The last couple of days have been spent making our way to the Flinders Ranges.

From Andamooka we largely back tracked as far as Port Augusta and the started our journey up north.

While we were retracing our steps it was amazing how different the soils amd textures looked with the sun behind instead  of ahead of us. 

Only one stop along the way- at the Pimba roadhouse to re- fuel. We love this roadhouse so iconically Australian outback. There’s pretty much nothing you can’t buy there in some form or another. Food was stereotypically road house food- we opted for the hot chips with their special  aka chicken salt ( or something like it)- very yummy and not even the slightest bit healthy. Took me back to childhood days of fish and chips in newspaper and looking for the crispy bits on the bottom.

Arrived in Quorn mid afternoon in sunshine and set up camp ready for our 3 night stay- so nice not to have to move for a couple of days.

Quorn is a gorgeous historical town, lots of original buildings all beautifully restored. Two very country pubs with interesting characters drinking at the bar.

Totally by coincidence we found we are here for the weekend of the inaugural quongdong festival – a festival celebrating bush tucker and sustainable living. They are expecting the masses up from Adelaide and have celebrity chefs and gardiners lined up including an episode of MasterChef being filmed and Costa from the gardening show- so it looks like we are in for quite a treat.

Pubs are starting early with special fare – David and I ate at the Transcontinental last night- he had chicken with quondong glaze and I had barramundi with lemon Amyrtle ducha- both served with chips and salad of course.

Last night also went to the silo art show which projects short films by local artists onto the silo in the Main Street- a bit like the drive in- hooking into your car radio for sound- fabulous!

Today we went more physical with a 6k hike round Warren Gorge- amazing scenery but absolute mountain goat territory- quite steep and lots of loose rocks- was very glad I’d worn my ankle brace and bought along hiking poles. No sightings of the legendary yellow footed wallabies but plenty of signs that they had been there before is.

We had intended to do the self drive historical circuit- and did get part way, but rain set in and the roads started getting gliggy – after one shallow water crossing we decided we should hot tail it out of there. 

Back at camp- have just cooked steak and mashed veggies on the camp stove- rain has stopped and winds are picking up and promising to rock us to sleep,