The only thing on today’s agenda, apart from chillin’, was
to visit the Arid Land Botanical Gardens just north of Pt Augusta. We had seen
these in passing on our recent trip to Coober Pedy and had also heard about
them so we put them on the agenda. So after a fairly lazy start to the day we
headed off about 10ish for the 10 minute drive. It is very well set up and well-marked
with our first port of call the redcliff’s lookout.
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| Redcliff's lookout |
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| Looking out over the river flats |
This looks out over the
river flats and mangroves and has a magnificent back drop of mountains in the
distance. A short walk to the lookout provided even better vista’s back towards
Pt Augusta.
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| Sturt Desert pea |
The walking track up to the look out forms part of a larger walking
track around the gardens. The total area of the gardens is around 250 hectares
and apparently they have more land, adjacent to the current holding, for expansion.
Next stop was the information centre and, guess what, coffee. Now we had been
hoping to see Sturt Desert Pea and we found it with a number of fairly large
clumps at the entrance to the information centre. Small note Di wasn’t too
excited about them as “they have been planted and aren’t wild”. Anyway they
were impressive and varied in colour. The gardens have an incredible variety of
plants from many of the arid regions and we had a great time roaming around to
the point that we just had to stay for lunch.
There is no “where’s Dougal” today cause we only went to the
gardens and that would be too easy. Di has rated the coffee as “good” and the
ratings have taken a bit more form with so so being – not impressed progressing
through good, very good to excellent, excellent being unsurpassed pleasure.
Tomorrow the real adventure begins as we leave for Ceduna
and Nundroo.
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| Garden Sculptures |
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| Quandongs |
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