Rachel Grindlay

Fly into Launceston. Beautiful day, if very cold, 2°C – car still covered in ice when we go to pick it up. Groceries then coffee & French vanilla slice in Campbell Town. Lunch in the very busy car park at Freycinet National Park. Hate to see what it’s like in summer!? Head up Mt Amos. Dire warnings at the trackhead – which for once actually seem legitimate. The granite would be a slippery death trap in the wet.

Really fun walk up, overtaking a few people. Timed it well as a large group left the summit as we arrived. I leave off climbing a rounded boulder as not sure I could get off. Fabulous views but light a bit flat for the photographer. But still, it’s pretty speccy! And Tom made it! His hardest walk in 3 (?) months. My biggest climb since mid-April. Kicking goals all round.

We spent a while up the top but with it being the Winter Solstice the sun was setting not long after 4:30pm… As we descended we came across a couple we’d overtaken not far from the start still on their way up. Think they’ll be pushing it get down in the light. The descent is unlikely to be faster than the ascent, if anything slower with a number of steep smooth granite faces to be carefully negotiated (for most it’s an on your bottom proposition).

Safely back down we head for our airbnb. Some confusion with East v non-East streets but Coles Bay isn’t that big so it only delays us 5 minutes. Views of the Hazards out the window and a hot drink in hand – the most satisfying day we’ve had together in months.

A casual delicious dinner 2 minutes walk up the road, and then the only downer of the day – NSW getting thumped in the State of Origin.

We both sleep well and with sunrise not till 7:30am there seems no hurry to get moving. Back to the far less busy car park in the morning. This time to do the Hazards Beach – Wineglass Beach – Wineglass Lookout loop. A fairly overcast cool day kept our breaks fairly short.

Then a quick nip around the Cape Tourville Lighthouse track. Worth it for the views, not for the (modern) lighthouse.

Making it back into Coles Bay just as the rain started I was exceedingly disappointed to find the only open cafe’s coffee machine was on the blink.

The rain fell and fell. The forecast rainfall continued to increase.

Dinner for tonight was a short drive away. We were the only booked patrons for the evening – like having a restaurant exclusively booked out… In the end there was one other couple and as we were finishing up a group of 5 who were offered take away pasta as the kitchen was largely done. So hopefully the restaurant managed to break even for the night. And home in time to see the women win their SOO game.

The rain didn’t let off and by 8am 90mm had fallen in 17 hours with more to come. No point leaving our accom before we had to. A visit to the patisserie in Bicheno was the obvious next stop since it was still pouring. We rescued a young woman from sitting outside by sharing our table. She was travelling from Austria and we had a good chat. The croissants were very good.

Then since it was still raining The Farm Shed for some wine tasting. 10 wines. No change to my view on Pinot Noir but I persist in trying. We came away with a bottle of that classic cool-climate varietal Tempranillo!

The rain seemed to have pissed off so we checked out the blowhole then headed to St Helens. We wandered down to the waterfront admiring how still the water in Georges Bay was, particularly given the large swell all the way up the coast.

After much agonising we ended up with somewhat healthy dinner supplies and headed back to our cosy airbnb. Reading, dinner, a GWQ (15/25), several rounds of Boggle. The first game the highest scoring 2 person game we’ve played (Tom 29, me 28).

Another great night’s sleep and sleep in. Eventually we got out into a surprisingly sunny day. Headed to Binalong Bay and walked from Skeleton Bay – Skeleton Point – Grants Point. We rock hopped a bit around Skeleton Point though Tom came a cropper and bashed up his left shin fairly impressively. Between Tom’s shin and a somewhat ‘meh’ feeling about the walk (it was fine… just not going to deliver anything we hadn’t already experienced) we decided to head back to the car a bit after Grants Point rather than continue to Dora Point.

Coffee on the deck at Meresta was speccy. Beautiful day. Headed out to The Gardens which were disappointing. A short track surrounded by houses, farmland and infrastructure and not really anything more scenic than we’d already experienced. Plus a chilly nor’easter made it quite cool. Instead we backtracked to Sloop Rock Lookout and found a spot out of the wind for lunch. No sign of any whales though.

Since we didn’t have any other ideas for the day another coffee at Meresta would have been rude to bypass. Then back to accom, reading, wine/cheese before heading out to find dinner without a booking. No luck 1st try but ok on 2nd. I had what seemed like an entire cauliflower in my bowl of cauliflower bites to start which unfortunately spoilt my appetite for mains.

