Don’t you know it’s magic?

While we’ve been mostly absent here on WP, we’ve been out in the wild world having magical times.  The more I travel by instinct and less by planning, the more magic I allow into our lives.  Most of our time is away from cell reception, and today I’m making the most of a good signal in a town, to catch up a bit.  It’s blowing not quite a gale, and plans to head further in a particular direction are put on hold, until perhaps next week, when I’m hoping to do some whale watching.  So later today, we’ll head to where-ever it feels right 🙂 but not into the wind……

A place we briefly visited on Eyre Peninsula last November, is Pildappa Rock, located 15 kms from the small town of Minnipa.  It was time to return.  Instead of a quick overnight stop, we stayed for two days, and will return some more to this magical place.

You can’t miss it on the approach from town.  It captures me every time.

We set up camp in the late afternoon, on the eastern side in order to get the morning sun on the van – I rely on the sun for heating in the winter 🙂

Love love love the evening colours in the eastern sky.  Magical.

To our great surprise we awoke not to sunshine, but to a fog/mist as far as the eye could see.  Time to get out exploring!

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It was a totally unexpected start to the day, and completely wonderful and magical.

All the while, birds were singing and all was right with the world 🙂

Exploring

On one of our short exploring drives earlier this month we found a few items of interest.

The bigger view

I’m thinking during these crazy times, about the old saying –

“Can’t see the wood for the trees”

More on that here for those who are not familiar with this saying.

I’ve been occupied recently with upgrading the van’s power system, and it’s almost completed.  Of course, my plans keep changing.  The Tiny House Festival I’d hoped to attend instead of another event which had been cancelled, has now joined the list of non-events.  Even though it was to be held outside on a racecourse.  Hmm…..

So not sure where to next, but chances are we’ll make the right choices 🙂

 

Victoria Valley drive, Grampians

Leaving our campsite near Dunkeld on a cool cloudy morning, we drove slowly down the road between two lines of mountains – or hills according to your definitions 🙂

The Victoria Valley Drive is one that is advised by the Dunkeld visitor centre to take.  From Dunkeld the roughly circular trip can take from a couple of hours to a whole day, depending on how much you are willing to stop to look at of course.

It’s a bitumen road, although not sufficiently wide for two vehicles to pass without leaving the bitumen.  The nice aspect was not having to deal with logging trucks 🙂  We mostly just puttered along at a quiet pace to absorb the peace of the area.

This is a typical large shearing shed in Australia. 

Sheep and wool growing are the main farming interests along with some beef cattle.  It’s a high rainfall zone, and bear in mind these pics are taken in late February, the end of summer in Australia, so there’s still plenty of feed about.

At a closer look, the emus grazing took my eye.

The Grampians were formed about 424 Million years ago, give or take a few years either way…..    For more information read a report here on the geology of the area.

Most time when I stopped to say hi to the sheep, they took off as soon as the vehicle stopped.  However, I have a special tool at my disposal…..

….. and most times it works well 🙂

Not quite so well on the kangaroos sadly, as this bloke only stopped briefly before bouncing off.

Another stock shed along the way.

The nearby residence.

A bovine beauty.

These sheep got my curiosity.  I could see them moving around in a sort of circular manner, but there were no dogs or humans to be seen.  It appeared the sheep were playing among themselves, taking turns to run around the mob.  Who knows….?

Hang on, those long necks don’t belong to sheep!  Emus pretending to be sheep!

Throughout my time there I noticed this picture frequently, sheep and emus getting along quite nicely thank you very much.  Good to see.