Leaving Port Augusta, we chose to climb into the mountains to the east and travel the Main North Road from Wilmington through Clare, and hole-up in Gawler for a night. We'd tackle the busy weekday roads of the capital next day after a rest. Good thing too as it turned out.

But first.. the Main North Road, the route we took, back when I was a kid. I didn't remember how it was then; it certainly didn't seem highway quality now. It proved to be somewhat challenging in parts but a very interesting drive. The countryside there seemed miraculously morphed from the dry around Pt. Augusta into the rich green of the higher country as soon as we were beyond the ranges. We copped a bit of light rain too, which did concern me a little on the ups and downs of the narrowish country road. A few of the lumps and bumps had Nik and I a bit wide eyed, and the caravan doing the odd bounce, but due care still meant a pleasant journey. 

'Green, green, it's green they say...'

The countryside once beyond the Flinders ranges south-east of Port Augusta looked at its best. A light sprinkle of rain didn't hurt the look.

The little country town of Melrose is flanked to the west by the remarkable Mount Remarkable! It's all something of an eye-popper with its precipitous hard-rock and scree-covered slopes, next door to the road. Googling info on the geology of the mount reveals a complex mix of rock types and forms. It wasn't our plan to do any rock-climbing or trekking right then so we could only stand back and marvel. Seems the hill is 995 metres high, and that's not a hell of a lot less than the highest peak in WA! The mount is surrounded by a national park complete with camping spots and hiking trails. But after a quick stop in the village, we had to move on..  

Long story short.. we holed-up at the Gawler Caravan Park, right in town on the North Para River, a good place to gather our thoughts before the assault on Adelaide next day. After dropping the caravan off, we went for a stroll around the nearby streets where I took a few shots, the first after Melrose. Clare and the rest of the North Road were passed by, and we hadn't stopped for pics. None of the Gawler shots impressed me anyway, so we have no photographic record of that stretch. Next day we drove the 43 kays into outer Adelaide, then managed to get lost looking for our stop-over, Marion Caravan Park. We took a left instead of a right, and ended up on a narrow winding road in the Adelaide hills, where we had to make a risky about-face from a turn-out back in to a blind bend. Quite a thrill with a van in tow. Got to the caravan park in the end after a few ommmmm moments (Stay calm Jock!) Although we're not wild about cities, we'd made up our minds to give Adelaide a bit of a look-over. A couple of good museums there, you see. And tram-rides!

The scene above was taken somewhere in the hinterland on one of our day runs from the city to check out Hahndorf and the National Motor Museum at Birdwood. More wonderful spring-green countryside here..

 Part of the National Motor Museum complex is this beautiful brick-and-stone building that used to be Pflaum's Flour Mill, built in the 1880s. The business was noted for its fine quality product in early times.

We had plenty of museums to see, and I'm not a big car fan - I really wanted to see the National Motor Museum's collection of motor cycles. So we only took a few pics there. This is one of them. The car is not exactly the same, and it's a year younger, but it's almost identical to my father's 1927 Chevrolet National which he kept for many years until 1955, when he traded it on an FJ Holden. I remember it well. So it was a very special moment for me to sit in and be photographed aboard this 1928 Chev AB Standard Tourer. It was one of 9552 such vehicles assembled by Holdens at Woodville back in the day. They built the major part of the body work in those days.

Both Nik and I have German ancestors who migrated to South Australia back in the 1840s, so it was kind of de rigeur that we take in at least some of SA's German heritage. Hahndorf certainly fit the bill. We got there in the mid-afternoon on a weekend day and the place was buzzing. Its rather narrow main street seemed very crowded. But then, except for major highways, more than a few of SA's streets and roads seemed a bit narrow by WA standards and we found that 'interesting' at times, especially when the van was behind. We had a fine European-style afternoon tea at Hahndorf, served by happy and pleasant ex-Asian Australians. Ah well, it would have been too much to expect a cute fraulein with a well-filled bodice to serve the strudel. Those days are long gone.

On the way back from Hahndorf, we stopped off at the summit of Mount Lofty with its amazing vista over the City of Adelaide. Here Nik is fronting the Flinders Column, a memorial to the fact that Matthew Flinders viewed and named the mount from the sea when he passed on his epic voyage around Oz in 1802. If Nik looks affected by the springtime chill, she was. It was darn nippy up there!

The view from the 710 metre summit is breathtaking. There's a restaurant and function centre up there as well, to add to the appeal. The views over the farmlands on the way up are not too shabby either.

-- Edited by JocknNik on Saturday 16th of September 2017 02:20:17 AM