Didn’t sleep that well and we’d planned a busy final day back to Launceston so were on a tight schedule. Got away later than hoped and it was grey rainy day. Our first objective Ralph Falls – we thought better of not long after attempting the road. Eventually finding somewhere to turn around we beat a retreat to St Columba Falls which were pumping impressively.

Then the Giant Tree circuit.

Rain made for less pleasant driving conditions for much of the day. I was relieved to get to Scottsdale for lunch at a cafe there. Continual rain meant a slow trip to the airport, and a bit of a rush to repack only to be delayed. Ah well. A reasonable 5 days for a trip organised less than a week in advance.

Nine glorious days of fine weather had to come to an end at some point. We thought it was at the end of the our 9-day trip, but the good weather still existed on the other side of Takaka Hill. In Nelson we had a glorious dinner by the river the night we finished, and then a lovely (if we ignore the sore feet) walk towards Tahuhanui.

A relaxed start the next morning had us meandering towards Murchison where we enjoyed “caesar salads” (with the non-traditional ingredients of cabbage, carrot, tomato..) – I didn’t care about the unusual ingredients I was just happy to be eating fresh vegetables! Post lunch we had a short stop at Maruia Falls, before our indulgent night of the trip at Maruia Hot Springs.

Unfortunately no one gave me the memo to bring my fly face net – it would have been perfect. Submerged in the outdoor hotpools it was just my face that the sandflies had access to. Next time it will be an essential item on the packing list – and to be honest, might be something worth throwing in for any NZ trip in summer.

The weather was meant to be worst the two days we were in Arthur’s Pass. We tried to be ambivalent about it – after all we had just had the most amazing weather for the part of the trip where it was most important. Heavy rain warnings were in place for much of the North Island and parts of the northern South Island. While we weren’t under a warning there was still the potential for plenty of rain. On the bright side we were in a motel not a tent!

The rain set in not long after we arrived in Arthur’s Pass village. When it eased off a bit we took the chance to walk to the Devils Punchbowl (waterfall).

This was followed by an early dinner at the Wobbly Kea. Arthur’s Pass seemed to have the most pronounced staff shortages of anywhere we had been, leading to reduced menus/opening hours and at times poor customer service (not at the Wobbly Kea which was excellent despite its challenges). I understand the issues and have sympathy for the individual business owners, but it does make travelling a bit of a drag. How’s that for first world problems?

The next day we’d been hoping to do Avalanche Peak but with the conditions there was little point. Checking the MetService forecast in the morning we saw there was 38mm of rain forecast for Avalanche Peak for the afternoon, but only a few millimetres for the morning. Better get out and doing something in the morning then. Though then we checked some other forecasts which suggested the afternoon would be better than the morning. Who to believe? In the end we got going and had a relatively dry walk up the Arthur’s Pass Walking Track. At the top we even climbed a bit of a way up the Temple Basin track to get a view of a waterfall (when the clouds cleared enough).

We were somewhat bemused as we started seeing a string of people just starting out as we got nearer to the village on our way back – one commented “what a stunning day”. I guessed she’d driven from Christchurch which was still having good weather (but look out the next day). We looked very overdressed in our tramping rain jackets – which admittedly I did need to take off just before the end as I’d got too warm. A small part of me was wondering if we should have waited – but then about an hour after getting back to our motel it poured. And poured. And poured. So much so the smugness threatened to overwhelm our motel room. Eventually it eased off enough for us to run across the road for a coffee. And do a bit more wandering the small tracks around town. Once again glad I wasn’t in a tent.

The next morning we set out in wet conditions towards Christchurch. I had picked out a walk but it involved a 2000m+ peak which seemed a bit pointless/masochistic given the weather. I would have liked to give the Cave Stream Creek cave a go – but at 13°C it didn’t seem like the most sensible option for the day either. Instead we just checked out the inlet and outlet – next time.

We also stopped at Castle Hill and did the tourist walk there – the rock formations were great. Eventually we found ourselves at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch – where randomly we bumped into 2 people we’d met at Fenella Hut on 1st Jan. And there endeth the holiday.

After being somewhat scarred on our trip over the Easter weekend we weren’t that keen to venture off-track again. But mainly the rain had returned to the East Coast. I was heading to Tassie the weekend after so I wasn’t that disappointed with the forecast since I figured that meant I’d have the weekend to prep. Then Tom announced we should go to Mt Kaputar for the long weekend. “Right…” I say. “It’s a bit of a drive”, he says. “How far is a bit of a drive”. “6 or so hours”. “Oh”.

