Flew back from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide at around 4 PM. Picked up car at Adelaide Airport (50 meters from General Aviation). Drove on city streets for the first time in Australia through the outskirts of Adelaide into the Adelaide hills and our first divided highway.
Arrived at the edge of the Coorang at dusk and took a cable ferry...
...across the Murray River...
...to the village of Wellington...
...for dinner at the Wellington Hotel, one of the oldest eating/lodging establishments in the area and the last commerce for 50 km.
Peter serving as decoy so Therese can photo local workers at the pub; these guys were installing a pipeline to bring freshwater to a part of the Coorang whose water supply has become completely saline. (More on this another time.
The guy at right was selling raffle tickets
Some locals at the pub
Took the ferry back to across and drove another 25 km, arriving at remote Poltaloch Station in the dark to find a totally charming self-contained farm cottage awaiting us.
(House photos taken during the days following)
Note the rainwater faucet:
And the ubiquitous Australian half (pee) flush button:
Next morning, Peter cooked breakfast from the farm-fresh eggs, homemade bread, local bacon, as well as coffee, milk, butter, marmalade, and orange juice that Beth, our host, had left for us in the fridge.
Scenes around the working farm and heritage site on the shores of Lake Alexandrina, once just part of the huge Poltaloch Station (N.B. Station is the Australian term for a humongous ranch).
It was not the right time of year for many migratory birds, but we did see some that have hung around.
White-faced Heron
We took another cable ferry across the (now blocked) Narrows between freshwater Lake Alexandrina and increasingly saline and dry Lake Albert.
Note the pumps taking water from the former into the latter. (Story on this to come.)
The famous Coorang, hyper-saline lagoons protected from the sea by sand dunes.
Therese experienced the fright of her life when she accidentally kicked a large Shingleback Lizard who, after playing dead, opened his huge gaping mouth and hissed at her violently.
Here, she's still recovering as she eats lunch.
Peter tried unsuccessfully to determine whether the birds above were little or large Pied Cormorants; Therese watched nervously, hoping that another lizard wasn't lurking in the reeds through which Peter was walking.
Drove through fascinating cattle farms on the salt flats into Menningie where we shopped for dinner makings and watched a bit of lawn bowling.
Therese's favorite; he reminded us of our little Italian neighbor in Brooklyn, Victor.
A sign of the area we were in
This old lighthouse is on the Poltaloch Station land
Taking the cable ferry back to Poltaloch Station.
These little cable ferries (Punts) operate 24 hrs a day and are free.
Pelicans eating at the pumps bringing fresh water (and fish) into Lake Albert from Lake Alexandrina. Huge Carp leaped into the air as they came through the pump pipes. (More later on how these Carp came to be introduced and how this backfired like so many attempts by Australians to control pests with natural enemies that turned out to be worse than the pests.)
The shell of the original ranch cabin, since moved, in which we were staying.
The road through Poltaloch Station
Lake Alexandrina from Poltaloch Station; note the Poltaloch Black Angus cattle grazing on the shore.
Farm woman Therese hanging out the wash
Peter trying to figure out which darn terns were hovering and diving off the Station jetty
And which darn honeyeaters these were
This jetty once provided mooring for boats on Lake Alexandrina; the water level of the lake has dropped tremendously over the past 10 years due largely to water from the Murray River being used in profligate ways upstream for irrigation:
A visitor to the farm, wanting us to feed him; we didn't.
An amazing single tree that created an entire woods of its own
Therese at the Barbie
Dinner at our Poltaloch Station farm cottage
Sunset at Poltaloch Station
The main house at Poltaloch Station:
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