Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
This post’s photo was taken from almost exactly the same vantage point as the previous post’s…and only a few seconds later.
In “standard format” terms, #16’s photo was a cropped version of a 120mm (short telephoto lens) view, whilst this post’s is a wide angle (24 mm) shot, unedited.
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Some “arid” Australian rockfaces cause some humans to revise their notions of trees’ “minimum requirements”.
The pictured ghost gum is growing on the eastern wall of Ormiston Gorge, 135 kilometres west of Alice Springs.
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Generally known simply as “The Breakaways”, Kanku-Breakaways Conservation Park is an “unearthly” and beautiful place.
Nearly 900 kilometres north of Adelaide, it is also very “remote”.
From Coober Pedy, however, it is less than a 30 minute drive.
You probably have not visited this part of the South Australian outback.
Nonetheless, it may look “strangely familiar”…
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Its boastful sign notwithstanding, Coober Pedy is definitely not a city.
846 ks north of Adelaide, Coober Pedy has fewer than 2,000 “permanent” residents, and the local housing market is decidedly “depressed”.
The town’s self-declared status as “opal capital of the world” is, however, defensible.
Reportedly, its name derives from kupa piti – a phrase coined by the local Aboriginal people whose ancestors arrived in South Australia’s outback more than a few thousand years before kupa piti described any of it.
Kupa piti translates as “whitefellas’ hole”.
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The pictured puddle’s probable lifespan: a matter of days…or very few weeks.
Age of the creek bed and gorge in which it sits: circa fifty times older than The Grand Canyon!
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The shutter clicks which yielded this and the immediately preceding post’s images were less than one minute apart.
In the interim, my feet had taken very few steps.
Central Australia often reminds attentive visitors that whenever they pause to admire a splendid landscape they ought also look down at whatever is just in front of their feet!
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In mild weather, the short walk to this Central Australian landmark is very easy.
However, you first have to drive for 160 kilometres, south from Alice Springs.
That drive is a very different story – its final 20 kilometres, especially.
You should attempt it only in a 4WD with very high clearance…and a driver who is highly skilled, very patient.
Chambers Pillar was “discovered” by explorer John McDouall Stuart in 1860.
By then it had already been significant/sacred to (other) humans for many thousands of years; the relevant sediments were laid down circa 350 million years ago.
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The immediately-preceding post’s aptly-named Prairie Hotel sits on an almost horizontal plain.
Look out the pub’s back door, however, and you will see – running all along the horizon – the “spine” of the northern Flinders Ranges.
They were “built” circa 800 million years before the pub was.
Hop into a vehicle, drive east for ten minutes, and you will enter one of the loveliest of the Flinders Ranges’ many dramatic gorges.
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The pictured art object sits outside the front door of The Prairie Hotel, which is surely Australia’s most wonderfully-unlikely – and downright wonderful – outback pub
Be sure to read the “artist’s statement”.
The hotel pretty much is the hamlet of Parachilna, which a colourful signboard proclaims THE EDIACARA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, where fossils rock!
That declaration is no idle boast.
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The Arckaringa Hills – widely known as “the painted desert” – are conveniently near to the roadhouse in this series’ previous episode….and likewise far distant from any city.
They are very good badlands.
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