Tom’s plan involved leaving Thursday night, staying in a motel around the halfway mark, and then finishing the driving early Friday morning so we could be walking most of Friday. It seemed like a dreadful idea! I had a busy week at work, and if we went, I would only have one day between this trip and my Tassie trip. Every fibre of my being said we shouldn’t go. So reluctantly I agreed.

Tom, to his credit, organised everything. A bit dangerous on his part, since now I know he can do it 🙂 All I had to do was pack my individual stuff and hop in the car. We had Thursday night in Murrurundi – it’s claim to fame being where Tom’s great-great-great… something-or-other was a police officer. We were on the road again by 6:30am on Friday and so it was a completely reasonable time when we started the walk to Mt Yulludunida, loaded up with our overnight packs.

Tom’s vague plan had to been to climb up, explore part of the plateau, find a high camp, then explore another part of the plateau the next day. As we ascended we checked out the vegetation (relatively thick) and the general landscape (quite rocky). Finding a campsite might be tricky? Having morning tea on the northern summit of Mt Yulludunida we had a good view of the plateau. The plan quickly changed. We decided to try and traverse the Yulludunida spine, then come back and try and find a campsite on the western part of the plateau.

Thankful to dump my heavy pack (we were carrying water for two days) we set off with day packs to the Northern summit. While it was a nice day the cloud frustrated us, creating shadows just when we wanted to take a photo.

It was a pretty fun traverse. Going out ahead of Tom so he could take photos I watched him descending from the main summit. It looked so dodgy – but having just done it myself I knew there wasn’t really anything sketchy about it. (That said, I was glad to be wearing my grippy climbing approach shoes).

Eventually we got to a gap in the range – only a metre or so wide, but coinciding with a drop. Tom tried to find a way down, but his commentary did not fill me with confidence. We decided we’d come as far as we were comfortable so it was time for lunch. What an amazing spot. There were several wedge-tailed eagles catching the thermals around us, and at times they were only 10-20m away.

After lunch we reversed our traverse and reclaimed our packs. We headed out into the bush across the plateau. The busy work week I’d just finished was starting to catch up with me, and when Tom said there were some workable campsites at the knoll we’d paused at I was happy to stop. I thought Tom wanted to camp there as it had good views of the cliffs of Mt Yulludunida. However, when we walked out (sans packs) to the end of the plateau and found some reasonable flat spots near the cliff edge we decided to go back and retrieve our packs. I slept for the rest of the afternoon while Tom went photo hunting.

It was a lovely sunset and we had an enjoyable happy hour on the cliffs.

It started getting a bit breezy so we retreated back from the cliffs to get some shelter. We got through dinner before it started blowing a gale. The tent was a little away from us, and I’d been down a couple of times to check on it as it was not particularly well-pegged as we were camped on rock. The third time I checked it I didn’t feel safe leaving it alone!

From that point, one of us was in it until the next morning when we took it down. A pretty miserable night followed with the wind whipping the tent down on top of us. We didn’t do the fly up because of the extra sail effect it was having. All our gear was at my feet in the tent so that it didn’t blow away outside.

We survived the night.

Not sure it was my worst night camping. We tried ranking them as we walked out. I think our night at Goosenecks State Park in the US is still my number one. That was also a very windy night.

There wasn’t any discussion about exploring the rest of the plateau. By unspoken agreement we headed directly back to the car, and then to Narrabri for a coffee. After the coffee I was feeling slightly more human. We picked up some firewood and the physical newspaper (how novel) before heading back out to Mt Kaputar.

We headed up the Mount Coryah walking track, unfortunately getting to the main lookout at the same time as another group. Not having understood the track I pushed on thinking we’d be doing a circuit of the plateau and returning that way. It was only after we’d descended and started skirting under the cliff that we realised we would not be returning to that lookout without turning around. We settled with having lunch on a rocky outcrop before heading back to the car.

From there we headed to The Governor (Corrunbral Borawah). The walk description said: “The walking track follows an easy sealed boardwalk to The Governor lookout, where you can bask in the superb scenic mountain views. You’ll see majestic mountain gums and vibrant wildflowers in the spring. The second half of the track, though, will definitely get your heart racing. Ascending steeply via ladders, you’ll have to do some rock scrambling, but it’s all worth the effort.” I was excited for the walk and the scrambling, and then felt completely ripped off when I’d got to the end without using my hands. There were good views though.

