SA outback wilderness: Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park day 2

 
All geared up and ready to start our hike!!!!


One of the irritating thing here besides the scotching sun and dryness are the sand flies!!! The sand flies here were really really irritating!!! It’s just follow you everywhere by using anything on you as mean of easy transport!!! It just try to go in any holes!!! your nostrils, your mouth, your eyes…etc!!! It’s a bit hard not be bother by their presence but once you reached a stage where you have no more energy to shoo them away and just try to ignore them as much as possible (they just too many and they never leave u). 

Amazing view at the start!!!


The walk started with an easier pace with flatter path, but as we entered the gorge, the path turns into a bed of stones that were creeks when there’s water before. The stony path was SUPER GOD DAMN hard to walk on, especially for Chung because he wored a pair of normal running sport shoes, his shoes proved unsuitable for this kind of trek. It thinner than hiking boots and it’s hard to balance. Luckily his shoes still held up.


Rock glass trees (bottom left)
 

The trees and rocks here just looked so colourful, the eucalyptus tree bark are everywhere and their colour blend in so well with the surroundings, and the rocks here are deep red in colour.  And trust me it’s MUCH MUCH harder to walk on the bed of different shape and size of stones (bottom right pic)!!!!!!!
 

SA outback wilderness: Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park day1-2

Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park lies approximately 750 km to the north of Adelaide and 110 km from Leigh Creek.

Deep red rocks, ancient hills and vast rugged landscapes make up this remote Outback wilderness. Part of the northern Flinders Ranges, the Gammon Ranges include spectacular scenery, a wealth of Adnyamathanha Aboriginal culture and the remnants of early European settlements (http://www.about-australia.com/travel-guides/south-australia/flinders-ranges-outback/attractions/natural/vulkathunha-gammon-ranges-national-park/).

This trip was right after the Grampians, something like 2-3 weeks after. It was a long weekend because of Good Friday and Easter Monday. Initially there ain’t any plan or the plan didn’t really work out, no trip from AUMC too (Alex wana have some break, haha). Suddenly got an email from Alex asking me and Jono are we interested to go to the Gammons with him??? Alex initially wanted to head to somewhere over the eastern end of victoria but changed his mind to the Gammons due to closure of the certain trek he wanted to do.

It was great for me as i was really hoping to do something over the long weekend, moreover it’s to the heart of South Australia’s outback!!!! Where the real wilderness begins!!!! I haven’t seen much of the South Australia outback since the Flinders trip. Just PERFECT for me, haha. I invited a newly known Malaysian friend to join along too.

It’s a long longggggggggggggggggggggg drive all the way up north.

As it was long holidays, the lion’s club or SA forestry ….etc will setup stops for people to get sthg to eat or drink for FREE!!!! And it’s 24hrs!!! How good is that??? It’s meant to provide those drivers on long journeys to have a bit rest and coffee/food to replenish their energy.

Also that was the first night i learned how to shoot the stars in the sky with my camera, haha. Kind of got very excited with it and kept on shooting a couple included the place we camped for the night which was somewhere beside the main road as we could not find the dedicated campground and the driver is getting tired.

Luckily the road was not a busy one because there really ain’t many people that travel up north this far.
 
 

AUMC O-Camp 2010-03-13-14th

My first O-week and O-Camp experience with AUMC :) Overall, it’s was a great event, and met more people of similiar interest and definitely more event like this should be organize to enhance AUMC members interaction :)

This year the AUMC is running its opening camp at the Woodhouse Activity Centre in the beautiful Adelaide Hills.

Woodhouse offers a range of thrilling adventure activities and learning experiences; activities such as 7 different orienteering courses,frisbee course, golf, a range of hiking trails, an obstacle course on challenge Hill, mountain biking, and as well it has available a selection of cricket, football, volleyball sports equipment available for use (Quote from Derek).

Frisbee golf game, pretty fun, where one try to throw the frisbee into the net, just like hitting a golf ball into a hole. The winner is considered as the person who threw the least times to make it into the net.


Jane trying to climb the tree (bottom left).
 

Then most of us did the challenge hill obstacles course designed for scouts who usually use this ground for training.
 

The Grampians (Gariwerd) 4D3N – the Fortress loop & Mt Thackeray 2010march5-8th

      
As if camping next to a road is not very ideal, try camping next to an operating railway line, LOL!!! Not too long after we all tried to get into some sleep, we suddenly realized we were actually camping not too far away from a railway line!!! The sound of the train crossing pass us was sounded as if the train was going to ran over us (worst for Alex because he camped nearest to the railway line) !!! Still, after a while, we got use to it and I think there was another one near dawn, haha.

