Day 7 - Waltumba Camp Ground to Parking Bay 50kms E of Nullabor

Wednesday 23rd March 2016

It’s another beautiful morning and part of us doesn’t want to leave here, it’s so peaceful but onward we must go. Today we’re heading down to the Gawler Ranges National Park. The Gawler Ranges is home to the Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat, Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby and Major Mitchell among other Australian wildlife. We’re hoping to spot at least one of the three. We’ll also check out the spot we were going to camp at last night and have a look around as we drive through the ranges on our way back to Ceduna via Minnipa.

The dust from a passing vehicle hung in the air long after he was out of view. On the way to the Gawler Ranges we stopped at Pondanna Ruins which is near the intersection of the Hiltaba – Iron Knob Rd and the Kingoonya – Iron Knob Rd. There was a lot of bird life around the ruins, small birds flitting around gathering breaky.

The road was pretty good into the Gawler Ranges. The landscape was a beautiful pallet of red, yellow, green and purple and together with the blue/gray of the sky was a sight to behold. As we got closer to the Gawler Ranges National Park kangaroos started popping up everywhere along with the odd emu. You could be forgiven for thinking these roos were use to tourists as some of them actually seemed to ‘pose’ for our photos. One of the roos was a male (Macropus Rufus ) otherwise known as a Red Kangaroo . The male Red can reach up to 95kgs in weight and can have a body length of up to 2.5mts including their tail.

When you arrive at the Gawler Ranges National Park you can easily find the registration hut to pay your park fees and camping fees if you’re camping there too. We had a look at Kolay Hut campground, there is a toilet, BBQ and inside the hut there is a chip heater for a hot shower. A little creek runs along the camp ground but it was dry. We saw some iconic Pink & Grays and snapped a photo of one. The Chilunny campground didn’t appeal to us. There’s plenty of spots which would be quite picturesque when the water was flowing. We didn’t cover the whole national park and if we’re in the area again we’ll look at doing the rest. What was really disappointing was not seeing at least one of the three animals we where hoping to see. The Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby and Southern Hairy Nosed Wombat could be excused as we were there a bit too early to catch them, they’re mainly active at night. We did, however expect to see some Major Mitchell Cockatoos.

Gawler Ranges done we headed for Ceduna where we got supplies for the Paj and for us. Time had escaped us today so while it’s always nice to be set up at a camp before sunset sometimes you have drive on. The upside to driving into the night, especially when heading west, is seeing a lovely sunset on the horizon at the end of a straight road – perfect! We pulled in to a rest area about 50kms east of Nullabor and set up camp for the night.

Total Time : 11.51
Total Distance: 649 kms
Average Speed : 54 KPH

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