Saturday 6th October - Birds, Trains and No Bike

Saturday 6^th October

 Pichi Richi Railway - The original Ghan as seen on Chris Tarrant's TV programme

King of the rails. Large lizard on pile of rails

Another kind of rail - Buff Banded Rail

Laughing Kookaburra. The famous large kingfisher with a call like laughter.

Not much of a picture but Adelaide Rosella was a bird we'd  specially gone to see.

One of a pair of Emus that strolled past us near sundown

Chirruping Wedgebill at sunset

A full day off the bike but I’m sure it was more tiring than a full day on the bike! Annoyingly it is warm and wind free – typical that when I’m not going to suffer a headwind there is none.

Go to the Aridlands Botanic Gardens for opening time of 7.30am though get a bit distracted by a tree full of Little Corellas which are noisy white parrots. We pick up Black Honeyeaters in the Eremophila garden and White Fronted on the other side of the visitor centre. Meet an Aussie birdwatcher who confirms no other new birds for us here. He could help us elsewhere but we have a train to catch.

We go to the rather large old Port Augusta station which has the standard gauge mainline pass through (see freight train) and also the old narrow gauge Pichi Richi Railway starts here for a 30 + km run up through the pass of the same name to a town called Quorn. It is the start of the original Ghan route to Alice Springs but as you may have seen on Chris Tarrant’s show there is a new line now, allowing this preserved railway to have a really good route. They don’t run the full route many times in a year so he hit lucky here. There is a road that follows a similar route so we intend to chase it taking photos. It is warm and cloudy at the start but it is sunny later on. We are not alone chasing and there is about half a dozen of us including an Aussi couple watching their Grandkids on the train and a chap from Oxfordshire who is on a railway holiday to different parts of Australia. We just manage not to run each other over at the several locations worthy of a photo along the line. The loco is one built in Castlemaine in 1925 that is original for the line.

We don’t have enough time to follow the return trip so after we finish at Quorn we drive south to the Mount Remarkable National Park that is a range of hills that are not that remarkable so don’t know where the name comes from. Low expectations perhaps. It is about 70km from Quorn and we go to try to see the Adelaide Rosella a colorful parrot that is at its most northern part of its range here. Initially we struggle though do see a flock of Little Crows we’ve expected to see before here. We are almost going to give up when Mandy spots on feeding in a conifer tree. Job done!

We drive back up to the Botanic Gardens to finish the day off in warm sunshine with lovely views of Chirruping Wedgebills again. A very good day off for us.

Change my cycle chain for another part worn one for the rest of the journey.

0 km today in 0 hours 0 minutes – an average of 0 kph. Total so far remains at 2605.83 km