Flinders Ranges Road Trip Part 2

Welcome back to Shire Travels, this is part 2 of our Flinders Ranges trip. In this one we visit - 
- Blinman
- Moolooloo Station - Ferguson Gorge, Nucaleena Mine ruin
- Glass Gorge Lookout
- Wadna Art shop
- Wilpena Pound resort
- Skytrek
- Razorback lookout & Brachina Gorge
- Greenoch Aviation museum
- Halls Gap lakeside tourist park

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Transcript

Welcome back to Shire Travels. This is part two of our Flinders rangers adventure. Last episode we drove from Melbourne up to Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary and explored their amazing property. Now we start start heading south and our first stop when we left Arkaroola was Blinman. From Arkaroola, Blinman was about two and a half hours away. We decided to top up on fuel Arkaroola before we left, which is around about $2.70 a litre, which these days isn't actually that absurd of a price. Now, Blimman is a small village, I guess you call it, with a few little miners huts just outside of the Flinders Ranges National Park. Blinman has a pub, mine tours, a cafe, and like I said, a few small houses. There are no services or facilities in Blinman, so they do not have fuel, no water. They don't have a shop. So just to bear that in mind, if you are driving through, we did consider doing a mind tour in Blinman, but having the little one with us, we just decided against it in the end. It was all just going to be a bit too much. We did, however, have lunch at the Blinman Miners Cafe, which was great. We had a couple of pies and ice cream and highly recommend it. They also sold bread and bakery items there, so we' grabbed a few fresh bits. Then it was on to Moolooloo Station. We drove along at Glass gorge Road to get out to Moolooloo Road. This drive was absolutely stunning. You're not in the national park here, so you can fly a drone. And if you have one, I would highly recommend it. Both Glass gorge Road  and Moolooloo Road were unseled. However, we didn't have any issues towing on them. There were gravel roads, but there weren't any corrugations. Once we arrived at Moolooloo Station, we went to the homestead and there wasn't anyone about, but that was fine. We had expected that is a working sheep station. We didn't expect someone to be sat there waiting for us. And what they did was left us instructions to go into the laundry area, grab a clipboard that had our name on it, and within that there were some welcome notes and a map to our campsite. Moolooloo has a heap of different campsites and they have a really good website which has a flythrough video of each camp and shows you exactly where everything is. You can have a look and see which one will suit your setup the best. You can also book online with them, which is really handy. Now, some of the campsites are very remote and they require you to be self-contained, or there are a couple that have dropped toilets. We had book Witchies Camp, which is a fairly remote camp, but still only about 15 minutes from the homestead. The good thing was that it had a drop toilet, which was perfect, as we weren't self-contained. Toet there, we had to go through a couple of gates and cross a dry river bed, which the car and caravan handled fine. Our site was about $40 a night. Now you are paying for the site when you book, so it includes the cost of two adults and then kids are free. They're also dog friendly too. Once we got ourselves set up, we then decided to drive to Sunset Boulevard, which is right next to the sunset. It's a couple of hills we can park up at the top and watch the sunset over the ranges in the background. It was a fantastic spot and I definitely recommend doing the drive. The next day we didn't do too much during the day, just relax at camp. And then in the evening, we decided to drive out to Glass Gorge Lookout, which is around about 30 minutes from camp. Now, I had seen this spot on YouTube and had assumed that, like most things on YouTube, once it's out there for the world to see, it gets ruined and I had thought that there would be heaps of other people there and there was no one, which I couldn't really understand. We didn't see another car drive past at all the entire time we were there. Now, I had thought that there would be some other people there because it's only about 20 minutes from the Parachilna Gorge free camp, which I understand to be quite popular, but we had the whole place to ourselves and it was absolutely incredible. I would highly recommend Googling it or jumping on our YouTube and having a look. It was the most amazing spot to watch sunset. The views over the ranges are just something else. You park up the top of a small hill and then you can look out in the distance over all the huge mountains, it is absolutely stunning. It's also outside of the National park, so you can fly a drone there, which was great. Now, while I do say that, we were the only ones there, this is where we got our first glimpse of the feral goat population in the Flinders and that is absolutely out of control. Everywhere we looked, there were goats if we were