Woke up the next day and continued our drive to the Grampians!!! The photo above captured the beauty of different colour and shape of tents just few minutes after we all woke up :)

The Grampians!!!! The famous escape for lots of Adelaidians & Melbournians because of its location in between South Australia and Victoria!!! Heard from my colleague before that it a nice place to visit especially when it’s green. Thanks to Alex again for I got the opportunity to to visit the Gariwerd (Aboriginal name for Grampians national park)!!! The NP span a big area across the western north of Victoria state and attracts heaps of campers, bush walkers and climbers each year for its renowned rugged beauty and spring wildflowers. Aboriginal people have lived in the area for thousands of years and it is one of the richest Indigenous rock art sites in south-eastern Australia.

Passed by Horsam for some stock up and then all the way down to Manja Shelter.

Note: The photos here are a mixed of Anton’s, Nick’s and my camera with majority theirs, lol. My camera died very early along the way and i left the new batt in the car, cry :(!!!! Luckily both Anton and Nick were so kind to lend me theirs for some irresistible shots!!!


Weather don’t seem seem to be on our side as forecasted!!! But luckily it didn’t rain!!!


Reached Manja Shelter and prepared ourselves.

Adelaide Festival Northern Lights 26.02-04.04.2010

26th Feb-14th March is the one of the most exciting time to visit Adelaide, SA. Why?? Simply because of the Adelaide Festival that offers a range of entertainment be it theatre, art, shows, for public, …etc. One of the event which caught my attention and it’s FREE was the Northern Lights display and it’s so near to my work place, from the time it’s up, I get to see it every time I walked past North Terrace. I must say it’s one of the most spectacular building art display I have ever seen. I know there’s something similiar in Sydney on the Opera house roof, but to me, seeing the Northern lights in Adelaide is an opportunity NOT TO MISS!!!! Heaps of people walk the north terrace to see them and snap photos. SUddenly North terrace became so popular and full of people from the usual nights!!!!

  The photos above and left were from http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/servlet/Webaction=changePage&pageID=1710223120&recordID=495564559&s=2290869 which one can read more about the Northern light event and other events too. 

Lorne conference 11-14th feb 2010

                        
The 1st conference I attended was in Lorne, Victoria, one of the famous coastal town along the FAMOUS Great Ocean Road. How good is that?? haha. Heard my colleagues praising bout the location. I guessed the most exciting part was, my lab colleagues/postdoc and other colleagues from other labs in the department went to the same conference. While some organize their own accommodation but we had Andrew to help get us a FANCY apartment to stay throughout the conference. All in all, it was an informative and relevant conference, gained new knowledge, saw the “people” whose names I have always read on the scientific journal articles. Most important, we all had heaps fun!!!


My first sight of Melbourne city was from air!!!!

Random shots around Adelaide 2010 (2)

  
 

Night view of Adelaide Torrens river & Elder park Aug 2010

A post long overdue, haha. I have forgotten that I took these photos :)

A stroll through Adelaide’s park is always something nice to do especially through the Torrens river & Elder Park and especially during a nice weather in Spring.




Here’s some shots during an evening walk :)
 

2010_01_31 St.Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide

Had this idea of going to church after work or before work on Sunday. Finally managed to force myself to make out some time to do it. It’s actually not too bad an idea if i really can kept it up, haha. Thought I don’t think it will last at all, LOL.

The first church that came into my mind is the St.Peter’s Anglican Cathedral which is located on King William Road and to me, it seems like the biggest church or most stand out church in Adelaide CBD that I have seen and can reach.

To get there from my work place involve walking a 15 mins walk on a normal pace which took me across the Torrens river, a very nice place/garden for walking/relaxing.

 


The architecture of the church is pretty AMAZING!!!!
 

SPECTACULAR Maslin beach & Port Willunga 2010_01_26

Who would have thought behind these vast piece of land & hills lies an amazing stretch of beaches!!!!


I have always wanted to come over to this side of the beach, because although publicly less promoted but definitely one of the prettiest beach among the locals.

This is place is much harder to get to than any other places as it is quite far down south of Adelaide, moreover, one has to transit a few times to get here, and it takes 2 hrs ish to get here from my house!!!!

While bashing bit through the scrubs to the beach side, I came upon this pigeon!! I have also wanted to take a good photo of the pigeons here as there are of different breed, look at the head of the pigeon in the picture below, sort of have a lock of hair on top of it :)
 

The weather at first looks not too good, but somehow the weather looked like they were behind me as I got nearer to the coastal, yeah!!!

It was a PERFECT SUNNY CLEAR BLUE SKY for photo shooting!!! And SUN BATHING!!! haha.