Andy Roo's Fun Facts - Sturt Desert Pea

Sturt Desert Pea

Emerging from the harsh environment of desert sands, Sturt Desert Peas' add vibrant reds to an already colourful landscape. Aboriginal dreamtime story of the Pea; a beautiful young maiden was promised to a young warrior who gave her a cloak of red parrot feathers. She roamed the arid lands with her warrior and tribe. When drought hit her warrior was sent afar to search for food. He didn’t return, the tribe moved on, she remained for her warrior. The last view by the tribe was her surrounded by her red cloak surrounding her black head as she knelt on the ground waiting for his return. In 1961 the Pea was adopted as South Australia’s native floral emblem that was named after explorer Captain Charles Sturt, who in the early 1840’s explored remote regions of South and Central Australia.

Silverton or bust.

I'm a little cold sitting in the frost..but it is the first time I've seen it :)

Wholly dolly.  Now I come from Far North Queensland and when we woke up this morning there was FROST on the tent.  Yep, you heard me right, frost.  Oh my goodness it was cold.  Have any of you guys been in a frost before?  Wow, I was pretty cold but was brave and had my photo taken at the campground at Silverton because I've never seen it before and it was really cool.  :)

Old Church at Silverton

Silverton was named in 1883 because of the silver and lead ore miners found in the surrounding Barrier Range.  By the late 1880's the town's population expanded to 3,000 people.  Now it goes from 10 to 100, and not quite a ghost town, but has a lot of cool buildings that have been left from yesteryear that you can explore. 

An Australian classic movie 'Mad Max' was made out here too, and you can still see Mad Max's car in town.  It is one of those really cool, go fast one.  Yahoo.

Mad Max's car...classic Australian movie

It's a great little town to explore.

A nice cold beverage, or warm pie, it was a cold day.

The road just kept going....

On the road again.

Because there was soooo much water around and we had to take the 'black tar' all the way to Silverton, it was a long road trip.  So far we had travelled 1,679km from Coopers Creek to get to Silverton....but we made it and after Michele cooked us up a yummy dinner after a big day on the road, it was bed time.  Night!

 

 

 

 

 

Passing time saying hello to fellow travellers....

Nearly at Silverton ... Yahoo

Finally some dirt.

Michele; cooking up a storm.  Very cold night.