Day 169 Outback to Hawker

After the night with lots of insects, cockroaches and spiders in our hotel room, we were happy to leave the Outback and Maree for a couple of relaxed days in the Ikara Flinders Range. As the Maree Hotel was still closed at 8am we left without a coffee and were driving south. In the next towns of some size, we thought there will be some kind of cafe or bakery to get some breakfast. Well, we stopped at Lyndhurst, but nothing to see or a place to get a coffee. In Copley Stuart discovered a minion loving shop, which had lots of minions build from old tyres, but also Australian style Christmas decoration just opposite to the Easter decoration. Unfortunately, this shop as every other shop seemed to be closed probably because there was the big Christmas Market in town. We thought, Australian markets are lovely and often offer coffee & cakes, so lets have a look. Well, we walked in, only some Christmas Greeting Cards and soda cans for sale, so we sneaked out and left this strange town. At the next town, we were able to get some fridge coffee & fuel, which was enough to get us to the Ikara Flinders Range and to our accommodation near Hawkers.

The Ikara Flinders Range is just about 2h north of Port Augusta with the small historic town of Hawker nearby. The Ikara Flinders Range is a round-shaped range with lots of gorges, lookouts, scenic drives as well as some walks, where you can see wildlife, aboriginal art, geological changes as well as spectacular views. We saw the Ikara Flinders Range at a time after massive rain (more rain than they ever had since recording rainfalls...) and with mild weather conditions (15-30C), so everything was pretty green in the landscape and we had great views without all the usual dust in the air. Already on our drive to the Parachilna Gorge through to Blinman and Hawker we could see the wildlife: Emus with chicken or without chicken were roaming around next to the street and sometimes, especially on side-roads in the National Park crossing the street.

On our Glass Gorge scenic drive we saw some typical views of the Ikara Flinders Range with this broken off hillsides. The Hucks Lookout is a very steep 4x4WD only drive up on a hill, but our car made it and we were able to enjoy the amazing 360 degree views on the range.

On the drive we also saw many lizards on the street, that just run away as we approached, but one lizard decided to just watch us and stay in the sun. When I walked closer, it went into defence mode and did not look away for one second even when I walked around it for photos.

On the drive we kind of collected lots of biomass with our car: grasshoppers.  There were countless grasshoppers on and next to the street roaming the grass fields, so we had to choose wisely where to stop for more photos on views.

As in the Ikara Flinders Range and the small town of Hawker are only limited supplies available, we decided to drive to Port Augusta and stock up on groceries, food & drinks for our following more relaxing & laid back days in our nature cottage near Hawkers. On the drive we saw some rare things, but mostly enjoyed the views and the sun.