Ducks are knocking at the door, they are residents from the nearby creek, We suspect they are repeat offenders seeking an easy feed. We take the opportunity to do some last minute grocery shopping and also look at the Miners dugouts. These dugouts (600) were the homes for 1,800 of the 4,400 residents that lived in Burra during the mining era (1851). Dug into the bank of the creek and shored up with some rock walls and a timber roof with overburden placed on top. The homes were small and must have been cold in winter.
As we travel north we cross the Goyder line, a line determined by the Surveyor-General George Woodroffe Goyder who in 1865 stated cropping should not occur north of this line. We note the creeks are flowing around here, there has been some recent rain. We are close to Mt Remarkable, part of a steep range, beautiful old growth river gums can be found here. Many of the towns we pass through have beautiful old stone buildings.
We travel northward stopping at Jamestown for early lunch at the Jamestown bakery, which was started in 1880.
A further stop at Quorn to pay for our camping permit, and a look around the town, the old railway station and historical agricultural equipment at the Lions Park.
We move onto Warren Gorge for the night and have put the camp into lock down mode, awning up and side walls on, makes the campsite a few degrees warmer as a stiff cool north-westerly wind is blowing.
In fact the wind blew all night, not the usual Katabatic/Anabatic winds you expect in this country but near cyclonic gusts until 3am in the morning, the swag with us in it even moved of a couple of occasions.
We wake up to blue sky, some high cloud but at least it is calm. We have a chat we a fellow camper, we talk about the wild winds in the night. On the way out we take a few photos and we’re lucky to come across a small group of Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies, Petrogale xanthopus. In my younger years this species was considered almost extinct, thanks to a concerted effort to save them they seem to be well on the increase.
