RV Exchange Travel Destination - Australia - Adelaide To Eyre Part 2
Part two of a motorhome trip west of Adelaide into the untamed reaches of South Australia.From Venus Bay, we drove the rented Maui spirit 2TS north-east to the small plains town of Wudinna near the Gawler Ranges. There are 400 people living in Wudinna, which is set against a huge monolithic rock that rises behind the town like a snoozing hippopotamus. You can buy a block of land for an Aussie dollar should you want to make that 401.
Geoff Sholz and his wife, Irene, were waiting for us. “Just follow us,” said Geoff. “We’ve got a farm shed you can park in. We can’t take a smart motorhome like that to the camp. Four wheel drive only.”
The Sholz have lived near Wudinna all their lives. Geoff grew wheat on the family farm and Irene became a school teacher. The two had met at primary school.
Three years ago they leased 3000 acres of untampered mallee scrub, 31 kilometres from Wudinna near the Gawler Ranges; a patch of the wild that was too precious to be kept a secret.
The couple decided to build a camp for visitors. It would be permanent and luxurious, with all the trimmings but having little impact on the natural environment. In Geoff’s mind, nature comes first and preservation of the bush and the wildlife that have surrounded him all his life are his passions.
As the lucky recipients of the result of this dream, Bill and I sat in Geoff’s four wheel drive winding its way towards the outback. “D’ you know about the outback?” Geoff asked as we slithered along a soft sand track.
“Vaguely,” I said. I’d never really thought about it.
“This side of the fence,” he said, “is the outback. That side is not.
“We are tracing, y’see, the Goyder Line. This surveyor bloke called George Goyder reckoned that there was a definite line of rainfall, and that land south of it was agriculturally viable but to the north – ‘the outback’ – was not. He was scoffed at but, of course, he’s been proven right.”
We were heading for the outback, where the idea of a bush camp conjures up images of a few thin tents and a stone fire with a kangroo cooking on a spit. But Kangaluna Camp is discreet, luxurious and impressive: three large guest tents are permanently set up under arched roofs to catch cooling breezes, and are anchored onto raised floors.
The beds are plump and comfortable, with designer covers. There are tables, seating, storage lockers and core matting on the floors. Ensuite ‘bath tents’ have their own handpumps to bring in precious rainwater and much of the power is solar generated.
Geoff designed and built the concept himself using recycled building materials. There has been very little clearing of the bush, false enhancements, pathways or ‘foreign’ plantings.
“Before we eat,” said Geoff, “I have a bit of magic to show you.”
He drove us to Sturt Lake, one of the several saltpans we were to encounter over the next few days and the remains of a very old river system that millions of years ago drained the Gawler Ranges. Its surface was as crunchy as a potato crisp and as white as fresh snow. The sun was setting behind the double hump of Mount Stuart in an arc of flame. It was so silent, it was as if the world were holding its breath.
Back at camp in an open-sided building designed for the purpose, we ate steak and salads worthy of a four-star restaurant and drank enough red wine to drop a horse. Then we weaved out into the divine silence to watch the stars wheel their way across the sky. Nothing else moved.
Early next morning under the vault of a high blue sky, we drove north through vast sheep stations and along a dog fence toward the Gawler Ranges National Park.
It was a dramatic, wild and ever-changing landscape. The flats were scabby with bitter salt bush and blue bush that looked like malnourished broccoli, or scattered with malee trees, their bark peeled back to reveal trunks the colour of dried blood. Spinnifex appeared like gatherings of golden porcupines.
“I’ve never seen it this dry.” said Geoff. “You can see how the bush is starting to die. If we don’t get rain soon…”
Despite the fact that no significant rain had fallen for three years, we were cutting our way through a palette of desert colours that were astonishingly vibrant; rust, dusky greens yellows, charcoal, ochre and saffron – very definitely Australia. Mulga parrots swiveled along the tree branches like animated emeralds. Three dun-coloured emus high-stepped away from our vehicle, dust spurting from their heels. Groups of kangaroos stared at us, their jaws frozen mid-chew and their ears twitching enquiringly. Goodness knows what they were finding to eat.
“They dig up roots and lick dew from their fur,” said Geoff. “Survival techniques are in their genes.”
Geoff dropped Bill and me off so we could walk though an ancient gorge strewn with broken rocks the colour of ginger biscuits and defined by cliffs of volcanic columns that had formed into giant crystals. Wind hissed through the blue gums and for a moment sounded like running water, but the scattering of clouds merely stroked the parched landscape with their scudding shadows. A wedge tail eagle circled around, checking us out before gliding away on the thermals.
