Around Oz Part 35 - Southern Flinders Ranges, Adelaide

Following our visit to Whyalla (see previous post) we moved on through Port Augusta to Mt Remarkable National Park in the southern Flinders Ranges for a one-night stay in the Mambray Creek camping ground. Again, a very nice camp setting with huge stately eucalypts amid shrub-covered gorges.

Plenty of Emus about the park; a male with 4 young bluff charged me. We saw our first Crimson (Adelaide) Rosellas, Eastern Spinebills and Yellow-faced Honeyeaters of the trip. Other birds about the camp included Australian Owlet-Nightjar, Pallid Cuckoo andWhite-browed Babbler.

We hiked the Sugargum Lookout trail in the morning and were most impressed with a hut built by a shepherd in the early-1870s which is still standing strong.

We moved on south to Adelaide to spend a few days with our friend Anita Smyth, who lives in the lovely Adelaide Hills.

One of the birds seen from Anita's verandah was Crimson (Adelaide) Rosella.

A wander about the forests of the hills in Belair National Park and elsewhere in the area turned up quite a few Musk Lorikeets (including one bird at a nesting hollow), Eastern Rosella and Little Raven.

We checked out some of the cultural sites around Adelaide - the interior of the State Library in the city was most impressive and the old precincts around Port Adelaide were interesting. We spent a morning checking out some wetlands and salt marshes north of Adelaide - St Kilda, White Road Wetlands and Greenfields Wetlands. We saw 200+ Black-tailed Native-hen, quite a few Hoary-headed Grebe, a few Little Grassbirds and 2 Wood Sandpipers.

Back in the Adelaide Hills at Anita's home, a female koala was nice.