Day 67 – Wilmington to Clare, SA

This morning we left our lovely bush campsite, and drove the few kilometres into town and then to the local CRT store, where we purchased a National Park pass ($10), and unhitched our caravan to leave it there. We then drove the 12 km out to Alligator Gorge, in the South Flinders Ranges National park. On arrival we headed firstly to the lookout and enjoyed the view out to the sheer rocky, red cliff faces.

 

We then started on the walk down 250 stone steps, through the beautiful bush, past many varieties of flowering wildflowers, and then arrived at the bottom of the gorge. Firstly we turned right and walked about a kilometre through quite thick bushland, over rocks, across the creek several times, until we arrived at an area known as The Terraces. Having a look at the photo below, you will see why…

We then retraced our steps back to the bottom of the steps, and then walked a kilometre the other way up to The Narrows, where the gorge narrows to a very small gap between the cliff walks. It is a very beautiful walk, and the weather was very pleasant this morning. The kids were happy to look for tadpoles in the river, and jump across the rocks.

 

Then it was back in the car for the drive back out to the store, to collect our van, and head over to the historic town of Peterborough, for a quick lunch. Peterborough is known as a railway transfer town, the only town in Australia where all three railway gauges (narrow, standard & broad) met, so they could transfer goods between the trains. Brendan had been looking forward to this visit the entire trip, so was rather pleased when we finally arrived at the Steamtown museum.

Inside we purchased a family ticket, and joined a guided tour (the only way to get outside to the steam trains), and spent an hour or so walking around the giant turntable, roundhouse, and in and out of lots of different train engines and carriages.

After a couple of enjoyable hours here, we drove up through the rolling hills of the Clare Valley, passing through the lush green fields of wheat, and other crops, and the bright yellow canola fields.

We checked into the Clare Discovery Holiday park, a delightfully gum treed park, and set up the van, while the kids wandered over to the lovely open area beside the jumping pillow, to have a play. After an hour or so, Sam came back to tell me he had made some new good friends (kicking the footy), and that they were from Kyneton (1/2 hours drive from our house in Sunbury). The boys worked out they had even played footy against each other. Small world.