12 June 2026

We'd only driven the car a couple of times since the start of this year.

Now we've done some 3500kms in a few short weeks.

Canberra to see family and dear friends from university days.

Mungo National Park with its otherworldly landscapes, ruins of woolsheds and homesteads, and soft muddied roads.

Adelaide for special restaurants Shoboshu, and a week later Africola, Art Gallery, and the walk up and down Mount Lofty.

The Flinders Ranges with Auswalk the Alligator Gorge glistening in the light rain to start on pfb's birthday with surprise citrus tart and bubbles for all.

Rawnsley Park Station for five nights, walking each day.

The relaxing Dutchman's Stern,

The longer Black Gap and Wilpena Pound to Wangara Lookout and the Wilpena Resort.

Then Rawnsley Bluff more challenging in chilly wind and rain that obscured any view.

A long carsick drive to Angorichina to walk up the river to the Blinman Pools, with a memorably narrow clamber around the cliffs of the first pool.

Then back to Adelaide via Clare and Pauletts Winery for a most generous and delicious lunch.

Would we ever return? Who knows? At ages 72 and 80 the likelihood perhaps diminishes as other places and people gain priority.

So we grasped the opportunity and drove back north, to the northern Flinders Ranges. Innumerable dry floodways, a few with water. There was record rainfall a couple of months ago.

Arkaroola. Ancient rock, exposed. The sense of vast remoteness. A sense that the Dreamtime is appropriate, the early European explorers brave as they were but misunderstanding the land. The Sprigg family who recognise this special place, deserving of World Heritage listing.

Time to move on? No, perhaps not if we'd had a high clearance 4WD.

So back south, and east, through the vast pastoral stations and mining ruins.

To Yunta but the hotel was closed and locked. At the petrol station they told us the hotel had been sold, the former owner not seen for days.

To Broken Hill, familiar and loved. East through extraordinary green country to Bourke.

And finally tomorrow further east to dear friends from schooldays.