Downhill Rides and Prison Quarries.

 Our new house sits on the northern bank of the Torrens, backing onto both the river and the O-Bahn.  We can pop out through the back gate right onto the bikeway or take a short walk to the nearest enterchange to zoom into town on the O-Bahn.  Roger, long convinced that the world north of the river is a wild wasteland of reprobates whose whole purpose in life is to rack up speeding fines, struggles with the genteel mansions and wide, tree-lined streets on which we live.

Not having spent much time in the northern wastelands, we set out to do a spot of exploring.  First off, I took a gravity-assisted bike ride down a minor road in the Adelaide Hills.

There were hair-pin bends,

long sweeping downhills,

and views across the gorge to the Colonial Track (on my list of places to ride or walk).

Away in the distance Port Adelaide lay under an anaemic sunset.

The following day we set out to explore the remains of the Yatala prison quarry in what is now the Dry Creek Linear Park.  From 1954 through to the 1960s the prisoners, many of them in chains, worked in the quarry producing high grade quartzite, road metal, and clay slate. The path took us to ruins of guard towers, the old blacksmith's shop, and past the disused quarry sites.  The high stone walls of the current Yatala Prison, topped with razor wire, were visible above us.

Old Guard Tower #1,

overlooking the current Yatala Prison, on the site of the original labour camp.

The old blacksmith shop, beautifully restored on the outside and still with blacksmithing debris inside.

Sunlight and gum trees in the old quarry sites.

We finished the day with a quick trip past the Hope Valley Reservoir where water pumped from the Murray River (where else?) is stored before making its way into the cooking pots and drinking glasses of northern Adelaide.

Bird of the day: Little cormorant at the Hope Valley Reservoir.

And then we went home.