The third day started a bit late (due to me and the kids sleeping in), and after breakfast we headed out again for our second driving day. This time we went a bit further - heading out to the Organ Pipes and a set of ruins in the depths of the park.
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| Location of the places we visited (in relation to Wudinna) - but not the same route |
We started off heading towards another of the dams, this one had not been filled in (yet):
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| The dam |
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| Our convoy |
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From the dam we drove further west, heading towards the Organ Pipes:
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| Rock formations |
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| Emus |
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| Emus |
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| Why did the emu cross the road? |
The next stop was the Old Paney Homestead, an old farming homestead on the way to the Organ Pipes:
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| The gate lady |
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| Plaque |
The plaque above reads "Between 1877 and 1898, William Milroy Crawford (1823-1899) and his wife Margaret nee Harkness (1825-1904) held a total of 1,400 sq. miles in the Western Gawler Ranges (Paney, Pondanna, Yartoo and the Scrubby Peak Leases) and also Kartcultaby Station. During this time their son-in-law William Murdoch McKenzie (1844-1930) managed Paney Station and lived in Old Paney Homestead with his wife Jessie (1848-1932) and their eleven children.
A Dream of the Past -
We traveled down past Scrubby Peak along the sand hill track,
We mustered all the twelve mile plains and brought the shorn sheep back,
The sight of Paney Bluff recalled those halycon days of yore,
Brough back familiar faces and the scenes I knew once more"
William Crawford McKenzie (1869-1966)
Next stop was the Organ Pipes, a set rhyolite formations:
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| Heading in |
After Organ Pipes we headed out to a set of ruins that Peter and Heather had found previously - they appeared to be the foundation and chimney of an old homestead - complete with a few kangaroo corpses:
After finishing up at the ruins we headed back to the Shearer's Quarters for dinner and another campfire. We packed most of our things ready for the trip home the next day:
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| Tom manning the fire |
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| Shearer's Shed |
Since the next day was Tomas' birthday, we had a cake after dinner - using spaghetti and marshmallows as we didn't have candles:
The next morning we had breakfast and headed out around 9:30am to take the dirt track from the Shearer's Quarter straight through to Kimba, skipping Wudinna. It was a shorter distance, but took about the same time due to the slower speed.
We stopped in Kimba to check out the silo art. As part of the Silo Art Trail (https://www.australiansiloarttrail.com/kimba) these were painted by artist Cam Scale in 2017, it took 26 days to paint and 200 litres of paint.
The Silo Art project aims to create landmarks and road trip stops by painting silos with murals and local scenes. The Kimba silo is painted to show a young girl standing in a wheat field with a purple sunset:
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| Loading from the unpainted silos |
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| Kimba Silo Art |
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| Silo art |
After Kimba we drove back to Port Augusta with a brief stop in Snowtown to check out the big blade - the blade from a wind turbine.
We had another brief stop in Port Wakefield and got home around 5pm.
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| Flinders Ranges |
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| Snowtown |
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| Display Blade |
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