Monarto to Murray Bridge, and on to Milang

Gazelles at Monarto Wildlife Park ... probably heading off to a feeding point. It's getting along to mid-late
afternoon, and we're starting to think about afternoon tea ourselves!

A zebra heads determinedly along a guide fence ... tea, anyone?!

Prezwalski's horse: almost extinct in the wild, and thriving at Monarto.

American bison against a backdrop of native Australian trees -- how surreal is this! Cool, though.

American buffalo ... molting in an Australian fall. How do they manage the Aussie summer??

Monarto's white rhino snoozes the afternoon away in his corral...

...from the bus, which makes its way through these vast paddocks filled with antelope, giraffes, ostrich...
and if you keep a sharp eye out you'll see kangaroos in the distance!

Leaving Monarto, you exit via the gallery and store, which has touch-friendly exhibits...

And we're off on the road to Murray Bridge, hoping for afternoon tea.

Murray Bridge -- Mobilong Precinct, above the wharf...

Parklands along the river ... where we stopped for a picnic, since no place in town was open for a decent meal!
Bizarre as it sounds, every restaurant and pub stops serving at 2:00pm and doesn't reopen till 6:00.

Galahs (often known overseas as rose-breasted cockatoos) cavorting in the tree over our picnic spot...

...powerboats and water-skiers zipped up and down on the river, and a family of noisy miners cadged for crumbs.

The afternoon sun was lowering as we headed for Milang, where we were booked in at our usual --
the Milang Lakes Motel, our favorite place to stay on Lake Alexandrina.

It's a picturesque drive, especially in good weather. Often, the skies darken as you approach Milang, but
this time we were lucky ... blue skies all the way.

A strong wing raises whitecaps on Lake Alexandrina, on the way into town...

An Australian magpie stands beak-to-the-wind under a racing windlass.

Lake Alexandrina -- the lakeshore. Actually, a shot borrowed from another day, as you can tell from the
calm lake surface and the lovely sky. Confession: after Monarto, I was dead tired and ready for a rest at the motel! 

Milang: Paddle Steamer Drive, seen across the wetlands -- again, borrowed from another day.

And Milang: the bird sanctuary. Should be called a FROG sanctuary! Dang, those guys are loud at night.

The main thought in our minds as we left the Monarto Wildlife Park was FOOD. We'd intended to head to Murray Bridge for something like a very late lunch or very early dinner, but plans were upturned by the fact that every restaurant or pub in town was no longer serving. They close the kitchen at 2:00pm and don't reopen till 6:00, so we were out of luck, unless we wanted fast food, which we didn't.

The solution was a somewhat on-the-fly picnic, in the parklands by the river. Wouldn't you know it? Usually we go out loaded (and bring back 90% of the food). This time we'd intended to go "cafe to cafe," so we hadn't over-packed. But enough was in the cooler to put something together, and we didn't exactly starve.

Then, on to Milang as a strong wind began to crank. The lake was energetic with whitecaps, and we guessed it would be cold later. But what got our hopes up was the clear blue sky. For the first time in many years, you'd see stars tonight. And Milang is so far from any town that the skies there are DARK ... we were longing to see the Milky Way, and were not disappointed.

We put on as many layers as we could and went out at about 10:30pm. Aha! The sky was blazing. You can walk out of town in 90 seconds, and we did. The whole galaxy arched overhead like something out of a movie. Gorgeous! But there was no way to photograph it ... not with "compact" cameras. One of these days we'll go back with a full-on digital SLR and see what can be done.

Next: the lake in the morning light, waterbirds galore, and off to Wellington for breakfast.

Destination: Monarto! Lions, giraffes, meerkats ... on safari in South Aus

Lions of the Monarto pride...
A safari in your own backyard! Monarto "Zoo" is certainly not a zoo in any conventional sense of the word. The "enclosures are vast paddocks and the animals enjoy almost as much freedom as they would in the wild, as well as being utterly safe from poachers. Monarto has a small but growing pride of lions, and a couple of young females were close enough to the viewing platform for us to get some terrific pictures.

