A freezing tent time
Trip Start
Jan 11, 2005
1
27
57
Trip End
Nov 29, 2005
Flinder's Range, Australia
Friday, July 8, 2005
Our first stop in the Flinder's Ranges was going to be Anghorchina Village. The village is in the middle of a gorge that is about 6.5 hours away from Adelaide and about 18km off of the sealed road. So promptly, 20 minutes after signing that we wouldn't be going off any sealed roads, we steered the car in the direction of this village. The drive flew by because we spent the whole time singing to various mixes and got into a bit of rain. We took our chances by going down this road that was recommended for only 4wd vehicles - after all it was just a rental car not our own. We went through the beginning of a couple of creeks starting to rise. The rain started to pound a little harder. We were really hoping there would be a cabin available for the night at the village. The 18km felt like 10 hours but we did finally make it...just in time for the rain to come down in sheets. The man at the front desk gave us the unfortunate news of no cabins for the night so there was always our tent. We weren't going to drive out at night so we pulled up next to an Australian family and set up camp (under the camp kitchen awning). Yes the little boy and girl; were laughing at us as we tried to put the tent up. We didn't have a hammer to put the stakes into the hard ground. Finally, the dad couldn't take it anymore and took some pity on us and set-up our tent. After it was up, he just looked at us and said two people will sleep in there. Since then, Rachel and I get that question a lot and our answer is "Yes, and we don't even have to cuddle." Our dinner was some soup and we were in bed by 7:30. REally, I am not one to go to bed early but it was just too cold to even be outside!! As we were pretending to sleep, we could hear the rain pouring harder and harder. The thought of us not being able to get out crept into our mind. We woke up quite early the next morning. The rain hadn't stopped, was not going to stop, and the roads were questionable. We quickly packed up our tent, hit the road, and managed to make it through three creeks before hitting the paved road.
Our next adventure was in the tamer section of Wilipena Pound. We took our time getting there during the day as there wasn't going to be much hiking. We found a hostel and cranked up the heat and dried ourselves (and the tent out). The next morning we got up and saw the sun. It was a remarkable thing to see and we ran out to hike up a mountain. Yes, perhaps we were a bit nutty to do that as we both managed to have mini heart attacks on the way up. One would think we were dying by the way we were breathing. I just don't think our lungs quite understood what they were supposed to do with fresh air!!! 2 hours later, we had 4 achy legs, stinky shirts, and the satisfaction of knowing that we did a "hard" climb in the Flinder's Ranges. It was time to move on to the spooky hospital hostel in Quorn and then on to Coober Pedy.
