Friday, 15 August 2025
Breakfast was included with our accommodation again this morning at the Prairie Hotel. We packed everything except our tooth brushes, before heading to the dining room at 8.00am. No continental breakfast smorgasbord here, we were able to order an a-la-carte breakfast from the menu. Fancy! Bernie chose the muesli and I opted for a chia pot with fruit compote, yoghurt and nuts.
We headed back to our rooms to clean our teeth, packed out tooth brushes and made our way out to the truck to drive to Nilpena Ediacara National Park. With Syri calculating our arrival time based on reaching the end of the road at Nilpena, we found ourselves arriving early at the locked gate, not far from the highway, where we had to wait for our guide to meet us. Ha, ha, needn’t have bolted down breakfast quite so quickly.
Park ranger, Lillyan, arrived at about 9.15am from inside the gate in a minibus. After a brief introduction outside the gate, we boarded the bus for the drive into the park. Before being declared a National Park, sheep were grazed on this property, so our visit commenced with a short visit to the historic wool shed. In its heyday, more than 40,000 sheep from Nilpena and neighbouring stations were shorn here annually.
We walked back to the blacksmith’s shop. This building has been restored to house a nine-metre fossil bed named Alice’s Restaurant (after the Arlo Guthrie song) because of the quality, quantity and diversity of the fossils preserved within. The fossil bed in itself is amazing but then, with the assistance of a high-tech projection, the fossil bed is brought ‘back to life’ with an amazing audio-visual presentation that introduces visitors to the early life forms.
The marine fossil trove here at Nilpena Ediacara records the first complex animal life forms on the planet and predates dinosaurs, megafauna and primitive man by aeons. Before these fossils were discovered it was generally thought that the Cambrian Period gave rise to the earliest complex life forms. The fossils at this site led to the naming of a new geological era – the Ediacaran Period – which precedes the Cambrian Period by about 40 million years.
After the indoor presentation, Lillyan drove us to the fossil beds that remain in-situ and explained in detail how the fossil beds are being excavated and stabilized on site so that ongoing research can be conducted at the site and understood in context. At the risk of sounding like a complete science nerd, everything that Lillyan shared with us was incredibly interesting.
At the conclusion of our tour, Lillyan bussed us back to our vehicles parked outside the gate. As we drove we spotted two wedge-tailed eagles, one on each side of the bus. Lillyan said that they often escort vehicles as they drive along the road. She said she has tried stopping to photograph them but, as soon as the vehicle stops, they fly away. She thinks they’re camera shy.
Back in the truck after a fascinating morning, we drove back down to the Prairie Hotel for some lunch. Perhaps we should have made or own light lunch because the pub didn’t do light meals for lunch. The lunch menu was the same as last night’s dinner menu! We decided to share a beef burger in an attempt to avoid over eating in the middle of the day.
After lunch it was time to start heading home in earnest. We motored down The Outback Highway until we reached the turn off for the Moralana Scenic Drive that would deliver us to the Flinders Ranges Way. This would be our last bit of sightseeing before leaving this dramatic ancient landscape behind us. Well, it turned out to be Bernie’s last bit of sightseeing but I could barely keep my eyes open! It’s not unusual for me to doze off in the car BUT this afternoon I was struck really badly by the sleepiness. Damn it’s frustrating! At least I woke up when Bernie braked for the FOURTH echidna of our holiday, ambling across the road shortly before we arrived in Hawker.
When we reached Hawker, Bernie topped up the tank with diesel, while I washed the front and rear windscreens. While he was paying for the fuel, Bernie bought us Drumsticks. Well … we did only have half a burger for lunch. Eating more food did little to help how drowsy I was feeling. I just could not keep my eyes open this afternoon. Usually I have a little power nap and then I can be wakeful for a decent stretch but today I only seemed to be alert for a few minutes and I was off again.
We re-traced our route from the 4th of August, turning onto the R M Williams Way a few kilometres south of Hawker. We drove back through Cradock and Orroroo before taking a left onto the Petersburg Road (B56) towards Peterborough. We wondered why the spelling of the road and the town are different?? Why isn’t it Peterborough Road that takes you to Peterborough??
Arriving in Peterborough about 5.15pm, we made our way to the Peterborough Motel. No staff here to check us in, just instructions to obtain the key from the lock box to let ourselves into Room 3. It’s a bit of a come down from last night! Tonight we are in a bog standard country town motel. The heating is working, that’s the most important thing. Dinner at the Peterborough Hotel which was very busy on a Friday night. We were warned it might be a bit of a wait for our meals … and it was. Despite being many miles from the sea, we both ordered the fish and chips.
Steps: 7,675 (5.12kms)
