St Kilda & Barmera

Finally, all our repairs and maintenance are complete. 😊 The car has had its bit of body work done, we have a fridge that works properly now and, we have a brand-new awning. On top of that I have a new storage system for my boxes of tinfoil, glad-wrap and baking paper, courtesy of Peter and his offsider.

Our first stop was only a few kilometres out of Adelaide, St Kilda. There’s not much there, except an amazing playground and picnic area, a huge carpark, boat ramps and a ton of birds. We had visited previously and decided we would stay a few nights on our way out of Adelaide because it was such a nice area and…I had been told there was a rare, vagrant bird in the area, and I wanted to try and get a glimpse of it. A Yellow Wagtail.

I have never seen so many birds in one place, I’m talking of numbers in the thousands not hundreds. Swans, gulls, cormorants, a variety of waders large and small, spoonbills, pelicans plus many more. I tried to capture an image to highlight the large numbers of birds, but it was beyond me.

As you can imagine I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the area, and I got some decent shots of the local birds.

There were so many people out looking for the rare vagrant Yellow Wagtail, it caused quite a stir! Now for the big question: Did I see it? Yes indeed, and what a pretty little fellow he was.

As is often the case, when you’re near water, and the weather is favourable, you might just catch a beautiful sunset, St Kilda was no different.

After leaving St Kilda we headed south east, toward Murray bridge. We spent a night at Wall Flat, which was a wet and muddy camp on the banks of the Murray, then an overnight at Waikerie. We had planned to spend more time around the lower Murray river area, and Lake Alexandrina, then call in on some friends, but the weather had other ideas. Wet and windy was the BOM outlook for a s far as we could see, so we kept on driving hoping for a more pleasant climate.

We got as far as Barmera and decided to stop running, there was no getting away from the wet and windy weather front. But the silver lining was, that Barmera is a lovely little town in the Riverlands area and we have settled in here quite nicely. We booked and paid for four nights, then another four and another…I said to Peter, “They’re going to start charging us council rates soon.”  We camped on the edge of Lake Bonny and for the most part, have been on our own. The kayaks have been sitting on the beach just waiting for a dip, but the weather is still not playing fair. Super windy and cold.

Yes, I know, all the photos are showing lovely quiet, still water. There were a few times when the wind wasn’t blowing a gale and that’s when I ventured out with the camera, the rest of the time we were huddled up inside.

Still, it is a lovely place to be, and with ample firewood in the area we’re keeping warm. And what else can you do with a fire? Cook on it. This was our first campfire cook in what feels like forever and we had a local coming over for dinner, so it had to be good! (It was 😊)

There are quite a few birds around Lake Bonny, mainly cormorants, gulls, and herons, and I saw my first Great-Crested Grebe. I also got a shot of a pair of birds, I think they might be Hardheads. If they are, that’s another first for me.

I was having my coffee on the beach one morning, when I noticed a lot of activity near the bank further up the lake. It turned out there was a large school of fish, and the birds were having a feast. I’d seen this many times on the lake, but always in the distance. What made this special is that the fish were moving towards me.

I’m not sure how much longer we’ll stay here, but it will be for a few more days…at least.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!