By then it was time to go and settle into our, hopefully far more sheltered, campsite for the night. Unusually for us we’d decided to book into the official national park camping. We were less than delighted to find that half the campsite was a construction zone, which was visually jarring. But more intrusively there was work going on in the middle of a Saturday afternoon of a long weekend. Diggers that beeped every time they reversed, trucks and utes driving in and out of the campground. And they didn’t even knock off early. Finally at 5pm there was peace. We were a little annoyed since there had been no information about this when booking the site. We may well have made different plans had we known.

Tom decided sunset was going to be viewed from the Mt Kaputar Summit. Fortunately we were allowed to drive up there. We weren’t the only ones, or the only serious photographers, but we were the only ones with cheese & crackers & port!

The joy of a well-pegged tent, in a pretty sheltered campground, led to a good night’s sleep. Despite the campsite being booked out it was very quiet. That was despite the large group of climbers who were camped next to us arriving well after dark. I didn’t know where they were all going to sleep as there were about 8 of them and the tent platforms were only big enough for 1 or 2 tents. But I should have known better – all bar 1 were sleeping in their cars – and they turned in before 9pm.

The next day we opted to do the Kaputar Plateau Walk. This is an 8km loop but 2km of it is on the road. We did the 2km down the road to start. It was surprisingly cool in the shade as wound our way down the mountain. The highlights of the track were the lookouts. We had morning tea at Lairds Lookout which had great views towards Euglah Peak. The family that was leaving as we got there said we were lucky as normally it was a favoured goat hangout. No signs of goat for us though. We went looking for Euglah Cave, and found it (we think!).

Returning to the track we followed the fire trail uphill. Some sections were not too far off feeling like a ‘real’ bush track, others were clearly fire trail. Rangers Lookout gave us good views in the opposite direction towards the Bundabilla Cliffs. Rather than an early lunch we returned to the car and headed back to the campground.

We’d hoped to walk from the campground on the link track to the Bundabilla Circuit. Tom had seen the link track had been closed but was supposed to now be open. Unfortunately the website wasn’t accurate and the link track was still closed. And there were workmen again! On the Sunday of a long weekend!? We did the Nature Trail since we were on it and had lunch on one of the benches along it so that we weren’t next to all the trucks at camp.

Mid-afternoon we drove round to the start of the Bundabilla Circuit since we couldn’t walk there. It had plenty of viewpoints, and the side trip to Lindsey Rocks gave us more great wedge-tailed eagle viewing.

By the end of the day, I was happy just to settle down at camp, but Tom needed to do sunset at Mount Kaputar again. I left him to it! The campground was only half-full which was quite the contrast to the night before.

Our final day we got going pretty early to get some of the 6-7 hours drive under the belt before we even realised. As it was Anzac Day not much was open in the towns we went through, and the main road was closed off in Gunnedah for a parade.

Burning Mountain Nature Reserve was a good way to break up the drive with a solid 4km walk to see the burning coal seam.

Unsurprisingly every pub we drove past looked packed. Fortunately we managed to get some filled rolls to take away in Scone before the final push back to Sydney. A very enjoyable weekend away, which just proves your instinct is not always right.

The last time I was in Zambia was 1996. A lot has changed since then! For one I am 22 years older. Another, I am now an adult. This was one of the more stressful trips I’ve organised – information on the internet isn’t as easy to come by but more importantly my trust that things I had booked would work out was low.

The internet was full of death-inducing dangers of driving in Zambia. There’s not a big car hire industry in Zambia and I had booked with a relatively unknown (at least by internet recommendations) company. We arrived into Lusaka early on our flight from Johannesburg, having left home some 20 hours earlier. Reaching the front of the queue at immigration we were informed we needed to be at the desk next door. So we duly shuffled across, upon reaching the front of that queue we were told we needed to be in the queue next door. What? We’ve just come from there? Turns out there was a little window we’d missed where KAZA visas are issued. Eventually being served from that window, the lady then battled with the password for the special laptop, the printer, the print alignment etc. Forty-five minutes later we both had KAZA visas, and the luggage was only just out so no time really lost. Our car hire man was there, and we were whisked away to a dark, deserted car park (it was 9:30pm by this stage) to collect the car. It was a full 4WD Toyota Prado rather than the ‘medium SUV’ I’d booked. Bonus. It felt like the classic set up for a mugging. I was pulling out my credit card, licence, passport while Tom was being dragged around to inspect the car in the dark.  We survived the dark car park and soon I was driving to our accommodation for the night. That was all pretty straight-forward as well.