quiet enough, all you could hear was a the bing of goats. It was quite unbelievable just how many there were there. We sat there for a while and watched the sunset. It was amazing. And then we started to head back to camp. Now as it was the evening, as the sun had just gone down, there were lots of kangaroos around, so just be aware of that. We took it very slow, driving back to camp. And then once we got back, we just sat outside and enjoyed looking at the stars, quite similar to ourcarula. There is no light pollution there, and so the stars look absolutely incredible. The next day we did the station's pay drive, and this was out to Ferguson Gorge. It cost $45 and you go up to the homestead to pay. You can either pay by cash or they actually had an FP machine there, which was super handy. You then sign out a key and head on your way. It was probably a 30 minute drive out there and then the walk was another 30 minutes. Quite interesting terrain as well. It took us through some kind of foresty areas, which was something a little bit different. The walk probably took us a little bit longer because I don't know if anyone else finds this, but every time we go on a walk, our children's legs just don't seem to work. Even though she was running laps of the car prior to the walk, as soon as we started walking, nap had to be carried. In saying that they were the walk itself wasn't too strenuous for adults. There was a little bit of going up and downhill, but apart from that, it wasn't too bad. We did, however, do it in the middle of the day and really we should have done it a bit earlier. It was quite hot. There are trees around but shade is limited. The gorge itself was really beautiful. It's not the biggest gorge you've ever seen. It's a couple of rock walls on either side and then some rock, which kind of kept cascades down into different pools. There's also a beautiful big gum tree in the middle as well. The pool still had a little bit of water in it, similar to Arkaroola. They were also full of frogs. It would probably be a really interesting place to be after a heavy rain with the water, cascading down all the rocks. Now, while it wasn't the cheapest drive, I'd probably say it was still worth doing, especially if you are all the way out at Moolooloo Station or in that area, it's worth checking out. Now, because we've been off grid and off means water, we'd be monitoring our water usage really closely. We had saved our tank water until we had got to Moolooloo. So when we were at Ararula, we didn't use our water in the caravan at all, instead just taking advantage of the amenities block there. We were absolutely convinced we were going to run out of water, as well as all the tanks in the caravan. We also had two gerry cans full of water too. And I think in the three nights that we were at Moolooloo, we had showers on the second day and then by the third day we were looking at them out of waterbeds and it was was almost nothing. We'd use barely half. And so we decided that on the last night we'd have lovely long, hot showers and the little one had a bucket bath. Having the drop toilet there also helped with water saving as well. However, the only thing with the drop toilet was that there was a huntsman spider that lived right next to the toilet bowl. Now, Tom did try and carefully rehome it with a broom. However, it was not going without a fire.. And the second that we walked off, we could see it just running back into the toilet. If it had been anywhere else, it would have been fine, but it just sat right next to the toilet bowl, which was a little bit too close to comfort for me. And then one time I went in there, lifted the toilet seat and there it was hiding under the seat to surprise me, which was an ideal. In terms of power, again, we were fine. The battery would charge up each day. The Jayco Crosstrak had, I think about 100 or 150 watts of solar on the roof, and we also bought a portable solar blanket with us, which was 250 watts. Now, the Jayco Crosstrak, and even the new version of theJayco Crosstrak, doesn't have an inverter, so you can't run anything other than 12 volt appliances if you're not plugged into power. This, for us, was a little bit annoying. It wasn't too bad. We did set up the car with an inverter. So the only thing we really needed to use was a sandwich press. Apart from that, it wasn't too bad. It did, however, influence our decision when we were looking to buy a caravan that the Jacobs just didn't seem to be that well set up for off grid travel compared to other caravans. The batteries were absolutely fine, though, just for powering the fridge and then some lights at night. We didn't really have anything that we needed to power. So we managed pretty well. Before we checked out of Moolooloo station, we decided to do the drive out to the Nucaleena Mine ruins. Now, this is a free drive and it's located on a par, which is a public access road. You might see them on maps and wonder what they are. Essentially, it's a public road which runs through private property. Anyone can use them and they're free. Now the mine site was great. Once