Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
South Australia’s Painted Desert has to be seen to believed.
It takes some effort to see it; access to this spectacular, very fragile place is restricted, and the Painted Desert is on private property.
Arckaringa Station handsomely meets any reasonable definition of “remote” – more than 960 kilometres from Adelaide, it is more than 100 kilometres north of Coober Pedy.
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Magnificently stark as Lake Eyre generally is, its banks and surrounding terrain are a deal more vegetated – and the vegetation is more diverse – than most newcomers expect.
Some of the plants are wonderfully weird; necessarily, all are hardy, and adapted to one of the world’s more “demanding” environments.
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Not yet!
However, most (of the relatively few, still) people who have reached the pictured lake do find it decidedly “unearthly”
Moving from “landscape view” to “closer view” is highly likely to alter a first-time visitor’s initial impression/estimation of Kati-Thanda-Lake Eyre, but most visitors continue to feel that they are on “another planet”.
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At 3.50 pm on 07 June 2023 my feet were very close to where they had been when I took the “7A” image, just three minutes earlier, whilst enjoying a leisurely walk through part of Parachilna Gorge.
I was, nonetheless, effectively able to get nearly eight times closer to one of the previous photo’s four peaks – by looking through a 400mm lens, as opposed to 54mm.
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This series’ “7” posts both feature a “landscape” photograph, but “7B” will offer a much closer view of one of the “7A” landscape’s four peaks.
Both featured images show just part of what is a striking landscape through all 360 degrees; that holds true through the entire length of Parachilna Gorge.
The gorge is on the western side of the northern Flinders Ranges, and is easily accessed from the nearby “town” of Parachilna.
Parachilna is within daytripping distance of Wilpena, but a much better idea is to stay two nights at Parachilna’s truly-wonderful hotel. (the hotel pretty much is the “town”)
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Even on the greyest of days – when an Australian outback “landscape” appears to offer a rather limited “colour palette” – a closer view is almost guaranteed to confound your initial impression.
The post’s “6B” image was taken within a few minutes of the “6A” photo, and their vantage points were not very many footsteps apart.
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In June 2023 my beloved and I visited the Flinders Ranges, (plus other outback South Australian places) and the Northern Territory’s “Red Centre”.
Nearly half a century had passed since our most recent trip to Wilpena Pound and nearby places.
It was more than forty years since we had last been in the NT, together.
Both regions proved as singular and beautiful in 2023 reality as they had been in our memories of the 1970s.
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For a law-abiding citizen, there was a necessary precondition to enable this post’s photos: to be “on the water” in Port Adelaide, looking at the starboard side of the relevant ship.
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You are looking at Port Adelaide’s most arresting (and “enigmatic”) 21st century structure.
You may be relieved to know that it has nothing to with nuclear power!
As a construction industry journal headline put it, on the 2nd day of February 2023:
The timing of that story’s publication was exquisitely unfortunate.
On that very day – barely a week after the balloon-like structure’s erection/inflation – it burst, very spectacularly:
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Q: what does the “skin” of the world’s oldest such “surviving” clipper ship look like, at age 160 years?
A: have a close look at this post’s photos of the City of Adelaide. (taken in Port Adelaide on 07 March 2024)
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