The next morning we had breakfast and then headed to East Park Mall to do some shopping. I was impressed by the mall. Unfortunately because it was Sunday most of the shops didn’t open until 10am, so we couldn’t get away until after then. The camping store I’d hoped to get a gas canister from had one sort with the screw (EN417) attachment but it wasn’t quite the type we’re used to. With no choice we hoped it would work. We picked up a local SIM card as well as some groceries and fuelling up the car. Tom took the first leg of the driving which wasn’t much fun as we had to firstly get out of Lusaka and then once on the main road there were numerous trucks going at variable speeds. It made overtaking a much more challenging experience due to the large variety of speeds being done, by the vehicles in front, the vehicles approaching on the other side of the road and the vehicles racing up behind you that were game to overtake multiple cars/trucks at a time. On the plus side the road was in much better condition than I was expecting with very few potholes.

Not finding anywhere suitable to stop for lunch Tom ended up doing over 4 hours straight driving, and lunch was eaten while we were driving. It was with great relief we finally got to my old school friend Nicky’s farm in Mkushi. I last saw Nicky in NZ when we were both 19 and we did a 2 week road trip around the South Island. A lot has changed since then! We had a lovely evening outside around the fire with Nicky & family (husband, 4 kids, 2 fur children) before crashing out. The next morning Nicky’s Mum & Dad & sister popped by – it was great to see them, as they had been wonderful hosts to me for several weeks in the summer of 1996/97.

Next stop was Ndubaluba to get a map for our Mt Mumpu mission. Abe gave us a map and the loan of a water filter, but the most complex thing seemed to be the driving directions! We hoped we had all we needed before hitting the road for Kundalila Falls. Despite suggestions we should pretend to be locals to get the cheaper fees I couldn’t bring myself to outright lie when asked what country we were from. So K150 each later we had our invoice – only 6 times the local rate! We wandered around to the look-out of the falls, then headed down to the bottom. The base of the falls was in the shade and despite being a bit sweaty by the time we got down there was no real temptation to go for a swim. Tom spent a while photo-faffing before we headed back up.

At the top the campsite was pumping! We had been warned that there was an Ndubs group there, so it wasn’t hard for me to pick out Mr Thompson (my ex-Geography teacher, now head of the outdoor centre). We had a most enjoyable evening with Mr T, and the Banani school group – including their presentations of Super Supper. It was our coldest night though – was very glad of my warm sleeping bag that I almost hadn’t packed.

After visiting the view point again in the morning, and with final tips from Mr T on Mumpu we hit the road. We made good time to Mkushi, but then it was a very slow drive out to Changwena Falls. We had a mud map of the route but we weren’t super confident in it. The key direction was to turn right at the Upper Lunsemfwa Primary School sign… we got to a sign, I thought I could make out the lettering so we turned. The road was increasingly sketchy and we were both desperately hoping we were going the right way because it wasn’t going to be much fun having to drive back out with no reward.

Eventually we became confident we were on the right road. We found the other turn-off with the bits of tape on the tree and soon we were at Changwena Falls along with the crowds. We had also been warned that a Duke of Ed Group would be finishing up there, so we weren’t surprised. What we were surprised at was the annoying bitey flies (bees?) that were everywhere, including in your ears and eyes and nose. That made our decision on whether to walk to the base that afternoon pretty easy – anything to get away from the insects! We scored a colour map from Josh, to replace the B&W one we’d been given by Abe, and then we were off.

What we would call a fire trail had been established to a base camp below Mt Mumpu so it was easy walking in the late afternoon.

We passed a burn-off along the road on our way. Unfortunately one of the last things Mr T had warned us about was the possibility of fires and the danger to the car. While I wasn’t concerned it meant Tom had a sleepless night worrying about it.

After some quick photos of the mountain in the sunset light we got camp sorted. Our gas canister had been a dud as our stove wouldn’t screw into it far enough to release gas, so it had been ditched and we were back to cooking on the fire. It was a super windy night which didn’t help our sleep.

Tom was so worried about the car and out of control grass fires he wanted to bail straight back to the car. I was having none of it. So shortly after 7:30am we left camp on our way up Mt Mumpu. It looked exactly like the photos from 1994 🙂

The section up through the cave was trickier than I was expecting. But then I realised most of my memories from the 1994 trip were just based on the photos and video. There was quite a lot of scrambling, a bit of pack passing and some grunting from Tom as we squeezed through a couple of the smaller holes.

Once through it wasn’t quite over, we had to find our way out on to the ridge, disturbing some baboons who were quite vocal in their displeasure but soon headed off.

