Accommodation

From April 10 to 13 this year was the Easter long weekend. This is a time when many people go on a holiday, often camping or in a caravan. Wan, Brenton and I went camping the Flinders Ranges, a large set of mountain ranges in central South Australia considered the start of the Australian Outback.

On Thursday Wan and I drove from Kongorong to Adelaide (about 5 hours), picked up Brenton from his work about 3pm, organised our camping gear and supplies at his house, then drove another 2 hours north of Adelaide to Clare Valley. This is a good place to stop on the way to the Flinders (which is another 3 to 4 hours drive, not because it is one of Australia's many popular wine regions, but because our friends Rob and Meg live there and we get free camping. We set up our tent at their place, enjoyed a BBQ dinner, and got on the road again by about 11am Friday. [Rob and Meg have a nice simple setup on their 100 acres, and about a week after visiting them they had their first kid, Willow. Check out their journey).

We drove via Jamestown, Orroroo, Carrieton and Craddick to Hawker and then arrived at Wilpena Pound (the heart of the Flinders Ranges) about 3pm. There are two caravan/camping parks: Wilpena Pound and Rawnsley Station. Both are pretty good - this time we stayed at Wilpena Pound for $27 per night (unpowered site, 3 people). You can also stay in the National Park, especially in places like Brachina Gorge, which is much more peaceful bush camping.

The weather was perfect for the trip. Everyday was about 28 degrees, with the occasional cloud. At night time it was not too cold, especially with the fire. What did we do there? A lot of time was spent relaxing with a beer at the camp site. On Saturday we went on an easy 3 hour trek up to Hill's Homestead and then to a lookout with a great view of Wilpena Pound. On Sunday we drove up through Bunyeroo and Brachina gorges, and then back towards Wilpena via Stokes Lookout. There are plenty of other places to go and things to do, but this weekend we all wanted to relax a bit. So after a couple of boxes of Coopers and half a dozen bottles of red we made our way home to Adelaide on Monday (and then back to Kongorong on Tuesday).

Photos are available in the Gallery, as well as at Brenton's Facebook page.

Halls Gap is a small tourist town in the middle of the Grampians, a mountain range in western Victoria. We spent 2 nights there at the start of April, staying in the Halls Gap Caravan Park in the middle of the town.

Halls Gap is about 300km from Kongorong. There were 3 car loads that went: Peter and Allison; Brett and the family in their car; and Wan and I in Brett's Jeep with Dad's new camper trailer on the back. Its a nice setup, taking about 20 minutes to put up and includes queen mattress on the trailer, plus floor space for about two more, as well as a large annex.

The caravan park wasn't too busy, with most people staying in cabins and caravans. We had the open camping ground to ourselves. In the early morning and late afternoon there were plenty of kangaroos around the park, coming up to our camper trailer. Peter and Ally slept outside in their swags, and had kangaroos almost walk over them.

On arrival, after setting up we had a walk around the park and town then settled down to some drinks and dinner. The next day we all made the trek to the Pinnacle, a lookout above Halls Gap. Before going home on Sunday, we all drove up to Stawell (home of the famous Stawell Gift) and visited a couple of wineries in Great Western.

Halls Gap, and the Grampians in general, are a great place to visit with many opportunities for bush walks, camping and mountain climbing. Check out the Photo Gallery for more pics.

SIIT held its Annual Seminar (end of year trip) in Cha Am town (in Cha Am province). Most of the staff and faculty from SIIT went down to Cha Am on a bus on Saturday morning.

After speeches and lunch, Saturday afternoon we went to a Royal Project for planting trees, where everyone got to plant a single tree.
This was a little disappointing for me, mainly because I was expecting that we would be planting lots of trees (i.e. doing some hard work). Instead we spent a good 45 minutes waiting for the previous group to finish, then listened to a talk and movie for 45 minutes then spend 30 minutes planting a tree each. The holes where already dug for us - we just had to unwrap the tree, put some dirt around it and splash it with water.

A couple of us had a swim Saturday afternoon, but the water was freezing for Thailand's standards. Dinner and shows were held on Saturday night, as were some drinking sessions on the beach.

We stayed at Long Beach Hotel, Cha Am. This was a large tourist hotel with standard rooms, and all the facilities you could need. It is in a great location, about 50 metres from the beach.

Photo Gallery