wallabies on Dutton Bay West road. In to Port Lincoln with little excitement and find our way to Aus Star Fish megastore.  Some prawns and oysters were acquired (and by 8pm on the day had been consumed and enjoyed greatly).

We then rolled up the Highway towards Whyalla.  After this stage of the trip the total bird list was up to 92 species, with 73 seen in various parts of Eyre Peninsula and 52 seen within 2km of Vandy's Shack. 

As we went along we occasionally reflected on the appalling driving standards of folk with SA plates.  One social misfit who pulled out in front of us and then propelled themselves at 80kph in a 110kph zone - with a sol id centre line so could not be overtaken - deserves a special award of some nature.  I suspect this was the guy they had in mind when designing the sign.

There is possibly a truckie somewhere tonight who would give us a similar award.   We passed him (making an assumption, I didn't check their sex or gender) a few km North of Port Lincoln and he came past us as we were photographing a plant with pink flowers - I suspect a Boronia - I had noticed on the way down. 

We passed them (the truckie, not the flowers) again about 30 km later.  As we stopped to brew some coffee and take lunch in the Whyalla Wetlands  they must have come past since we overtook them again around Port Germein!  I suspect they came past while we were refuelling at Port Pirie, but we didn't catch up by the time we turned off in Crystal Brook.

Getting out of that narrative there was a lot of smoke (but no obvious mirrors) evident at the Onesteel plant in Whyalla. We didn't stop for a steelworks tour.  Apparently the Mad Monk and his colleagues had been prophesying that the Carbon price would cause Whyalla to fall into the sea: not so - the lads were obviously hard at it.

Around this area we started to see wide loads.  They were indeed seriously wide loads and sensible drivers gave them a wide berth.

At Crystal Brook we decided to take the inland route to the Barossa through Clare.  This was going to be longer than continuing down Route 1 but would be more interesting.  Both these expectations were correct.

We managed to avoid the blandishments of most of the Clare Valley's excellent wineries but I did feel obliged to swing into Sevenhill Cellars for auld lang syne.

When we used to visit in the 1970s one was served by a monk (it is a Jesuit retreat as well as a winery) and the wine was good and cheap.  Now the service is by two apparently nice ladies (perhaps The Monk has been devalued by a certain politician) and wine is $35 a bottle!!!!!  Pass.  The architecture was nice however.

There was an old house/ruin behind the shrine.  It was quite typical of the old abandoned cottages one saw along the roads: presumably these were the houses of farmers in the days when a living could be made off a small block (or when a small block supported paid staff as well as the farmer).

Of a more up-to-date appearance was a sculpture entitled Madonna of the Vines.  It has some reference  to a South American "Madonna of the Snows", but Uncle Google doesn't help with that reference.  Most of their offerings for such a Madonna seem to come from Italy!

The vineyards of the Clare region all looked to be in excellent condition (well pruned vines, no weeds etc) despite a very tough year in 2011.  The same comment applies to the Barossa.  The tidiness of these areas contrasts dramatically with the scruffy nature of the vines in Sunraysia.

We found our way to our accommodation near Seppleltsfield and very nice it is too.   Of course being inland it is very different to Vandy's Shack: the dolphins have been replaced by some Suffolk rams that were of considerable interest to the small dog.

We sat out on the deck for a cleansing Pinot Noir or two and watched the sun go down.  Someone has to do this stuff.

Bird of the Day:                    AdelaideRosella (OK a hybrid of Crimson and Yellow Rosella but still interesting),

Plant of the Day                    Unknown pink thing.

Interesting sight of the day:  Black faced rams (Tammy got to vote on this).  [Dolphins got a mention again but Tammy made demands!]

What we leaned today          Petrol prices change dramatically North of Port Pirie.  [A contender was the very high quality of ABC Radio National programming, which kept us entertained from about 9am to 3:30 pm!  However that is very close to the winner last Saturday!]

Two times twenty living men,

played footy in each town

Each mighty punt, the forwards leapt

Fullbacks dropped them quickly down.