again, we were the only people there, apart from the goats. And similar to Arkaroola, I just can't understand that people used to live and work out there in those conditions because it's just so remote, there's no water. You can't really grow food there. I find it quite fascinating. At the mine site, there are the remains of a few buildings and also a huge chimney as well, which was really impressive to see. We had a bit of a walk around the buildings and then we also had a look at some of the mine shafts. It had a careful look, though, just to be aware they are very deep. Inside the buildings, there were loads of animal skeletons. I mean, there were absolutely everywhere. I don't know if it's animals getting sick and looking for somewhere kind of cool and dark to die or if it's carnivores dragging there, prey in there to eat because again, it's a little bit cooler. Not too short, but they were everywhere. So just beware if you've got small children. because our little one was trying to pick up everything. We then headed back to camp, hooked up the caravan, and it was time to head south again to Wilpena pound Resort. We decided to stop in Blinman again for lunch at the cafe. This time we managed to time our visit perfectly when a huge tour bus arrived. So it was a bit of chaos, but again, the food was great. We did manage to find somewhere to sit down and eat. Now, about two minutes outside of Blimman is the Wadna Art Shop, which was our next stop. This sells Aboriginal art and then a whole range of other items. It was amazing. They had so many different things on offer there. I really wanted to buy a piece, but didn't want anything too big, as we wouldn't really have much room to store it. And I also didn't have a huge budget. I really only wanted to spend about $100 All the art had prices on the back of them as well, which was really handy. It can be a little bit awkward when things don't have prices on them and you have to ask and it just gets a bit awkkward. And I found a small piece for $75. It's absolutely beautiful. It depicts four women sitting around eating food, and the colours of it just really reminds me of the Flinders. So there's kind of earthy red colours, yellows, browns. It was beautiful. All the artwork there also has stories on the back written by the artist telling you exactly what the picture is is. I'd highly recommend visiting and picking yourself up some authentic Aboriginal art. It supports the local communities as the money goes directly back to the artist. Now, on the drive down to will be in a pound, we saw the track up to the Great Wall of China. I'd see this on YouTube and thought, oh, yeah, I want to check that out. Got halfway up the track and realised it was not caravan friendly. And if you, you're flying a drone, it doesn't really look that impressive. Maybe one to check out next time. I just couldn't be bothered getting the drone out. We then arrived at Wilpena Pound and checked in. Now, this caravan park is currently owned by Discovery Parks. However, it wasn't at the time we visited, so it might be run a little bit different now. We stayed for four nights on a powered site and it was $60 a night. Now, they did have have a water hookup at each campsite. However, it was only good for washing up or show. They advised not to drink the water as they were doing on their water treatment plant. Now, this was fine because what they did was they provided bottles of drinking water from the IGA for free. This worked well for us. The powered sites were nice enough. They were a little bit close together, but there were some trees and shrubs, which provided just a little bit of privacy and the amenities block was about a two, three minute walk away. It was nice and modern and at night they had lighting around to help you find your way. Now we will be in a pound as we wanted power and we also wanted the convenience of the small shop they had there, the bar, the pool. They also offered tours there. And it was close to other attractions, such as Skyrek and also the drive out to Brachina Gorge and Razorback Lookout. Now, I said that we wanted all the conveniences of a resort. We didn't go to the shop that much, part to buy a few ice creams. We didn't go to the bar, we didn't go to the restaurant. We did, however go go to the pool on the first afternoon that we got there. And like Arkaroola, it was absolutely freezing. We got to the area where the pool was and saw that area was sat around the edge. There was actually no one in the pool. We thought, that's a little bit weird. Stripped off into our swimsuff, it went to get in, and it was just so cold. It was like, take your breath away cold. I can't understand why they didn't have solar heating or how the water would be that cold when we're in the outback, plenty of sunshine around. Anyway, they say we just dipped our toes in and then we went back to camp and called it a day. The next day we got up early and we decided to do the Skytrek drive. This is out at Willow Springs Station. It's only about 25 minutes from Wilpena Pound and we have booked ahead by emailing them. The reason I'd