Blinman , Flinders Ranges

Would you believe after one sunny day it rained on us again last night. Bob and I woke to the pitter patter of raindrops at about 2am. It continued to rain until after we had breakfast and packed up. We all huddled under the annexe off the side of Martin and Lorraine's vehicle to eat our left over chicken curry on toast. I then had time to very quickly publish yesterdays blog. We set off from Arkaroola and drove back to the North /South Highway because I wanted to shop at Leigh Creek. Unfortunately Leigh Creek is a mining town (brown coal) with no interest in serving tourists. It was Sunday so the Foodland was closed. The only place open was the service station and I did manage to buy tomatoes and some packaged ham slices there. The only other thing in the towns favour was that it had a mobile service so I could interrupt Elise and Ingrid's screen printing workshop that was Ingrid's present to Elise for her birthday. They excused themselves to phone me back so Elise could check on our return date and thank us for her birthday presents as she had celebrated yesterday for convenience and so they could go bushwalking.
We left Leigh Creek and went down to Parachilna where we shortly later detoured to go to Glass Gorge the first of the attractions in this area. We are not sure where the name comes from but it was certainly a pretty drive with the country looking almost Alpine. There were native pines all along the way and barren hillsides reminiscent of areas where there is a snow line higher than the tree line. Maria and Roland commented on the similarity to Switzerland. The Glass Gorge itself was lovely. It is a slate valley and the gorge floor was littered with eroded slate. There were many different colours of slate. We think we also managed to identify some fossils within the surface of some pieces. Roland would have liked to put some in his suitcase.
Tonight we opted out of camping and are in a two bedroom apartment in Blinman which will give us ready access to  the Flinders Ranges National  Park tomorrow. Blinman is the highest town in South Australia and so we are expecting a cold night again. Our unit has reverse cycle airconditioning so we are quite comfortable which is a pleasant touch of luxury. Thankfully the weather forcast for tomorrow is for fine weather. We are looking forward to doing some walking in the gorges.