Adelaide Zoo

We decided to visit the Adelaide Zoo because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see Panda Bears! While we there Geoff made friends with a very protective male Baboon. If there hadn't been a perspex screen between them I think it would have taken Geoff's face off! Geoff wanted its attention and he got it. Moral never show your teeth to a Baboon if you value your life!

The Panda's were napping when we visited.  They were in an airconditioned enclosure, behind sheets of tinted glass. It was difficult to get decent photos of them, due to the relfections.

They'd definately made themselves comfortable in their temporary homes.  Every day the zoo closed their area to visitors so the Pandas could relax without the stress of camera flashes and staring eyes.

 Although they looked pretty relaxed to us!

 I finally got to see some giraffes. They are such an ungainly creature, but they are quite beautiful. Of course they had a really high fence and it was difficult to get a good shot of them.

We absolutely love the meercats. This female kept posing for the photos while on lookout duty.

 Geoff kept a running dialogue for everyone "Look at me...Look at me... Is this my best side?....Or is this side better?

The young meercats were busy below digging around the compound looking for mischief to get into.

This male lion was alone in a pen with the females caged next door. The female took great delight in teasing him through the fence, while the male brushed up against the mesh showing off his muscles.

 He was getting quite cranky and would let out a loud roar everynow and again. I think he seriously would have liked to smack all of us watching with one of his huge paws. This is definately the face ofone ticked off male!

You can see one of the female lions at the back over near the male's cage. Meanwhile this girl couldn't have given a hoot at how good looking the male thought he was. She was just sick of the noise so she got up to move away from the courting pair.

 Flamingos. The photo below is of one particularly colourful flamingo, his bright orange plumage quite unusual. I found them a surprisingly attractive bird.

 These were the only penguins I got to see this trip! Much to my disgust. There was supposed to be a colony of blue penguins living on Graphite Island just off Victor Harbour, but we found out when we went there that they had either moved on or died out.

Mmm, not sure about this species....he escaped while we were there and insisted we feed him!  I was certainly tempted to return him, but he seemed a bit neglected so I brought him home.

Not sure if this poort seal was just bored silly or enjoying a swim, but it just went as fast as it could around and around in this small oval shaped pond. It didn't play with the ball, didn't stop but just kept going around. We got dizzy watching it.

This young baboon was cute. His mum dumped him so she could have a drink, but he kept pulling at her so she growled at him and he went off and annoyed one of the other baboons.

This looked interesting to the young one so he stole a bit of the sugar cane  and ran back to mum. Brat!

While I enjoyed the opportunity to see creatures I would never normally got to see, it is still a shame to see them in cages.  Adelaide Zoo is doing a good job to try and make their habitats as real to life as possible.  But that afternoon we went to a private zoo at Cudlee Creek across the road from the caravan park, and even though it was a small zoo, the animal enclosures were the best we've seen at imitating the animals native habitats.

Cudlee Creek

I found the drive through the mountains towing the caravan, very stressful! I hate, driving on mountain roads to start with and this was one hell of a mountain road with lots of twists and turns, steep ascents and descents.  I was very happy to arrive at the caravan park.

It was a lovely little spot, a bit run down, but cheap rates and a 20 minute run down to Adelaide, made it an ideal location away from the rat race.

The meadow we parked in was full of little yellow flowers that opened in the morning sun and  went to sleep in the cooler evening.

Cudlee Creek ran behind the park. A gentle little stream, a little overgrown, but sparkling clean and with the potential to become a ranging torrent in the wet season.

Not sure what sort of tree...thought it could be a lillipilli, but who knows?  It was amazingly tall and just smothered in yellow blossoms.

We were suprised to find a little dam further down the valley towards Adelaide.

Oh windy round, you were sent to try me! "Look down" ; "Look at the view" Geoff kept saying. My response "Just you watch the road and don't worry about the view!"

At Cudlee Creek there is a tavern which serves great meals. All through South Australia rose gardens abound. At the tavern, I saw this beauty...check out the size of the flower!

Cudlee Creek Bridge.

I tried to get a picture of the meadow we were parked in with

all the little yellow-gold flowers but this was the best I could get. You can just see the yellowish tinge to the grass. What a view to wake up to every morning.

Port Augusta to Cudlee Creek Adelaide Hills

Stayed in Port Augusta for one night on the way from Coober Pedy to Adelaide. It's at the top of the Spencer Gulf with a magnificient view of the Stirling Ranges in the background.

The early morning mist rises from the ground around the foothills of the Sritling Ranges.

You can see where the words of Dorothea MacKellar came from as you travel around our bright land.

 

 

 

 

My Country

The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze ...
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

©Dorothea MacKellar

Driving towards Adelaide we saw these great sculptures someone had place along the side of the road.

People in South Australia must spend heaps of time in their gardens, there are so many lovely ones!

I knew Cudlee Creek was in the Adelaide Hills. What a misnomer! Hills!...More like mountains. I knew the road was winding from the map...but that was an understatement!

Oh my God! We were so high above Adelaide the views were spectacular but oh so scary.

Finally we made it to the Caravan Park nestled in a quiet curve of a valley hidden in the mountains.