The road to Adelaide

Saturday 5^th November

Rawnsley Park to Burra

From Rawnsley Park we headed south through Hawker before turning off and heading down the R.M. Williams Highway through Orroroo and Peterborough, and on to Burra where we stayed the night. 

We drove past a lot of abandoned house ruins beside the road, a reminder of days gone by. Unlike New Zealand, most of the houses were built from stone, and their remains will be there for many years to come.  

Burra is a lovely historic town beautifully nestled in a valley along the banks of the Burra Creek, which like 99% of rivers and creek, was bone dry.  Burra was founded after copper was discovered nearby which resulted in a huge mine being developed.  The miners who came to the town were mostly from Wales, England and Scotland, and the buildings all reflect their home countries.  Lots of stone cottages and row houses.  It was almost like driving through an old English or Welsh country town.  Lots of atmosphere.

Sunday 6^th November

Burra to Adelaide

You may recall before heading up into the Flinders Ranges, we visited a toy museum at Wilmington.  The lady who owned the museum told us there was going to be a big models show at Clare this weekend.  We didn’t exactly know where we would be at the time, but kept it in mind.

Clare is about 40 km south west of Burra on the way to Adelaide, so we decided to call in and have a look at the models show on our way south. What a fantastic show it was, models of everything, from radio controlled boats and planes,

to steam engines and a miniature Railway.  And what a railway, without doubt the best ride on miniature railway we have ever seen. 

There was also several vintage and old time tractors on show, including this collection of fergies that I know Dad will appreciate seeing. The scale model jeep we saw in the toy museum at Wilmington was also there being driven around. 

Before we knew it, we had spent a very quick 2 hours there, and it was time to move on.

The town of Clare is the heart of a grape growing area, and there were literally hundreds of wineries around the area.  Again the towns all had lots of old stone buildings set in very English Countryside like settings, and the whole place had a lovely feeling about it.  Without doubt some of the prettiest countryside we have driven through.

South of Clare the countryside opened out, and we were soon driving through miles and miles of rolling hills, covered in wheat.  Unlike the huge flat wheat paddocks we had driven through previously, this was quite pretty with hills of golden wheat waving in the wind as far as the eye could see.  Unfortunately the road surface was so rough we couldn’t get a decent photo of them as we drove along.

At Gawler, about 60kms north of Adelaide, we struck the motorway, and with it heaps of traffic.  Nancy came into her own and guided us through the outer suburbs of the City to our caravan park at Semaphore, right on the beach, on the north-western outskirts of the city.

We are booked in here for 6 nights while we find out what Adelaide has to offer us.