done this was because we were doing the drive on a Saturday and I thought it could potentially be busy if people were coming up from Adelaide for the weekend, for example, and they only allow a certain number of cars out on the track at one time. The cost was back in 2023 at $70 per car. I now see is $80 per car. It's cheaper if you're staying at Willow Springs and it's cheaper if you have more than one car. We checked in and then we got ourselves the self-drive booklet, has a map and also all the points of interest on the drive. It was really busy at the station as there was a wedding on, not somewhere I would consider for a wedding, but a really beautiful and unique spot. We started out the drive and one of the first spots on the map said that we could see wallabies and there they were, a couple of them just posing like they'd been trained to be there. The next stop was just some Aboriginal rock art and this is where it got a little bit annoying. They didn't give exact directions. It was just walk this way slightly and look up. We spent about 10 minutes wandering around a rocky creek bed looking for it and we just couldn't see it. Either give clear directions and show people where it is or if you don't want people to look at it because you're worried about it getting damaged or something, just don't bother me mentioning it. It was a bit annoying. It essentially happened at another couple of attractions on the drive. The directions were just look up in this tree and we'd be looking around for ages, not being able to find it again, just a bit frustrating. One of the next stops was an old hut, which was very interesting, again, amazing that people used to live in those sorts of conditions. And I can't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure someone lived in there until quite recently, I want to say maybe like the 60s. Just imagine a bare stone floor, very, very thin pealing wood walls and a fireplace, and that was pretty much it. Another car turned up while we were there and we then enjoyed an extremely awkward slashfunny conversation. A guy who was asking us if we saw the wedding signs, were we with the wedding? We said, no, we're not. We're staying at Wilpena pound. And then he said, yes, yes. It's a gay wedding!!! And we were like, oh, right. Okay. And then Tom just started trying to change the conversation. I had had to back way because I couldn't stop laughing. Very awkward, a little bit weird. We then bailed out of there and carried on our drive. Now, the first half of the drive, I'd say, is far more interesting than the second half. It was quite diverse. We drove through a huge valley. The good thing is they allow you to take your drones there as well. So we got the drone up and got some amazing footage. One thing that we found with this drive compared to all the other drives we had done was I would consider it was busy. Now, the only reason I would say that was because every other place we went, there was absolutely no one. And by busy, I I mean that everywhere we stopped, there was probably another car or there'd be other people stopped already taking photos. Nothing too crazy, but just compared to other places that we had been, it did feel like it was big busy. One of the next places we stopped at was the Valley of Pyramids, and this was a really interesting scenery. Getting the drone up here was amazing. It just looks like heaps of heaps of pyramids all in a row. It's really fascinating. Google it or check out our YouTube so you know exactly what I'm talking about. All the mountains in the area look like they are pyramids. It is quite incredible, and I'm doing a terrible job of explaining it, but trust me, it looked great. One thing to note with the Skysk drive is that there wasn't anything technical. Most of the people driving it were in a fairly store, fuller drives. We then drove to one of the highest points on the station and they have a Flintstones car, which was pretty cool. We stayed there for a while and took a few pictures. Now, after that, the drive itself got, to be honest, a little bit boring. The scenery was nice enough, but it just wasn't anything to write home about. We were quite looking forward to finishing the drive and then the last 500 metres or so of the track was incredibly steep and so rocky. It just wasn't enjoyable at all. And to be honest, we were kind of glad at the end when the drive was over. Now, was it worth the $70 or these days, $80? I would probably say no. However, if this had been the very first track we had done, if we had done our trip in reverse order, I think that I probably have a bit of a difference viewpoint. I would have said, oh, it was incredible. However, I just think there are some nicer spots to go to, and $70 or $80 is expensive for a drive, at least with EchoCamp Backtrack, which was $45, they had heaps of sidetracks that you could do. So you could make the drive a bit longer if you wanted to. And there was a couple of technical sections on Echo Camp backtrack, which just made it that little bit more int interesting. I wouldn't probably go back to Skytrek myself again in a