On Sunday afternoon, we arrived at
Rocky Paddock Campground in Mount Crawford Forest Reserve to an
inferno of picnic fires and blazes. Apparently, 90% of the Adelaide
population drives up to the Adelaide Hills on the weekends armed with
fire starters and launches their own personal conflagration. We had
to wait until about 6.00 pm when the last of the arsonists finally
left before we could pull into a campsite. Strangely enough, people
weren't camping at the campground, just having incendiary blazes,
while the picnic area was eerily quiet. In summer, the South
Australian forest service gates and bans camping in these forest
parks because they can't trust the Australians not to light a
campfire. Australians are strangely (at least to a Canadian) given
to ignoring rules, regulations and laws that they don't agree with.
Interfering with an Australian's right to have a campfire is
tantamount to asking the Pope to convert to Judaism. It just isn't
done. It's common to see a big ugly fire pit right next to, and
partly consuming, a wooden sign indicating fires are not allowed.
Luckily, it rained overnight thus
extinguishing all the campfires that had been left burning and making
us much happier campers. We've been hanging about this campsite for
about five nights now. During the week, the campsite is empty and
it's really pleasant with big pine trees, open green grassy meadows,
granite boulders scattered about, and a few hiking tracks accessible
from the campground. It's a pleasant short walk up the Warren Fire
Tower lookout - the tower is fenced off but the hill is open,
spacious and there is a good view over the Adelaide Hills. A sign on
top points out various "mountains" in the area, but you'd
be hard pressed to distinguish one from the other. The countryside
is more rolling than mountainous I'd say.
Warren Tower Hill view
You can also meander along forest roads
and the Heysen track to the top of Mount Crawford, deliriously high
at 525 metres (the same height as the Warren Fire Tower), but the
summit has grown in so there are scant views. The track, however,
does pass the ruins of an old sandstone Presbyterian Church and an
old graveyard with graves dating back to the late 1800's. There is
also pretty reasonable bouldering around the campground on granite
boulders of varying heights and difficulties. The landings are good,
and, even after rain the boulders seem to dry pretty quickly,
although that might have something to do with the terrific winds
which have been blowing for the better part of the week.
Stocky old gray haired lady bouldering
One day, we took the O-Bahn into
Adelaide and visited the extensive Art Gallery and Museum of South
Australia. Both have so many exhibits that you get overwhelmed
pretty quickly and it's not possible to see everything. Lots of
beautiful old sandstone buildings in Adelaide and the O-Bahn, which
is a bus that runs on a train track is super efficient and
inexpensive.
Today we drove down to Port Adelaide;
as good as the O-Bahn is, I don't think we could have got the sea
kayaks on board, and paddled around Garden Island. This is not the
sort of place you'd normally go for a peaceful paddle as it is right
by the Port of Adelaide and there is a big coal fired power plant on
the island, but, there is a pod of about 30 bottlenose dolphins that
live in the Port River and more than 300 visiting dolphins have been
recorded in the dolphin sanctuary. The other attraction is the
Ships' Graveyard where a number of old sailing vessels have been
beached and dismantled. While this might sound like a rotting pile
of garbage, these are actually ships from the 1800's and are
historical relics. Plus, ships beached like this always become
artificial reefs and attract all kinds of bird and sea life.
Hull of the Dorothy H. Stirling
We spent a pleasant few hours paddling
around Garden Island, at least half of that time we spent watching a
few dolphins foraging and feeding. Normally dolphins are pretty
skittish and even in a kayak you can not approach too closely, but
these dolphins are obviously used to a lot of boat traffic and were
quite happy swimming only a metre or so from our boats, swimming
underneath our hulls, or sculling by on their sides looking at us.
While they were fishing, a very persistent pelican followed along
hoping for a free fish meal and every so often they would swim at the
pelican and shoo it off. It was all very entertaining.
Watching the dolphins foraging
Tomorrow is Friday, and the first of
the arsonists is likely to arrive so we'll be moving on. It's time
to get closer to Arapiles and death by sandbag anyway.
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