Monday May 14

Since last Thursday night we have made some progress north!  As predicted, we left the lovely Adelaide Hills on Friday morning and following Maarten's excellent directions made it safely through Adelaide and on to the road to Port Wakefield and beyond.

Thought we should have a look at the historic towns of the Copper Triangle on Spencer Gulf on our way, so had a walk around Moonta, which has some absolutely beautiful old buildings and just to prove a point, here is Moonta Town Hall:

Arrived at Mt Remarkable National Park, which is just south of Port Augusta, later in the afternoon and managed to commandeer the same camp site we had when here with Jill and Andrew last year.  Sue and Ian, our travelling companions who had come from Mornington via a different route, joined us and we toasted the beginning of our adventure with a bottle of champagne very thoughtfully presented to us before our departure by Gordon and Pat.  Be assured dear friends that it was much appreciated and enjoyed!

Mt Remarkable is a beautiful park.  Part of the southern Flinders Ranges, it has all the rugged beauty of that area and some astoundingly huge River Red Gums.  This amazing one was just near our campsite and we are certain that Jill and Andrew will be thrilled to see that it is still going strong.

Murray is very proud of having completed the Hidden Gorge walk this visit - 18 kilometres of quite challenging walking along Mambray Creek, up the bluff and down the other side.  "The knee" held up very well - thank goodness, this early in the trip!

Today we travelled to Roxby Downs, where we are camped tonight.  Tomorrow we will make the relatively short journey to Coward Springs on the Oodnadatta Track.  From there it will be along the Track to Marla, which will take a couple of days, before rejoining the Stuart Highway and making for Alice Springs.  Hopefully the lovely weather we have enjoyed will continue - at the risk of making our Melbourne friends sad, the sky is now blue and endless and although the nights are a bit chilly, we are becoming very excited at the propect of what is ahead!