There was still a bit of work to be done to get to the summit. We arrived at 9:30am – 2 hours after leaving camp.

I was hoping to somehow recreate the summit shot from 1994 but the Trig which had existed then has been pushed over hit by lightning.

We enjoyed the views for a while before heading off the other side.

We picked our way down another ridge and found the walking similar to The Kimberley region in Australia. Spinifex-like grass which was slow-going at times, or fast if it had been burnt out.

Other than deciding to go through a swamp for about 200m at the bottom of the ridge we descended the walking was very pleasant. We picked up the fire trail we’d come in on a bit further along and were back at, a now empty, campsite by 2:30pm.

We hadn’t actually been down to the Falls when we’d arrived the previous day. I didn’t really remember them, other than in 1994 I knew we’d swum there. They are stunning. Again we could have been in The Kimberley. We had a good wash, though didn’t stay in too long as the water was brisk. Unfortunately the annoying flies found us and eventually I beat a retreat to the tent.

We had a pleasant night around the campfire. I was surprised at the amount of rubbish that has been left around camp – Mr Solomon would have had our heads! I cleaned up most of the toilet paper and foil in the fire, but don’t think I got to everything.

On the drive out we discovered the back of the sign was very clearly lettered! So if driving out there and in doubt – have a look at the back!

A fun trip, though going up the cave was a bit harder than I was expecting – quite impressed by my 14-year old self!

 

See the later part of the trip here: Lower Zambezi

We hadn’t done a road trip in our own car since 2005. After winning the bidding at a charity fundraiser for a couple of nights accommodation on Kangaroo Island we had some planning to do. Discarding thoughts of flying we realised we’d be able to go to our favourite wine region in Australia – Rutherglen, visit the best climbing in Australia – Arapiles, and get to a not-easy to access wine region – Coonawarra. Add in visiting friends in Adelaide and the plan had legs.

We started off with a night in the nation’s capital visiting Laina & Ross. This conveniently broke up the drive to Rutherglen. We hadn’t been to Rutherglen since our Sydney-Perth road trip in 2005. There had been a lot of talk about getting back here but with it being just a bit far for a weekend from Sydney it hadn’t happened. Needless to say we were pretty excited to be here!

We started off at Morris, then took advantage of Chambers being walking distance from our accommodation to squeeze in a tasting before closing time. Chambers hasn’t changed much over the years and is the only cellar door I’ve ever been to where you self-serve.

The following day I insisted we hire bikes to cycle around the wineries. I was acutely aware that unlike most of our holidays exercise was not front and centre – we needed to do it when we could otherwise we were going to come back lard balls! So we hired bikes and set off to Anderson Winery. Then we came back into town and joined the Murray to the Mountains rail trail. Rutherglen is very flat so the cycling was easy – which was just as well because the hire bikes were not very comfortable!

Second stop was All Saints, followed by a platter next to their lake in the lovely autumn sunshine.

Last, and furthest away, was St Leonards next to the Murray River. After tasting we did a short walk down to the Murray behind the cellar door. From there we just needed to ride back into town – around 10km. Normally this would be pretty easy but not being quite the right fit for the bikes we had two different approaches – Tom’s was to ride as fast as possible to minimise the amount of time on the bike, mine was to amble along to avoid putting too much stress on my various body parts. Given this it was unfortunate we turned too early and ended up adding another 2km to the route home! On the plus side the weather was gorgeous all day and we were treated to a lovely sunset as we rolled into Rutherglen.

The next morning we decided one last winery was in order on our way out of town so we spent a couple of hours at Campbells which was excellent. Despite Arapiles being a key part in our planning process it became apparent it wasn’t the best destination for us. We’d been climbing regularly in the lead-up and I was excited to see if I would enjoy this visit more than our short-lived one in 2005. However with strained fingers, sore wrist and slipped rib between us we concluded going to Araps would sadly be a waste of time. Instead we headed to the Northern section of the Grampians. We arrived on dark so didn’t get a chance to do any activities the day we arrived.

The next day we were able to do a great bushwalk up Mt Stapylton. The signage has said it was a difficult walk and I was questioning the grading, but the final section to the summit did involve route-finding and scrambling.