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Day 9 Buildings and Bottled Goods

Probably hang out in the area.  There could be some serious investigation of food (various German cakes, bread and sausages spring to mind) and bottled goods (there must a winery somewhere in the Barrosa that isn't suffering from kitsch fatigue and sells its booze cheaply).

The Arte Johnson character from Rowan aand Martin's Laugh-in played a storm trooper prone to pithy sayings.  When I worked in Adelaide we took his diction and a cliché from many war movies to come up with "You still haf relatives in der Barossa Valley?" as the ultimate threat from a colleague of Prussian ancestry.

If we did in fact have relatives in the Barossa Valley they would probably be seeing quite a bit of us!  The day was basically Frances's as staying in the Barossa was her idea.  Somehow a place less than 200km from Adelaide has always seemed like a day trip rather than a multi-day stay,  Indeed on this trip it was originally planned to just stay 2 nights.  However today was an excellent day and there are hopes for the morrow.

The night was interesting in a birdy sense, as whenever either of us woke we could hear Magpies carolling away. I presume this is one more element of a South Australian July being a Canberra September!

The small dog was continuing to vote for the Suffolks being the most interesting sight of the morning.

We began with a walk from our accommodation along Neldner Rd to Seppeltsfeld Rd. 

This was a very pleasant stroll past vines with lotsa nice gum trees along the road, occupied by many parrots.  The range of parrot species has been pretty good also: Adelaide Rosella, Musk and Rainbow Lorikeets, Red-rumped Parrots, Galah and little Corella.  The Gnadenfrei Lutheran church on Seppeltsfield Rd was very picturesque, especially with a well sung version of "The Lord is my Shepherd" wafting out from an early morning service.

Back in the road, the avenue of palm trees was, as recognised by many tourism operators in the Barossa, stunning.

The palms are also evident in this image, taken mainly to capture the decrepid thatched barn.  I doubt if there is anyone in the area who could do thatching these days.

After getting back home we took ourselves to the Information place in Tanunda and got a bunch of information.  Our first use of the information so gathered was to do the historical walk around Tanunda.  This was really good as the whole area seemed to have largely retained its historic character.  

The German gravestones were a highlight, 

with a special mention going to the memorial to Pastor Kavel who led the Germans (OK, Silesians - mny of them came from what is now Poland) from their homes to get religious freedom (and start the quality end of the South Australian wine industry- sorry Dr Penfold)!

The Kugelbahn (skittle alley) was particularly appealing as it was near Langmeil Rd and I have really enjoyed some Der Kugelbahn Shiraz produced by Langmeil Winery!

We then decided to visit the Barossa Brewery, but found they didn't open for a while.  As Frances had found where the local sewage ponds were located we filled in a bit of time there, adding several species of waterfowl to the trip list.  On returning to the brewery I found they could supply me with Organic Ale (5.3%) and Bee-sting Honey Wheat Beer (5%).  After my passing the plastic the owner asked if I had other plans for the day and on my response of "Yes, I plan to do as my wife tells me." he said "Ah.  A normal day then."

We then headed for Angaston, which town (IMHO- I did see it called a village) also had an historic walk.   The walk was a "join in anywhere" item which was a tad disconcerting as we ended up doing it in reverse, causing some issues from time to time.  The churches were interesting contrasts of denominational architecture - Anglican first, then Uniting:

and our old favourite question from country NSW "What have all the banks become?" came back as a good question.

 The pubs, usually remain as pubs.

Frances swung in to Angas Park Fruits (dried stuff) but found their prices far higher than we would pay (for similar fruit but other brands) in Canberra. 

After this we went to Nuriootpa which did not offer an historic walk, nor much else to cause us to put on the brakes until we got out to the Sturt Highway.  There was an interesting moment when we saw an official sign giving the population of 'Nuri' as 829 which seemed far too low.  At the other end of the town we found it was actually 4829! 

It didn't take us long to get to the other end of town as it was simply a commercial centre with very little of the old part of town in existence.  On the outskirts it appeared that modern suburban living was alive and well - or as close to alive and/or well as a modern, garden free slum can be.  What is it about the song "Little Boxes”, made famous by Pete Seeger, that people do not understand?

