Day 18 - Wilpena Pound, SA to Peterborough, SA

We headed off to Peterborough today, leaving Wilpena Pound Resort early. 
We stopped at The Woolshed Restaurant at Rawnsley Station, not far from Wilpena Pound, for a bite to eat.  Mum and I had a lemon delicious pudding for breakfast, very healthy haha! It was absolutely delicious too!

We continued on to Hawker, SA.  It was a small nothing sort of town but quite nice and pleasant.  We had lunch at a lovely little cafe - Sightseer's Cafe.  The two owners, husband and wife, seemed kind of sour when we first arrived but looks can be deceiving!  They were really friendly and funny.  They were quite the characters actually hehe :-)
We tried another Quandong Pie which was tasty as well.  The Wild Lime Cafe one in Blinman is still the best though!

Just out of Hawker, there was some aboriginal cave paintings which we decided to have a look at.  There were three caves we could have seen but we only had time to see one of them.  It was a bit of a hike to reach the first cave and then you had to climb these ladders to reach the cave in the cliff.  It was quite high up and Dad (who has a fear of heights) was completely scared climbing the ladders haha! He managed it though :-)  I wasn't too helpful to him, I was too busy laughing!

You can hardly see the cars in the distance!

 After the caves we continued on to Carrieton (going along R.M. Williams Way!).  Dad wanted to see the mosaic mural on the public toilet wall!  The mural is made up of 900 painted squares and it actually was quite cool (even though it was on the public toilet wall - at least it was on the outside ;-)).

We did a detour to see Johnburg, an almost deserted town.  There are only two people living in Johnburg and all the other buildings are in ruins.  It was quite interesting to look at and we stopped at a few different ruins to have a closer look.

We continued on to Orroroo.  We went to have a look at the 500 year old red gum tree that has a circumference of 10m!  It was massive.

Afterwards we headed to the local pub and had a drink.

We were originally planning to stay in Orroroo but couldn't find any suitable accommodation, so we pushed on to Peterborough.
Before leaving Orroroo we went to Magnetic Hill.  An optical illusion where, at the bottom of the hill, you put your car in neutral and it appears to roll back up the hill!  It was very cool.  We did it a few times.

Rolling towards the giant magnet

We finally arrived in Peterborough, just in time to go to the Steamtown Sound and Light Show.  Peterborough used to be the hub of the railway in the steam train era.  We sat in an old railway car and watched a documentary on Peterborough and the steam train era that was projected onto a screen outside.  It wasn't at all what I expected but I really enjoyed it.  It is sad to see how much work and effort people put in creating these railways and then they are just ripped up and forgotten.  I definitely recommend the sound and light show, if anything it gives you a very interesting history of the town and trains.

Next stop tomorrow, Clare, SA!