Camping trip #2 happened on the weekend. Went north of adelaide and camped in the southern flinders ranges, in a great little spot called Spear Creek caravan park. Its part of a 7000ha working sheep station, although you don't really see much of that. We camped in their 'bush camping' section, which is about 1km from the main site. Weather wasn't great to start with, but there's not much you can really do about that. Holiday was booked and due to work and school holidays, it couldn't be moved. First night, Port Augusta, which is about 25km away by road, recorded wind speeds around 50km/h and gusts up to 70km/h. We were in a gully, surrounded by hills and the site caretaker reckoned the wind would easily have been as high as those recordings where we were, if not higher. Our brand new tent held up fine though not a lot of sleep was had that night. I did venture out multiple times to check the ropes/pegs etc and thankfully there were no issues, although from inside the tent it felt like we would be relocated by morning! The caretaker drove down to check on us in the morning and was impressed that we were unscathed. Others that were tenting in the main park had left, some due to tents ripping etc. He resides in a 2tonne van and he said the wind moved his van during the night. It was quite eerie as well, as you could hear the gust coming, getting louder and louder.
The next day, it rained off and on, and quite heavy at times. Again, the tent held up fine. No leaks in the tent, although the awning did get a couple of leaks along a seam that holds a zip for attaching an optional side panel (which we had). the next 3 days were fine, sort of cloudy early with a couple of light showers, sunny and hot in the day and then cooling down to single digits in the evening and night.
This was my first visit to the flinders, and i won't be doing it again anytime soon in the warmer weather. The flies here are the worst i've ever experienced. They even get in behind your glasses and then buzz all around trying to get back out. Really tested your resolve for those few hours in the middle of the day when the sun was shining.
some pics of the weekend
