After six weeks on the road, and now more than 2500km from Elanora Heights, time to pack away kite surfing gear and beach tings for a few days and spend a few days in the foothills of the South Flinders Ranges. We booked three nights at Catninga Station, 6km from Stirling North (and still only a stones throw from the coast let’s face it!) and used this as a great base to explore this part of the very beautiful country side that makes up a small part of the great Flinders Ranges.

I can’t even say we have got anywhere remotely near the outback, but the car and outside of the van already covered in red dust! I guess it makes a change from the sand we had everywhere after Wauraltee! The landscape is beautiful and you can drive along a dirt track for a very long time and not come across another car, which is strange as we are still so close to some pretty big towns.

Saturday we took an adventure into Alligator Gorge. Various stories on how it got its name but basically nothing to do with any alligators down here! One of the information boards suggests that the early settlers in the area saw a lathe goanna and mistook it for an alligator (I guess that’s easy to do). Others say it was a tribute to an aboriginal man, they named Ali, who became a shepherd. Either way, I can confirm there were certainly no alligators and the walk was quite safe for children! Turns out that Kiera was a fan of Alligator gorge and she proclaimed it the ‘worst day ever’ as the gorge was full of spiders webs and she kept tripping over her feet. Thankfully we managed to find a play park and ice cream after which redeemed some of the day.

We decided to give hiking another shot on Sunday, much to Kiera’s delight, and set off for the Devils Peak walk. A short 2.5km hike but a very steep uphill climb that, to be honest, is actually more a rock climb/ scramble for the last 600m toward the peak. It turns out that Kiera is actually more a fan of the mountain goat style of walks and loved hopping from rock to rock. She was so determined to get to the top and down by herself. Fin loved the rock climbing part too so clearly we need to find more rock climbs than walks!

Like all good walks, we headed to the pub for lunch. An old style pub and (shamefully) the first pub we have been to since we left. To be honest, probably the first pub we have been to in a long time! Heading towards to botanical gardens, we spotted a road sign for the start of the Stuart Highway and it basically pointed north and said ‘Darwin’. Hmmmm… the road may go to Darwin but it may as well have said – just go north a LONG way! It’s a real reminder of the connection between SA and NT and the deserts in between.

Beautiful scenery, fun walks, peaceful camp site all to ourselves (albeit full of flies), lots of history to understand and some pretty cool stars. First trip to the bush was a success and great way to end the ‘school holidays’… road school starts next week!