Still concerned!

This morning I was contemplating where the COG (the C stands for Canberra) Wednesday Walkers could go.  I thought about Belair National Park, which the WW have never visited or perhaps Brownhill Creek.  Then I twigged that I was conflating my next birding outing here in SA with COGWW.  To quote Homer Simpson:

Our first outing was around the North Glenelg area, starting with a crossing of the Sturt River(possibly more properly known as the Sturt Stormwater Drain!

Getting back towards the house we detected a smell of cooking.  It turns out we were approaching Meals on Wheels Central!  I have always thought of the meals being cooked in some industrial setting rather than a converted dwelling!

 A pretty creeper on a fence.

Today was slated for an explore of the Northern parts of Adelaide.  We started by going to the Central Market where various goodies were acquired and then headed for Gaganis Bros in West Hindmarsh, purveyors of ethnic foodstuffs,  While Frances went in to stock up on spices and the such like Tammy and I headed for a cemetery at the end of Bacon St,

 It was on the Torrens Linear Park.  At this point the River looked very unappealing.  I recall someone once saying they didn't mind green water, at least something's living in there: it was the black water they didn't trust!  This looked like many of the klongs in Bangkok: equal parts of water, sewage and spilt fuel!

My eye was caught by the word Gallipolli on this headstone.  I then realised this poor bloke died on the first day of landings.  A better motto might be "For King, Empire and Kitchener's ego."

 Here is the total headstone.  There appear to be 8 members of the Shaw family commemorated on it: the soldier (presumably buried somewhere on the Peninsula); his parents (who both lived quite long lives); their 4 other children (who died at 2 years, 2 of them at 9 months and 6 years) and a lady called Samantha (presumably the wife's mother) who lasted until 101!

 After our family regrouped we headed off to Port Adelaide.  We had been told that there were a lot of old houses still standing in the Semaphore area and went to have a look at them.  As with Glenelg there were indeed some nice old houses around as well as some new ones.  Generally the area looked quite prosperous.  Continuing with the theme of concern about my mental health, I quite liked the area after 10 minutes exposure.  I'm not sure that we'd be allowed to live there however as I can't pronounce the phrases "John Cahill" or "Russell Ebert" without chundering.  (For those non-Croweaters reading this, they were star players for the Port Adelaide Australian Rules team, and thus worshipped in the area.)

The Port Visitors Information Centre was in the former Police Station.  A very nice building with a very helpful lady therein.

 We did a short walk around this area, where a lot of the old buildings still exist.

 The window designs in that one were intriguing.

There is a lot of artistic 'stuff' around the area.  This alley went into an  area behind the VIC, which seemed to be the hub of the Port Adelaide Festival.

 Judging by the rainbow pattern on the face of the person being carried in the following graffiti I'd hazard a guess that this is something to do with marriage equality!

The next few images are of works inside the VIC.  This first one is the "Port River Ceramic Healing Mural" and was created by 30 members of the local community for Sorry Week in 2001.

 The Ship's Cats date from the 2015 Port Festival.

 I don't know any more about this statue of a dolphin (these animals seem to be big business with tours on the River to see them).

 Here's the River.

 This area on the banks of the River is where buskers gather on a Sunday afternoon.  I haven't worked out the meaning of the graffiti!

We returned to Semaphore where Sotos Fish Shop was (IOHO correctly) advised as the best source of fish and chips,  Another serve of Whiting, taken and eaten looking at the dunes.

 It appeared this is a popular strategy as several other folk were seen carrying parcels of butchers paper, and the nearby garbage bin had a lot of this material in it when I added ours!  The most organised were the folk in the next car to us who had brought along a squeeze bottle of tomato sauce!

We walked along the beach and up and down the jetty.

 The war memorial at the land end of the jetty.

 The lady at the VIC had commented about the Palais which is adjacent to the jetty.  A nice looking building but note the sign advertising "Pokies": no wonder various politicians in SA have made a reputation campaigning against these blights.

 After a brief pause at the house I dropped Frances off for some more sister-nattering and went for a walk to Hallett Cove Conservation Park.