One conclusion we reached about this was that it is necessary to maintain a critical mass of historic buildings if the character of a town is to be preserved.  That had been done in Tanunda, and just about done in Angaston.  Nuriootpa had failed completely.   This view correlated very closely with the amount of traffic parked in the main street of each town.  (A similar comparison exists between Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto.  Many European towns and cities have got it right by preserving the historic centre and only letting the forces of evil loose on the outskirts.)

When we got to the Highway we headed for bow-tie central - also known as Wolf Blass Wines!  They were offering a special deal where a purchase of a dozen Silver Label earned a bonus six Shiras Vigonier.  That worked out to about $10.91 a bottle which is around the mark for a good bottle of red.

Our final stop of the day was at Maggie Beer's Farm shop where Francie acquired some excellent pate and a sauce.  The pate has been assessed on toast and rated extremely highly.  Well done cook!

Bird of the day:                     Pink-eared Duck

Plant of the day:                    Grape vine [They don't have to be pretty endemics!]

Interesting sight of the day:  German cemetery at Tanunda

What we  learnt today:         The importance of a critical mass in conservation.

 Each town brass-band, has got a hall:

Of yellow brick designed!

They play upon the ovals,

Their oompahs most refined

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Day 10 Honeyeater Heaven (parrots also good).

Possibly visit Brookfield National Park.

Yep.  This morning I was up earlyish and planning to head for Brookfield Conservation Park out on the far side of the Hills.  This is about the closest place to Adelaide where one can see the many of the birds of the drier country.

I have been there before when we have stayed in Adelaide from where it is a 2 hour trip because one has to completely traverse the Metropolitan area.  From our current accommodation it only took 40 minutes, including a couple of stops to take photos of the fog!

Once getting into the Park I became a little concerned about time as I only had about 4 hours according to my schedule, and after 30 minutes had only covered about half the distance (3km) from the gate to the start of the (13km) Nature Drive!  This was due to a surfeit of interesting parrots, notably Mulga Parrots and Bluebonnets, plus having to pursue a flock of Chestnut-crowned Babblers to ID them.

After watching some 'roos

eventually I got to the start of the Nature Drive, where the Rangers (if such people exist here, as I have been about 6 times and have never seen an official vehicle of any description) seem to have reversed the direction of the drive.  Whatever, one still covers the same territory.

It was a most enjoyable outing: in total I wrote down 31 species of which 13 were additions to my trip list.  I didn't add anything to my life list although there were a couple of possibles.  The many Brown Treecreepers were all peered at closely for white brows, but alas  that cupboard was bare. In terms of honeyeaters the cupboard was almost overflowing.  I recorded Yellow-plumed, Brown-headed, White-eared, Singing, and Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters plus Red Wattlebirds.  Some Miners were in the area but I couldn't tell which species they were. 

Towards the end of the drive (after about 3:45) I found an absolutely gorgeous Red-capped Robin and the very last bird I wrote down was a female Hooded Robin.

This was going on against a backdrop of very little flowering.  I saw blossom on one mallee and a couple of yellow-flowered herbs.  For the first half of the drive the main vegetation was bluebush ( I think Marieana sedifolia)

and saltbush.  The fruits of one of these were being consumed by a range of birds.  

Then the vegetation morphed into Mallee for the rest of the drive.

It was notable that although the mallee vegetation form is rather sparse, and there was little in the way of a shrub layer, once I was about 50 metres from the car it was usually impossible to see it through the bush.  Thus one had to keep a bit of an idea of the direction in which one had wandered vis a vis the sun.  It wasn't as bad as the Mulga at Bowra (where the car vanished in about 15 metres) but still a note of caution was needed.

After getting home I picked up Frances and the small dog and we headed back into Tanunda where the idea was to get some coffee cake (traditional German tucker) and metwurst (ibid, but sausage not cake)!  In finding our way to the bakery we noticed another cemetery (the Tabor Cemetery) so wandered in for a squizz.  Again many old gravestones and some modern ones.