hurry. Back at camp, we did nothing. We just ate some ice cream from the shop, which I think were about $9 each and then relaxed after bouncing around in the car all day. The following morning, we did a scenic flyover Wilpena pound. We organised this through the resort and I got it for Tom as a birthday present. It was the three of us and then an older couple and a pilot. The cost was probably about $200 each. It was a really interesting fly. It was incredible to see the pound from above. Now, this area is a no drone zone. And so getting up in the plane, being able to see it from above was fantastic. The pilot was giving heaps of commentary as we flew around. However, I was in the grow with like the naughty kids slash just our little naughty kid and her attention ban couldn't quite last the a whole flight in total only went for about 20 or 30 minutes, so it wasn't too bad. Now, I'm not quite sure if they still offer this at the resort. Now it's run by Discovery Parks, but there's also flights that you can do out of Rawnsley Park Station, which is about 5, 10 minutes down the road from Wilpena Pound. After our flight, we decided to drive out to Razorback Lookout and Brachina Gorge from Wilpena Pound, I think we drove about 45 minutes all up. Now, we went to Bunyeroo Lookout first, which is just a bit higher up the road than Razorb Lookout. We then drove down to Razorback Lookout and it was amazing. It is just as photogenic as you imagine. If you Google the Flinders Ranges, this is one of the pictures that will come up straight away. So we spent a bit of time there. One of us stayed at the top with a camera while the other one drove on the road down below, and we got heaps of pictures, did a little bit of a photo shoot and it looked fantastic. We were there late morning and the sun was shining on the road. It looked amazing. We then drove down to Brachina Gorge and it was absolutely stunning. This was one of our favourite drives of the whole trip and it was free. The gorge itself was stunning, beautiful, bright red cliff faces. There was also heaps of water there. We hadn't anticipated there being water, but there was flowing water throughout. We drove to the end of the gorge, almost to where it joins back onto the main road, but then decided to backtrack and just find somewhere to stop and sit, have a bit of lunch and relax, and throw some rocks in the water because hashtag toddle. After that, we went back to camp and relaxed. We saw some emus and chicks walking through the camp as well, which was really cool. That night we spent a bit of time trying to work out what we wanted to do on our last full day. Originally, I had thought that we'd probably do another full day drive, either Morana, scenic drive, or head out to, I think it's Morana or Mynana Station, which had some page drives. Ultimately, we decided that we had done enough driving. We basically couldn't face it paying more money to bounce around in the car all day. So we decided to back to Brachina Gorge and just relax in the sun and play in the water. So the next day we got up and our first stop was to the Cazenaeux Tree, which is just outside the road to Wilpena Pound. It was a nice enough tree. It's quite famous for being featured in a photograph for many years ago, and a fun fact, the person who took the photo was Dick Smith's grandfather. Dick Smith is a very famous Australian explorer, if you don't know. Once we had had a look at the tree, it was then on to Brachina Gorge and we found a really beautiful spot to park up just off the road, I say road, kind of the trek that leads through the gorge, next to a huge red cliff face. There's a deep pool of water in front of the cliff and then a small stream of water just running past next to it. We set up the awning and kind of sat with our feet in the water. There were some emus walking by, which was amazing. It was also very quiet as well. Every now and again, a car would drive by, but it wasn't too bad. We had some fun finding little frogs under the rocks as well. A really great spot. I'd highly recommend driving out there, spending it a time just relaxing and just enjoying being in such a unique spot. The next day we got up early and we left the Flinders Ranges, it was an incredible trip, a great location. There's lots of places we've been to and we've kind of, you know, said, yeah, been there done that. Would we go back? Maybe not. But the Flinders Ranges is somewhere I definitely want to get back to. There's heaps that we didn't see and lots of other drives we didn't do either. Wilpena Pound also has lots and lots of walks. Now we didn't do any basically because we had a little one with us. However, there's walks you can do out to the rim of the pound, which look amazing. Another place that I also might consider via another trip is the Bendelby Ranges, which is just to the south of the Flinders. I thought that maybe for this trip it would just be too much and it might be a little bit the same same. So one to visit next time. One thing I love about the Flinders is there's something for everyone. There's something that will accommodate everyone