In 2018, a group of Midland University students embarked on a learning adventure to Australia for a course titled: Ecology, Environment, and Culture of Australia. This is what they gained on their learning adventure.
Click here for Travel: Day 1-3 - Lack of motion sickness
Click here for Travel: Day 4 - The Dandenong Range
Click here for Travel: Day 5 - En route to the Outback
Day 6: Long drives and history lessons
Subject Matter Expert - Michael Taddonio/Erikur Arnason
Today was another day spent driving towards our eventual destination - the Outback. We drove from Renmark to Hawker.
Our first night of sleeping at Renmark was a lot cushier to get us acclimated to what our new sleeping arrangements would be for the next few days
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| (C.S. Manish 2018) |
Our first stop of the day was at Morgan, a town in South Australia on the right bank of the Murray River.
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| (C.S. Manish 2018) |
Morgan was established in 1878, an important stop on the (then) railway line from Adelaide and was named at that time after Sir William Morgan, then Chief Secretary, later Premier of South Australia. Peter Hicks, a guide who joined us overnight at Renmark, led us on a tour of the abandoned railyard.
At one point Morgan was one of the busiest ports on the Murray handling nearly all the goods that were being imported and exported (particularly wool) to and from a vast region upstream from Morgan along the Murray and Darling rivers. At its peak, Morgan was the second busiest port in South Australia (behind only Port Adelaide)
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| (C.S. Manish 2018) |
After lunch, we sat on the grassy bank by the river and unhurriedly chatted about everything under the sun, finally getting a chance to get to know our guides, as well as each other, a little better without the pressure of having to be on the move.
In the afternoon, we stopped in some smaller towns along the way and explored places such as Burra which had a World War II Monument in the middle of the city to commemorate the soldiers that died from the town in the War.
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| (Fred Wigington 2018) |
The Burra mines supplied 89% of South Australia's and 5% of the world's copper for 15 years, and the settlement has been credited (along with the mines at Kapunda) with saving the economy of the struggling new colony of South Australia. The Burra Burra Copper Mine was established in 1848 mining the copper deposit discovered in 1845. Miners and townspeople migrated to Burra primarily from Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Germany. The mine first closed in 1877, briefly opened again early in the 20th century and for a last time from 1970 to 1981 (Wikipedia).
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| (Fred Wigington 2018) |
After making a wrong turn out of Burra, we passed Peacocks Chimney, where they melted the above-mentioned Copper.
Eventually, as we left the towns behind we began to notice a distinct change in the landscape. Gum trees don’t have a trunk above ground, and they store water underground in the thick roots and branch out on the surface. The leaves are used to shade the tree by hanging down during the day to prevent the sun from drying out the tree. In the evenings they are able to get good exposure to sunlight to help the tree survive. Mistletoe gets deposited high in the gum tree by mistletoe birds, which is an invasive relationship.
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| (Jodi Kimborough 2018) |
The gum trees gave way to frosted saltbush that surrounded us as we traveled down the highway. As the name suggest, saltbushes are halophytes - plants that are adapted to dry environments with salty soils.
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| (Logan Paasch 2018) |
Even the saltbushes became infrequent as we headed up towards the Flinders Ranges. We crossed the Ranges and entered the real Outback.
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| (Derrick Kruetzfeldt 2018) |
As we went over the ranges, we spotted our first Emu - just traipsing around unaffected by the convoy of intruders from a strange land. The sheep that are raised on the farms are stained red from the dirt and Barry Walker told us of a farmer who had one single alpaca guard 1,000 head of sheep.
As anecdotes like these were shared by the guides the weather changed and, to the surprise of even the locals, it began to rain on us.
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| (Logan Paasch 2018) |
We did not know it then, but the rain would influence our trip in a day or two. But, at that moment, all we cared about was reaching the campsite in Hawker, setting up tent, eating dinner and then settling down for a good night's rest. We had reached the Outback.
Day 7 - A tale of two bakeries and a stick of dynamite
