Our first stop on Day 2 of the 3 day tour to Adelaide was Thunder Point. The small island there is home to a colony of Little Penguins. When the tide is out, the island can be reached via a sandbar. This is bad news for the penguins. The colony was nearly eliminated by foxes until a local who used Italian Sheep Dogs to protect his chickens suggested trying them on the island to protect the penguins. His idea worked and now the dogs live on the island with the penguins and are cared for everyday by park rangers. The penguin colony is flourishing thanks to their guard dogs!!

After Thunder Point, we headed to Tower Hill Reserve. Tower Hill is an extinct volcano!!! We took a short walk to the very center of the 5 km wide crater and then headed down into the park for tea, biscuits and wildlife spotting. We saw a blue-tongued lizard, koalas and an emu!

 

From there, we headed to Grampians National Park and visited the Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Halls Gap. We then took a short walk to Mushroom Rock, followed by a longer walk down to McKenzie Falls. You aren’t allowed to swim in the watering hole at the base of the falls so we headed alittle further down stream and took a dip in the water.

We hiked back up to the bus and headed to the park to go see the kangaroos. There were alot of them. The funniest thing happened when this guy walked by with his dog. The kangaroos were pretty spread out at this point and as the guy walked his dog across the park, one grouping after another would stand straight up and just stare at the dog. It was hilarious. Kangaroos apparently do not trust dogs.

Next we headed to the bottle shop (packy, liquor store) in town to get drinks for our Aussie BBQ. Kelly the Kiwi and I volunteered to man the barby. We cooked sausages, onions and I had my first go at cooking kangaroo, while the rest of the group prepared the other parts of the meal. Everyone really enjoyed the kangaroo, so my title of grill master lives on!! We talked, laughed and drank until about 11 and then headed off to bed.

On day 3 of the tour, we were up before the sun for a hike up to The Pinnacles. It was a 3 1/2 hour roundtrip hike and I had so much fun!! I was usually ahead of the group, so when I would have to stop and wait I’d go adventure off the path and climb all the different sandstone formations.

The views from the summit were spectacular and I got some really cool pictures!!

When we got back to the bus, we went into town for lunch and then joined up with another group for the 6 hour ride to Adelaide.

The Pink Lake was the only thing to see on the entire drive to Adelaide. Literally, there was nothing else…..nothing.

There’s more to share about my time in Adelaide, but I leave in the morning for a 6 day Outback tour to Alice Springs. Didi and Katja (the Dutchies) from my Tasmania tour talked me into joining them for this trip because I wasn’t planning on going until June. I really love the freedom of just seeing where this trip takes me even if my next destination isn’t where I thought it would be.