even in the dust, we shine: #fancy4inADE (XV) - Mount Lofty | Cleland Wildlife Conservation Park

10 October (Saturday)
Up bright & early to catch the bus to Cleland Wildlife Conservation Park!!!! The first bus we had to take had verrrrry long intervals in between, meaning if we missed one bus we had to wait a few HOURS for the next??? We couldn't afford to miss that bus because we had to take ANOTHER long-interval bus.... i.e. we had a very tight bus schedule to follow la LOL

took us like 20 minutes from the tram station to walk and find the first bus stop wtf LOL

but we saw really pretty clouds????

still very enthu because we thought we were going to catch our bus.......... LOL

after like 45min - 1hour of waiting, we realized the first bus was not coming for us and that we would miss the second bus :-( It was very frustrating la because the bus app kept lying and the bus never arrived and the bus stop HAS NO SEATS!!!!!!

We had postponed this trip to Cleland for vvv long (knowing that getting there is incredibly troublesome) SO WE DIE DIE HAVE TO GO that day!!!!

Er plan B was to take a cab which proved to be a problem as well because we didn't know how taxis worked in Australia?? Like can you only flag them at certain places?? Plus there were NO taxis in sight and we had to wait again sobbles

BUT AFTER WAITING FOR 15 MIN WE HAILED ONE!!!! We saw that the driver had KFC fries and he even offered us some???? When we declined his offer, he said: "that's good, I was hoping you'd say no" HAHAHAHAHA

Anyway, the taxi brought us deeeeeeeep into this very narrow road surrounded by trees EVERYWHERE. He said that Cleland was on top of the surrounding mountain, so he asked if we wanted to just drop off at the base of the mountain to see a waterfall. He said it would be way nicer to walk up than to drive us up, so we agreed!!

SO MUCH GREENERY!!!!

Er the driver did say that the waterfall is quite sad to look at now because there's hardly any water... and he was right HAHAHA

Still a nice sight though!!!!

Sydney and I even managed to climb up to the ledge!!!!

This was right behind where we were seated!!!

Ok so at this point we were done admiring the waterfall and we wanted to walk to Cleland, like the taxi driver suggested we did. We couldn't exactly find a distinct pathway to Cleland because after the waterfall, there was only one route available that led to a hike up the mountain.

So we asked a nearby cafe for directions........... and she said there were 2 options:
1) drive up there
2) hike up there

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Obviously we couldn't drive because we had no car + that place was seriously very secluded and NO taxis were around...................

so there was only one way left: hike 3.2km up Mount Lofty just to get to Cleland T____________________T

........so a very impromptu and unplanned (and dreaded) hike begins

Oh we saw a wild kangaroo!!!!!!

Waterfall??

ok at this point the hike wasn't thaaat bad yet, but then it just got progressively worse and steep ;_;. I was really very sad la HAHA because I was not dressed appropriately, I brought my heavy DSLR and I was the least sporty/active person among the 4 of us....... :-(

I admittedly was whining a lot lol but after awhile I realized I had no other choice but to go up... so I might as well just conserve my energy right HAHA

We were quite high on the mountain at this point!!! You can't really tell from the pic but we were REALLY near the edge so it was quite scary la wtf. Like one wrong step/someone accidentally pushes you and you're on your way to dying a very tragic death rolling down the mountain :-(

this pic is a lie because I was significantly slower and usually vvvvvv far off from the 3 of them LOLOLOL

The previous few pics were all us walking on flat land but that is also a lie because

THERE WERE A LOT OF STEEP SLOPES LIKE THIS WTF

After about 1 hour, we reached this huge empty area where we took a short break!!!

The subsequent pathway up to Cleland was significantly harder after this sobbles
There were more rocks on the ground so it was quite hard to get a grip on???

PLUS SO BLOODY STEEP OMG
That is Andria and Kevin at the bottom hahahaha

And after 1.5hours, we finally saw a road which meant that Cleland Park was just nearby :'')

Shoe cleaner that looks a hella lot like an animal trap wtf LOL

Cleland Wildlife Conservation Park is something like a zoo, except the animals in Cleland are mainly from Australia and they're free to roam around the vvvv huge park hahaha (entrance fee was ~$18)

Most of the pictures I took are on my DSLR but here's some from my phone!!