 The cliffs here are pretty good and show much evidence of folding.

 A bonus was finding a pair of Nankeen Kestrels roosting on ledges on another cliff.  This is the female ..

 ... and here is the male.

 The Park is based around an eroded amphitheatre with the Sugarloaf as the best known feature.

I'm surprised that the victim industry (or the boardwalk building industry) haven't demanded that the boardwalks be made wheelchair friendly!

A more panoramic view of the amphitheatre.

 A very pleasant meal with the sisters.  As we drove into Alison St we were surprised to see road works.  A group of guys in his vis and reflective vests doing something to the road blocks which reduce speed in the street,  About an hour later there was a strange mechanical noise, which initially raised concerns about the house infrastyructure going pear shaped.  However it seemed to be coming from outside.  The road works had moved down the street to a hump outside our place.  They seemed to be painting the kerbs white!

And another day ends.

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Salt Lakes

I had wondered about including a trip to the next town North (Elliston) in our itinerary.  But it was quite a way and we have enough other driving to do on this trip.  Frances suggested there were a lot of interesting looking Lakes in that area so we could cast an eye into them.  That seemed like a good idea and after checking Google Earth found a couple of potentially interesting coastal sites on the way, so included them as well.

First up was checking the birds on the water followed by a a short walk along the road.

This image is included to show the differences between Pied and Little Pied Cormorants.  It's at fair range on a pretty dull morning but difference and body shape is size is very obvious.

The first flowering Acacia (A. gillii).

On the main outing our first stop was at Frenchman , a rocky area adjacent to Mount Frenchman.  These spots are a reference to the French whalers who used the mountain (at 168m high, really only a hill) as a look out.  Rock Parrots were there, living up to their name.

Here is the view North ...

.. and South.

There are many ruined cottages around this area.  The juxtaposition of a real ruin and another cottage that looks to heading in that direction was intriguing.  (As we drove past another complete ruin appeared on the far side of the better one.)

Coles Point is named after the family that farmed most of the surrounding area.  The rocks held the biggest flock of Crested Terns I've yet seen on the trip.

This is Mount Greenly, a real mountain at 308m AMSL.  It was named by Flinders after the fiancee of Sir Isaac Coffin who helped with Flinders expedition.

The rocks at Coles Point were the first that showed signs of folding.

The Correas (C. pulchella) were very common.

Once we got back to the highway we got to the first Lake which got within 80m of the road.  That is proved by this snap of the car from the shore.

Looking the other way, here is the 'Lake':

It is more of a salt pan.  I didn't test the surface as I have in the past found that if one goes through the crust the mud underneath is:

• deep;
• black; and
• very smelly.

The only birds seen  here were a group of Shelduck vaguely visible through the heat haze.  (Although only 18^oC there was obviously a whole lotta convection going on.)

We proceeded North to this area we'd noticed on Google Earth, and dived inland along the route marked in red.

Here is one of the Lakes.

They were not all as dry as this but all equally well devoid of waterbirds.  This intrigues me as to why there were no ducks or waders.  It shouldn't be the salinity of the water as waders are quite happy in the ponds at the salt fields North of Adelaide and indeed the major salt lakes in the deserts of North of Port Augusta.  Perhaps it is something to do with fertiliser run off from the surrounding farmland?

We did see some interesting birds around beside the road including 3 Wedgetailed Eagles, 6+ Dusky Woodswallows and a very vocal flock of 12 Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters.  Finally on the outskirts of Kappinie we found a small pond with 7 Pied Stilt and two Red-kneed Dotterels,

On getting back to the Highway we went a little further North to Mount Hope.  My particular hope was that is would have a bakery.  Nope.  About 4 houses and a Memorial Hall (or two).

 One of the houses had a new looking car parked outside and my guess was the car was worth about the same as the house!

We took a further side trip to the cemetery.  It was a bit surprising that it was 1.5km away from the hamlet,  We couldn't work out why this was so: perhaps Eyre Peninsula corpses are particularly prone to zombieism?  I'd expected it to have a lot of old graves and very few new ones.  I was therefore surprised to find that most of the headstones were quite new - nearly all from the 1980s onwards.

