{"id":5764,"date":"2025-03-08T02:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T02:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5764"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:52:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:52:43","slug":"5-monarto-the-barossa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=5764","title":{"rendered":"5. MONARTO & THE BAROSSA."},"content":{"rendered":"

Immediately after our “cruise” in Dreamweaver, we visited Monarto Safari Park.\u00a0 \u00a0We had hoped to stay in the newly built Safari Hotel.\u00a0 Originally due to open to paying punters by late 2022, it has only just started to take bookings.\u00a0 The resort is now due to open in late May of this year!\u00a0 Too late for us, so we stayed at Murray Bridge about 15 minutes southeast from the park.<\/p>\n

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We had “chosen” a really hot day to visit the “African savannah”.\u00a0 About 30\u00b0C in the shade.\u00a0 Except there wasn’t very much of that!\u00a0 All the walking trails were closed for the day.\u00a0 The animals were all a bit drowsy and reluctant to show themselves more than necessary.\u00a0 However, we had pre-paid.\u00a0 We were going to “enjoy” the day!\u00a0 We arrived before the park was open and left after it had officially closed!\u00a0 And we did get some really good views of a lot of the residents.<\/p>\n

Some were ever-watchful …<\/p>\n

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… others were hell-bent on getting into their daytime quarters (air conditioned!).<\/p>\n

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Some, like the Tasmanian Devil, were ferociously hungry …<\/p>\n

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… while the cheetahs waited serenely for their breakfast of half a goat …<\/p>\n

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… and the lions paraded menacingly across the open “savannah”<\/p>\n

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Some humans were seen frolicking in the water hole.\u00a0 Ahh, sorry, that was Jack and Benji in the hotel pool trying to cool down after a HOT day out, as viewed from our room five floors above.<\/p>\n

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Before we left Murray Bridge, we took an evening stroll along the river.\u00a0 There, in it’s own cave, we were surprised by the Bunyip!<\/p>\n

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The bunyip is a legendary, man-eating monster from Australian Aboriginal folklore.\u00a0 It is said to live in the swamps and rivers of Australia.\u00a0 It has shaggy fur, sharp tusks, and a thick mane of hair and makes booming or roaring noises.\u00a0 At night, it emerges from the swamp to prowl the land, hunting for women and children to eat.\u00a0 The origin of this belief possibly lies in the rare appearance of seals far upstream and the monster’s alleged cry may be that of the bittern marsh bird.<\/p>\n

Whatever, it’s sudden emergence in its cave, triggered by sniggering grandchildren, was enough to startle unwary grandparents!<\/p>\n

More mundane acoustic marvels came next.\u00a0 The Whispering Wall aka the Barossa Dam, near Williamstown.\u00a0 Built between 1899 and 1902 to supply water to Gawler and other northern country areas.\u00a0 At the time it was an engineering marvel.\u00a0 With the reservoir wall rising to a height of 36 metres, it was, at the time of its completion, the highest dam wall in Australia.<\/p>\n

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However, nowadays, it’s main attraction is it’s acoustics.\u00a0 Two people standing close to the wall at opposite sides (140 m apart) are able to have a perfectly audible, whispered conversation!\u00a0 It really was quite remarkable!<\/p>\n

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We did try some complicated tests to demonstrate how much faster light travels than does sound.\u00a0 But our juvenile scientists proved to have short attention spans and preferred playing on the log stacks!<\/p>\n

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We were, by then, in the Barossa wine region.<\/p>\n

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We had to check out the mechanised harvesting of the grape crop …<\/p>\n

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On the hill behind the vale, there was a lookout park.\u00a0 The views over the Barossa were spectacular …<\/p>\n

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… but some of the sculptures were a bit crooked and needed straightening!<\/p>\n

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Others didn’t even warrant a photo!\u00a0 Before we left for our last evening together in Adelaide, Phroggy had a very close encounter with one of the rarer local animals!<\/p>\n

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Read the next installment to find out if Ben survived the attack and whether we will out-live Cyclone Alfred!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immediately after our “cruise” in Dreamweaver, we visited Monarto Safari Park.\u00a0 \u00a0We had hoped to stay in the newly built Safari Hotel.\u00a0 Originally due to open to paying punters by late 2022, it has only just started to take bookings.\u00a0… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thailand-and-australia-travels-in-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5764"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5787,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5764\/revisions\/5787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}