Coffee cake was acquired so we headed off to Bethany on the edge of the Valley.  This was the first place settled by the Silesians and several of the houses in the small settlement (population 80) were being kept in origin condition or updated in a sympathetic style.  They had a very interesting cemetery in which several of the original settlers (from 1842) were buried. 

I suspect this eucalypt - possibly a River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) was there before the graves!

After this we ascended Mengler Hill (one of the two main climbs in the Tour Down Under) and checked out the Sculpture Park

near the Summit.

Bird of the Day                      Red-capped Robin.  Just spiffy!

Plant of the day                     River Red Gum at Bethany, representing all the magnificent old gums of the Adelaide Hills.

Interesting sight of the day:  Roadside Olive trees full of ripe fruit

What we learnt today           Much easier to buy olives than processing them for home preservation!

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone in a park of mallee stuff

And never a Ranger came to moan

His bureaucratic guff.

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Day 11: to Marino

Leave the Barossa and take a leisurely drive to Southern Adelaide.

Day 11 to Marino

We arose at the usual time and  took the small dog for a stroll.  En route we passed a house where a few guests were expected for a Barossa breakfast (or had had a big night the evening before).

Having accomplished that we packed the car – astonishingly everything  still fitted - and headed towards Adelaide.

We had decided that we would stop off in Gawler and do their historic walk.  Gawler had always seemed a grotty little town, an inconvenience to be passed through (or these days around) when heading North.  But I hadn't been in to the town for ages so really had no idea what it was like.  In fact their walk through the Church Hill Historic District was rather excellent.  Being planned by Colonel Light everything is laid out rather strictly and he allocated land for 3 churches in this area. Here are 2 of them.

Many of the old houses were well maintained and others were being restored.  Definitely support for our preservation by critical mass theory.

A speciality of the area is the decorative ironwork - referred to as Gawler lace - on many of the  buildings.  This is usually called 'wrought iron' but we strongly suspect it is cast rather than wrought.  Still very attractive however.

 The oldest surviving building is the stable at the back of the police station.  It would indeed be a nice venue for 'the oldest established, permanent, floating crap game in New York.

 This house seemed to combine old time character with a tasteful (and hopefully money-spinning) addition of solar panels.

We then had a cuppa beside the Lower Para River looking at the Moreton Bay Fig trees beside the road and Musk Lorikeets in the gum trees along the River.

As we still had lots of spare time we swung by the Barker Wetlands on the Northern edge of the metropolitan area.  Unfortunately most of the waterbirds were well away from the area we could access, so after ticking a group of Red-kneed Dotterells it was a matter of on to South Road.  Well, sort of on "on" since the way the road is set up means that one can't make turns at all easily. 

When we eventually got to South Rd there were signs about roadworks "expect MAJOR delays".  We didn't encounter MAJOR delays, but did find the road works.  I have no idea what the eventual outcome is going to be but the appearance at present is astonishing.  I thought it looked most like the early stages of constructing Battlestar Galactica.

After a couple of stops to buy things we got to Frances' sisters house where we a staying for the next couple of days.  Life got rather exciting when Tammie (3.5kg)  met their two 30kg beasts.  She doesn't take stuff from anything and I thought WWIII was imminent.  However it eventually sorted itself out and they all seem to be great friends now.  (From some of Tammie’s later behaviour it seems as though we are part of her territory and if another dog approaches us she defends the turf.  Thus by holding her we exacerbate the problem!)

The house is high up on a hillside (more of a not-quite-vertical cliff) overlooking the sea.  As a result of the sea being to the West of Adelaide this means there are rather nifty sunsets.

Bird of the Day                      Red-kneed Dotterell

Plant of the Day                    Moreton Bay Figs

Interesting sight of the Day Roadworks on South Road [The old buildings in Gawler ran a very close second, but ended up not getting a tick as they were somewhat similar to the other old buildings we have seen.]

What we learnt today               To be wary of the road layout around Barker Inlet

I looked upon nice Gawler houses,

and Mr Plods old stable shed;

I looked upon the Adelaide roads,

And traffic lights at red.

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