It pays to be flexible when planning long weekends.  You just never know what opportunities are going to come along.  Seonaid has a few job applications in the works, and was invited to visit one place to see what it was like.  So that found us on the road Saturday afternoon, intead of in front of the TV or sewing machine.  As much as I would have loved to spend the weekend at home, I wasn't going to pass up the chance to visit a true outback pub.

We were headed for the Prairie Hotel at Parachilna, a mere 300 kilometres away, which isn't really all that far.

What makes the trip memorable is the isolation.  After Port Augusta there are only two small towns, Quorn and Hawker, and then just miles of empty landscape with the occasional sideroad leading to a homestead.
Luckily the scenery is spectacular,

and we were constantly exclaiming over the hills of the Flinders Ranges, and the ruins left behind from the 1870s.

One spot I really wanted to visit was the ruined Kanyacka homestead.

We made many trips up here when we were in high school, some with school camps but mostly with our older brother, who loves this area and has explored most of it on foot.  I wanted to see how the ruins were holding up, it's been nearly 40 years since our last visit.

They have been tidied up, and for safety's sake some have been fenced off, but overall they were the same, a monument to a time when this area was a thriving sheep station and home to 70 families.

We went down to see the sheepshed, which in the 1860's was shearing 40,000 sheep; it's hard to imagine the activity this place has seen, and the number of men who must have worked here.

We had a laugh over this sign; the poor little pictogram guy was having a bad day.
Seonaid demonstrates how to fall over in style...

Have to go to work, will be back with the rest of the photos soon.