After our jaunt up Mt Stapylton we did a short walk to an Aboriginal art site – Gulgurn Manja for lunch. Tom as always wanted to go exploring, mainly to find out where all the climbers must be from the cars in the car park. And so we found ourselves in Summerday Valley. This would been the perfect crag for us, or even for me to do some top-roping, but mentally I was already on the road to the Coonawarra so we didn’t stick around. Hopefully we’ll return another time as the Northern Grampians looks like somewhere you could potter around for a few days. Soon we were driving through Horsham when the car didn’t feel right. I pulled over only to find that the back tyre was completely flat. Well… if you’re going to get a flat tyre then the middle of Horsham mid-afternoon, almost over the road from a tyre place is probably the best you could ask for.

The tyre got fixed but then a small bulge was noticed (I’m sure there was a technical term for it) that was a weakening in the tyre wall and too dangerous to drive on… so we had to buy a new tyre. And that all took longer than it should of because the guys at the repair place couldn’t read my writing so couldn’t call us to tell us what was going on! Eventually we were on the road to Coonawarra resigned to not getting any wine tasting in… until we realised that with the time change from going between Vic and SA made it 4:30pm and not 5pm! Bonus. A quick stop at Rymill was excellent. The weather set in over night with heavy rain and wind making us very glad we weren’t camping!

The next day was all about wine-tasting. We didn’t think we’d get through more than 3 after our Rutherglen experience but the wine lists were generally much shorter, and we weren’t trying 12 different fortifieds at each winery, so we ended up making it to 5: Balnaves, Majella, Wynns, Patrick, Katnook. My favourite was Majella.

The wild weather continued as we headed out of town the following day. The car was battered by the wind, with occasional bouts of hail and fairly constant rain. Arguably a good day to mainly be driving? Other than the unpleasant driving conditions…

Having missed out on the Primo tasting in Sydney this year Tom insisted we detour via the Primo cellar door in Mclaren Vale. We were cutting it fine arriving not that long before they closed but we managed to get the premium tasting in, as well as their fortified (The Fronti) with an espresso. Fortunately for me Tom was on driving duties through to Adelaide, where we stayed with Nic for the night.

Eventually, more than half way through the trip, we made it to Kangaroo Island. The crossing was a bit choppy but I’m sure a lot better than the previous day! We started our KI adventure with the Ironstone Hill Hike. We saw plenty of Tamar Wallabies but sadly no dolphins as promised by the signboard. After driving around a bit trying to find a nice place to eat lunch we conceded defeat to the weather and headed to the cottage we’d hired for the night at Cape Willoughby.

Cape Willougby is the Eastern most tip of Kangaroo Island and it was super windy. We did the Heritage Walk not long before sunset. Saw some Kangaroo Island kangaroos and then I swiftly retreated inside out of the wind.

The next day had an action packed agenda so we got an early start. Our first stop was the Bald Hill Hike. This was a massive climb of approximately 25m to a small rise overlooking the Murray Lagoon. There were lots of birds around. We continued some of the way around on the Curley Creek hike before backtracking to the car as we needed to get to our next stop; the Raptor Domain. This had come highly recommended to us and it didn’t disappoint. We attended the bird show and reptile show. Both were very interactive – Tom has some much better photos from his fancy camera. The bird show opened with a magpie that had been taught to pick up rubbish and only got better.

We hadn’t sated our wildlife appetite for the day so the next stop was Seal Bay. Here we did the guided walk down onto the beach to see the Sea Lions.

We had toyed with trying to fit in a wine tasting but decided we were out of time and headed for our accommodation at Vivonne Bay instead. Shortly after we arrived one of the other guests spotted a koala in a tree in the car park which was pretty good. But then the next morning there was a koala in a tree basically right next to the buildings. Tom was fortunate to see this guy out of the tree, having a drink and then wandering off to wherever koalas go…

Kangaroo Island gets most of its rain over winter. So when there was a “Winter Waterfall Walk” I figured the waterfall wasn’t likely to be giving us much action in late autumn. Despite this our first activity of the morning was this walk. We saw a couple of the rare Glossy Black cockatoos as well as plenty of other birds and of course Tamar Wallabies.

What got us really excited was that the wind has stopped and there was sunshine!

After checking into our cottage at the Cape Borda Lighthouse we headed out on what seemed to be one of the more challenging bushwalk on KI; the Ravine des Casoars. Or the Valley of the Dwarf Emus.. or something like that. Much easier to talk about dwarf emus – which were extinct on KI before permanent white settlement apparently. This was a pleasant  walk. Tom got quite excited as there was a Cape Barren Goose on the beach, but it flew off before he got any decent photos.

Not content with two walks under our belt, we did the Clifftop hike just before sunset. We just couldn’t get enough of the pleasant weather!