In fact, there are so many wonderful pictures to share on this post, most of them have been pasted in as thumbnails. If you'd like to see them at full size, just click them: everything is big; we just can't display them large, or this page would be ten yards long!

...at this point the lions meandered away to a patch of shade beyond the reach of cameras, so it was time to hop back on the bus, for a ride to the next part of the park:

Ride the bus around Monarto: very handy ... you buy one ticket at the gate, and then hop on and off the bus at whim,
stopping as long as you like at any one "paddock."

Hunting dogs: faaar away, at the extreme range of telephoto, and on the other side of a fence. Dang. But at least we got pictures... everyone else had left the area! Patience is rewarded.

Monarto's paddocks are connected by walkways to the main bus routes. There's a lot of walking involved, even if you do
hop on the bus the whole time. Wear your walking shoes ... and a hat. Shade is rare, and it can be very hot indeed.

Giraffes at Luncheon...

Giraffes are so pretty! They have the longest eyelashes you ever saw, and the daintiest legs. They're also very, very
shy, and skittish. We happened along just at feeding time, and the busload of eager photographers were
exhorted to be quiet and not make a big fuss.

Giraffes ... with femme fatal eyelashes, and eyeliner. They really are beautiful.

Below: other views in the Giraffe Paddock, which those tall folks share with some bovines whose horns are ... epic. These are eland and kudu. In fact, the bus will swing you through several vast "enclosures" where you really could believe you were on the savannah ... except for the fact those are eucalypts in the background rather than the acacias one would actually expect in Africa...

The giraffe viewing platform is -- well, elevated, which affords a great view of Monarto's giraffes. The animals come
right up to the platform, where the specialist will occasionally hand-feed a carrot while giving a layman's lecture on
giraffes in general and these gorgeous animals in particular. 

Now, we'll take the bus through herds of bovines ... the herbivores are separated out from the lions by tall fences and distance, naturally. Stock feed comes in by truck for the animals, since -- as you can see at a glance -- they "eat out" the graze immediately. (What are the lions eating? One almost hesitates to ask, but we could make a few rather unfortunate guesses. What else can you do?)

And in the background, behind the bus, yes: an ostrich, not an emu!

Meerkats on sentry duty ... and at play!

There's only one word you could use to sum up meerkats...

The word is, CUTE!

Back on the road, leaving Monarto and headed for Murray Bridge, Langhorne, Milang, Goolwa ...

Monarto ... covered in one post! The hardest thing about this one was figuring out which pictures not to upload, because there were so many fantastic ones, and then figuring out how to display more than fifty images on one post with some skerrick of coherence! Reiterating -- ALL the images were uploaded at large size, and to see them, just click on the thumbnails.

The park is enormously rewarding though the ticket price is quite high, as you'd expect. Be prepared to do a LOT of walking; do put on your walking shoes and take a hat because you'll be in the sun a great deal and it's almost certainly going to be hot, unless you brave the mud in the middle of winter!

Here's what Wikipedia says of Monarto:

Monarto Zoological Park (also known as the Monarto Zoo) is a 1,500-hectare (3,700-acre) open range zoo located in South Australia administered by the Royal Zoological Society of South  Australia Incorporated (trading as Zoos SA). It is located at Monarto approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi)  from Adelaide's centre.

The zoo features several unique attractions, including a drive-through cheetah habitat, a southern 
white rhinoceros habitat, and Australia's largest giraffe herd. It is also home to South Australia's largest  revegetation project. As of 2015 Monarto zoo has achieved one of the most successful giraffe breeding  programs in Oceania.

We enjoyed it enormously -- would recommend it, and will doubtlessly do it again one day. But as the shadows were lengthening it was time for us to hit the road again. We had a long way to go, and another day in which to do it!

Next time: Murray Bridge, Langhorne and Milang in the morning light...