Any detritus of human history out here speaks of the hardships of trying to tame a tough land. We came across a bullock ‘shoeing pen’, not much more than a tree trunk with two pipes radiating out from it where bullock teamsters used to be shod as they carried supplies to the station. How do you shoe a bullock? And we found an abandoned bullock cart that years ago had rolled onto the driver and killed him. Nobody had wanted to touch it since.
We drove on, and around us the Gawler ranges rose up in comely curves speckled with spikey foliage.
After a long haul, we came to the shore of Lake Gairdner, 160 kilometres long and 40 kilometres wide and not a drop of water in sight – but enough salt to harden the arteries of the world’s entire population. We walked out onto its soft surface that clung like snow and looked back to the surrounding land as red as paprika and dotted with bright green kerosine bushes. It was a wild, unearthly landscape.
Under a quivering tree we ate a picnic lunch pursued by huge black ants that marched towards us like death squads. And as we chewed there appeared above the hills in the distance a huge gauzy, black curtain.
“That’s the best looking rain cloud I’ve seen in a long time,” said Geoff. “We might get a dump.”
Within the next hour he was proved right. We were heading back to camp when a few drops fell experimentally and then a deluge descended, drumming on the roof of the vehicle and pounding the thirsty earth.
Within half an hour the landscape had taken on new life. You could almost hear the trees sigh with relief. Spreads of lichen, hitherto as dry as parchment, sprang to life like green sponges. The earth track we were travelling on turned treacherous in minutes. But the most thrilling change was the appearance of the outback wildlife: a group of western grey kangaroos gathered around a puddle and drank with the enthusiasm of boys in a bar; a blue-tongued lizard sucked at a rivulet in the road; flocks of galahs, cockatiels and Major Mitchell cockatoos took to the air; willy wagtails sashayed around the bushes; red kangaroos appeared out of the gloom and flicked their long donkey ears at us; and the little wallaroos forgot their shyness and sprang across the road in front of the vehicle.
“We’ll see wombats soon,” said Geoff, as the dusk started to close in. “They come out of their burrows after rain.”
No sooner spoken than the first one appeared, then another and another, and soon we were watching about six of these podgy and endearing creatures gallumping across the wet soil like little bears in gumboots.
To be rained on at the end of a big dry was a very Aussie outback experience. Nor was our next exertion on the Eyre Peninsula any drier.
The following day Geoff and Irene drove us back to Wudinna to collect the Maui, and we regretfully said our farewells. Then Bill and I made the journey back to the west coast of the peninsula in time for a close encounter with sea lions. To be honest, this was not exactly my idea of a party. Nonetheless we joined the operator, Alan Payne, who transported six of us in his small launch to a sheltered part of the Baird Bay harbour.
“We’ll just hang about here,” he said. “They’ll wander over in a minute.”
Alan was a bit of a roamer himself. He’d planted trees around Hokitika and shorn sheep in Australia and New Zealand.
“One day about eighteen years ago, m’wife and I thought we’d have a bit of a gander down here,” he said. “So we rode down on the beamer [motorbike]. I took one look and thought ‘this’ll do me’. Course it’s grown a bit since then. The population’s now eight.”
Two sea lions poked their heads out of the water.
“C’mon girls,” said Alan and threw out a life buoy. Five more sea lions of varying sizes arrived, which was our cue to slide clumsily out of the boat and enter their domain.
And there the party began. Those gliding streamlined creatures of the deep spun seductively around me tapping my feet with their flippers and nudging me with their noses – inviting me to dance. One young boy in light grey livery zoomed in to eyeball me with his big come hither eyes. He opened his mouth to show me his pink tonsils and then touched his lips – not to mine – but to the glass of my snorkeling mask. I fell in love there and then.
“They just love company,” Alan said later. “If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be here. We never chase them or feed them. Sometimes around 40 come out to play.”
I spent an hour in the water until I was in danger of dying, not of love, but from hypothermia.
When Alan first came here, these winsome and bewhiskered creatures had been attacked and teased and it took him many months to win their trust. He’s something of a one man vigilante now, keeping an eye on anyone who approaches their territory with a father’s concern for their safety.
“They are not just my bread and butter,” he said. “They are my life.”
When we called it a day and left those lovely sea creatures to their watery playground, I was convinced they were in good hands.
From Motorhomes, Caravans and Destinations (www.motorhomesandcaravans.co.nz)
Author: Jill Malcolm
Read Part 1
New Zealand - RV / Motorhome Exchange International Travel Destination.
Monday, 6 September 2010