It was a lovely sunset, and we had views from the kitchen window.

The highlight of the trip was playing Scrabble that night. I don’t play Scrabble very often because I’m not very good at it. I opened with OVARIES, and later on Tom very conveniently put down FOYER allowing me to create BEAUTIFY. I’m not sure I’ve ever cleared my rack before so to do it twice was exciting. The cherry on the cake was that I beat Tom 🙂

The next day we were back to the grey weather we were used to, but at least there was no wind. We started off visiting Scotts Cove Lookout.

Then we did the Harveys Return Hike – definitely the biggest hill of the island.

The road through to the Flinders Chase National Park office was the worst of the dirt roads we drove on, with a lose surface and lots of corrugations. After getting our Parks Pass we headed out to Remarkable Rocks which were indeed remarkable.

The Admirals Arch Walk next to the Cape du Coedic lighthouse is next to the a Long-nosed Fur Seal colony. The boardwalk around to the Admirals Arch got us quite close to the seal pups (see Tom’s photos). They were good fun to watch. We spent two hours watching them before heading to our accommodation at May’s Cottage (our third heritage accom). We pulled into the driveway for May’s Cottage and there was a Cape Barren Goose so Tom thrust the camera at me and I’m trying to take photos from the passenger seat. It wanders off so we give up and drive in. Only to find there are hundreds of them on the lawn outside the cottage… so that lost Tom for the rest of the afternoon.

I probably should have pulled Tom away from the geese earlier as the sun was already setting when we set off on the Platypus Waterholes Walk. Despite being dusk and there not being a lot of water in most of the waterholes we didn’t see any platypus. It was well and truly dark by the time we made our way back to the cottage. Fortunately we had taken our torches but the myriad geese, kangaroos and wallabies that were scattered across our route were less than impressed with being disturbed!

The next morning we did a repeat of the Platypus Waterholes walk – this time not marching to beat the dark. Sadly the only platypus we saw was the one in the picture below.

We spent the last couple of days eating, drinking and relaxing as a result of our charity auction accommodation.

We did manage to do a section of the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail between Cape Younghusband and Hanson Bay.

We snuck in a visit to The Islander tasting room before our ferry. The return trip was much calmer than the way over which was nice.

We had a great time catching up with Nic & Craig in Adelaide that night. The rain was coming down when we left the next day, but stopped not far out of town. We had morning tea in Murray Bridge, lunch in Renmark, before eventually making our way to Mildura where we’d been lucky enough to score free accommodation (thanks Chris’ Mum!).

Once we’d headed inland we enjoyed having some sun and blue skies after what felt like a very grey week on KI. After ticking off Jaycee Park Markets, Lock 11 and coffee in Mildura we didn’t end up getting to Mungo National Park until almost midday. No time to waste we almost immediately set off on the 70km self-drive loop of the park.

Emus were a bit of a novelty for us and there were plenty in the area.

The stars were excellent as you’d expect. The following day we finished reading all of the information boards at the Zanci Woolshed and the Visitors Centre before heading to Balranald. We had lunch in Yanga National Park and then visited another historic woolshed. Then we visited Yanga Lake for a walk and some bird spotting. We spent the night in Hay. Both of us were awake at 5:30am (despite an intended 7am alarm) so we ended up hitting the road in the dark. Breakfast in West Wyalong at 8am seemed quite reasonable, followed by coffee in Cowra at 11am, then lunch in Bathurst (with a visit to Gaby). We had dinner in Blackheath before eventually getting back to Sydney about 9pm. A big day of driving.

From	To	km	cumulative
Sydney	Canberra	322	322
Canberra	Rutherglen	389	711
Rutherglen	Rutherglen	0	711
Rutherglen	Northern Grampians	501	1212
Northern Grampians	Penola (Coonawarra)	228	1440
Penola (Coonawarra)	Penola (Coonawarra)	45	1485
Penola (Coonawarra)	Adelaide	508	1993
Adelaide	Cape Willoughby	146	2139
Cape Willoughby	Vivonne Bay	130	2269
Vivonne Bay	Cape Borda	120	2389
Cape Borda	Flinders Chase National Park	80	2469
Flinders Chase National Park	Hanson Bay	20	2489
Hanson Bay	Hanson Bay	0	2489
Hanson Bay	Adelaide	246	2735
Adelaide	Mildura	430	3165
Mildura	Mungo National Park	193	3358
Mungo National Park	Hay	308	3666
Hay	Sydney	752	4418

Most expensive petrol – Vivonne Bay 182.9c/l