in terms of places to stay, things to see and do. There's places where you can go and stay on secluded bush camps. There's still free camps there. It's also one of those places that YouTubers have been going to for years and it hasn't been ruined. And I say that a bit tongue in-cheek. Now, there are some great free camps there, which are still operating. There's free drives at so many places we've visited. We were the only people there and it doesn't seem to have been impacted by the YouTuber slash influencer curse, I guess I'd say, as badly as other places in the country. Now, once we left the Flinders, we really didn't do anything too exciting. It was just a lot of driving. Our first stop was to Jamestown, where we stopped at the playground and used the toilets. One thing we love about these small towns, they always have good facilities if you're passing through, toilets, playgrounds, bins. They've usually got it. We then made our way to the Barosa Valley and we saw almost none of it. Tom isn't much of a wine drinker. I was pregnant at the time and it was kind of wasted on us being in such an amazing wine district. I think in hindsight, we probably just could have stayed anywhere else and saved ourselves a fair bit of money. We stayed at the Discovery Parks, Barossa Valley Valley, which is just at the start of the town of Tunda. It was $65 for a powered ens suite site. Now, the ensuite bathroom that we had there was really nice. It was probably the nicest of any of the ensuite sites that we booked on our trip. But in saying that the site itself was really difficult to get into, it was very specific that our caravan had to be under 7.5 metres, which it was, but we still struggled to get our caravan in there because opposite our site, there were permanent cabins and there just wasn't room to reverse improperly. There wasn't really room to put the car once we had unhitched. So Lesson learned something to know for next time. The reason that I booked for us to stay there was, I wasn't quite sure what the weather would be like, and they had an amazing water park. The weather, however, it was cold, windy, and rainy, so we didn't actually end up seeing any of that. Another reason why I had booked to stay there was because directly opposite was a brewery that did Woodfire Pizza. I had been hanging out for two weeks thinking about this pizza. We walked over, opened the door, went in, and then after about five, 10 minutes, someone eventually came out and said, oh, we're shut. Which was disappointing because Google said that they were open and I'd been looking forward to going there for a long time. We just had lunch back at the caravan and then because the weather wasn't that great, we ended up going to quite a random spot, which is the Greenock Aviation Museum. This is about 15, 20 minutes away from the caravan park. Now, Tom absolutely loves aviation. When we drove past, he instantly spotted a plane that was, we thought was just someone's backyard, but turns out it was a museum. Now, it's just one man's personal collection and he had so much stuff, it was absolutely unbelievable, planes of quite literally every single size and model from tiny little ones to actual huge disused ones. It was a donation entry, I think it was probably about $10 each. We met the owner. He gave us a bit of a talk through of what he had there. You walked through a big shed where there's all the different planes are, there's a bit out the back as well. There's got some farm machinery. And I said, it's a little bit random, but it's one to check out, particularly if the weather's bad or places are shut, it's worth a visit. That night, we got some takeaway and then we just went to bed really early. There wasn't really much of a kind of area to sit outside the caravan. We just directly opposite someone else's van about a mut away from us. It was really cold and rainy and so we just went to bed. The next morning went to the Barossa Valley Chocolate Factory and this was great. We had a little walk around the kind of gift shop area where you can buy chocolates and stocked up and then we booked to have lunch at their cafe. It was delicious. I was definitely lying on my diabetic blood tests that I had to do for the rest of the day. I just had to eat all the chocolate. The lunch was fantastic. It was quite heavily chocolate-based and they were really child friendly too. So they brought over colouring for our little one and it was really great. It did get very busy, though, so if you are going to go there for lunch, make sure you book. Then it was on to Tail and Bend for a little stop. This is becoming quite a regular stop now if we're heading through the area. It's got toilets, water, I think there's a dump point, a huge playground, and there's a few cafes and bakeries there. We went had a little bit of afternoon tea and then that night we stopped at the Keith Caravan Park. In an ensuite powered site, it was $55 for the night, which was pretty expensive. It was walking distance to the local pub, though, so we just went there, had dinner, and that was about it. It was one of those places, again, in