It was also surprising, in view of the (apparently marginal) nature of the country to speculate on the likely cost of some of the headstones,  The local undertaker is clearly on a nice little earner.

The paddock behind the cemetery showed that despite the apparent lack of rain whatever had been planted was growing well.

It was then simply a matter of toddling down the highway back to the house.  As we got nearer to Mount Dutton I noticed that the vegetation had changed with a lot of quite large eucalypts rather than the very low shrubs of the coastal areas.  Perhaps the country isn't as marginal as I'd thought.

To get a handle on that I looked at the BoM rainfall stats for Mount Hope.  Astonishingly they appear to have a continuous series since 1903!  That shows there are to have a pronounced Mediterranean rainfall pattern with most of the 405mm average falling between May and September.  2018 to the end of April seems to be about on the median and they score over an inch (27mm) on May 3rd and are well on their way to median May rainfall.

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One sleep to go!

The penultimate kip at Goondiwindi was pretty good, although hearing rain a couple of times in the night was ungood.  No biggie however.

We were on our way before 9 and bought breakfast in the town.  We didn't hang around much as it was raining again.  I didn't even see a statue of Gunsynd to photograph.  The Home Hardware store did provide some rat sized glue traps: here is hoping!

In passing I noticed a sign for the "Goondiwindi öff-road race" next weekend.  I'm glad we aren't in town for that revhead special.  On the road I saw several trucks laden with buggies and in Coonabarrabran a bunch of utes with many trail bikes. Good we're outtathere.

The weather was basically horrible as we crossed the State border - surprisingly only about 500m past the end of the town - and drove down towards Moree.  Lots of trucks coming towards us and quite a few caravans (all Vic registered) going, slowly, our way.  The Newell Highway is after all the direct route from Melbourne to Brisbane.  At one point we were held up for about 10 minutes by some unemployables talking about roadworks.

On the one time we had been to Moree in the past it seemed rather suave.  This route took us through the industrial outskirts, so not suave.  On on towards Narrabri.  The country to the West of the road was MBF: Mind Bogglingly Flat.

 Some lumps were visible to the East.

As we neared Narrabri they turned into Mount Kaputar.

 A bit further down the road I noticed a flagpole and a bunch of brass plates on rocks.  Surely a War Memorial.  Nope done on the 100th anniversary of founding the village and the rail service to the NW.  Interestingly they gave everyone's name and when they lived in the area.

I then found another plaque referring to Lone Pine.  I reckon this is a War Memorial even though the pines seem to have died.

 Between Moonie and Goondiwindi we saw a few signs to "rig ##" but no Lock the Gate material.  Once South of the border this was a common message as we went on to Narrabri.

 They had a War Memorial!

South of Narrabri the anti CSG message changed to protecting the Pilliga.  Still basically sticking it to Santos and their ilk.

We wondered if it was worth stopping for another night or just press on.  After an interesting drive from Coonabarrabran on the Google shortest route (with some rather wet and ordinary dirt roads) we got to Wellington at 3:15 and decided that (apart from the tiredness issue) getting home at 7:30 pm or later to a cold dark house was ungood.  So we are at the Riverview Caravan Park in that town.

• Bird of the day: Cockatiel gets the individual award, while a mob of about 80 Little Corellas get a flock guernsey.
• Vegetation of the day:    The epicormic growth in the Pilliga.
• Memorable moment:  Posting our Census form back at Boggabilla!
• Comment of the day: "Please pick up the mess." Apparently the owner of the van park at Wellington has a few 'pon my sole' issues.  I assured her we would collect.
• Pie of the day: A steak and kidney item from Narrabri.  Quite sound: the crust was a tad moist and the kidney taste was not strong, but a lot better than most offerings in QLD!  8/10
• Troppo moment of the day. Waiting for 10 minutes at road works, which mainly consisted of 5 fat bastards standing around talking.  (In contrast in a couple of cases guys were filling in potholes, ducking out in gaps in the 110kph traffic: go figure the OHAS mentality! )

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