hindsight. We could have just cut out that night, kept on driving and stayed somewhere else, especially when the weather wasn't that great. There really wasn't that much to do. The next day we stopped at nil for a break and to get some lunch. We went to a bakery and it was a really disappointing. Usually country towns have great bakeries. This one, it just missed the mark. We then drove on to Hall's Gap Lakeside Tourist Park and the SatA took us a ridiculous way through all the back roads, which I think saved us all about one minute. Now, I'd seen this place on YouTube, on Caravan Adventures Aus YouTube and thought it looked really good. But because the last couple of caravan parks hadn't been that great, my expectations were pretty low. This place, however, was awesome. It is somewhere that I definitely want to come back to for a weekend. We stayed on a powered site and it was $45. The sites there were really big on some lovely grass, and then they had some really updated amenities. They had a huge indoor campus lounge. They had a wood burner, sofas, games, lots of areas to sit., a massive kitchen, laundry area, a huge deck recipating as well. It was fantastic. There's also a playground close by, walks that you can do to a big grass area, which had emus and kangaroos, but the absolute best thing was they had wood fired heated swimming pools and it was absolutely amazing. They only had one pool open when we were there because it was winter, but it was amazing. The outside temperature was about 10 degrees and the pool was about 28 degrees. It was almost too hot. It was amazing, though, just sitting around there, even though it was freezing cold, it was nice to have something to do and a chance to warm up. However, the warm back to the caravan was a long one when you're cold and wet. Even so, it was great in winter. There was something to do there. And like I said, I think it's somewhere that we would definitely head back to. Now we didn't see any of the Grampians on this trip. We just wanted to get back home, but it's somewhere we'll head back to. So that was the end of our trip, all up we drove about three and a half thousand kilometres and that includes all the different day trips that we did and four drive tracks. We spent approximately $714 on accommodation, which sounds cheap for two and a half weeks, but add on the caravan hire of $2,200. It wasn't super cost effective, but it was actually still cheaper if we had stayed in cabins at caravan parks or Airbnbss. Now, fuel, I reckon we'd spent about $1,500. It might as well have been more than that. As I said, our fuel economy is not great in that car. Groceries and eating out, I'd say we'd probably spent about $1,000. So all up over two and a half weeks. We spent about $5,500. You could have that if you have your own caravan. In addition to that, we also did a scenic flight, which is about $400. And we got a $400 banana fine as well.. So not the cheapest trip. We could have done it cheaper if we had stayed in unpowered sites and we'd been self-contained, but that wasn't for an option for us in this little caravan. One thing of thing I wanted to mention was that we took an emergency beacon with us for our trip. We took a Zoleo. This is a small device which has an emergency beacon on it and it also has a messaging system too. Because we were going fairly remote, this is just going to be the most remote we had ever been travelling as a family. I was also pregnant, as I mentioned and also was insulin dependent diabetic from the pregnantancy. And so we wanted to make sure that in an emergency we could contact someone. I had looked at hiring a satellite phone, but it was going to be over $1,000, which I just felt wasn't worth it. The Zoleo device we got was $250, a one-time activation fee, and then a monthly subscription. We've got the monthly subscription, which is the most basic, because it's about $30 a month. We loved the messaging fee on it. Now we luckily we didn't have to use it, but if we wanted to, we could hop onto the app, link it up to the Zoleo, and then we could send text messages to people. You could send them your exact cornets so they can know where you are. There's lots of other features that it has like you able to track your journey as you go along. And the other good thing was that you can suspend your subscription if you aren't travelling. So when we came back from this trip, we knew we weren't going to be going anywhere for about six months. So I suspended the subscription and then reactivated it once we got travelling. So something to bear in mind, if you are travelling quite remotely, just to have a way of being able to contact people in an emergency, we also like to have a bit of reassurance as well because we're both with Vodafone and their service isn't the best. So this is amazing. This was a really good thing to have. It gave us a lot of peace of mind. And that's a wrap on this at Flinders Rangers and Arkaroola trip. If you want to see some of the footage, make sure you look us up on YouTube, Shire Travels, or Instagram, shire.travels, and I'll see you in the next one.