Flinders Ranges Part 3

Sacred Canyon

This is something I can recommend. The drive is along 13km of dirt road, with some parts quite corrugated but nowhere near as bad as you hear for the outback roads, just enough to be a bit uncomfortable. The drive itself is quite picturesque (but watch out for roos that hop across the road) and the walk in the Canyon is very, very pretty. This small chasm contains ancient Aboriginal rock engravings showing animal tracks, waterholes and windbreaks. There are some very old engravings up higher on the walls. These are a bit more difficult to see as they are quite weathered. There are more recent engravings too. I'm not sure what I mean by more recent as no time frames are given, but there are some quite repetitious engravings that are quite deep and detailed and nowhere near as weathered as the others.

Appealinna Ruins

We drove to the Appealinna Ruins. On the way in there are a couple of signs low down on the right hand side of the road. We didn't stop to look at them as they were on the “wrong” side of the road, and it was freezing cold and the kids were tired. So we drove to the car park and explored the 3 buildings of the Ruins. The information there was interesting and the shale stone house, kitchen and out house were amazing to see and interesting to imagine living in. On the way out, because the signs were on the correct side of the road, we stopped to read them. It turned out there was also a Mens House and Mine Managers Hut ruins, related to a nearby copper seam, that we could have explored if we had have walked a fair bit further from the house ruins.

A close up of the construction. At least the rock around here is suitable for building with - it breaks into nice, relatively flat rectangles.

One thing I found is that the Information Centre really gives you very little information to go on. I don't know if they have publications you can buy with better information but the double sided A4 page they gave us really didn't cover all of the things you can see or do, the walks or the drives, and we only found things out by accident. Things I mean are our example at the Appealinna Ruins and we also followed a sign to “Fossil Worm Tunnels 20m” in the Brachina Gorge …. but had no idea if what we were looking at were the fossil worm tunnels or not as there was no signage there and nothing that looked very different from any of the other weathered and eroded rock in the area. So I would suggest for anyone heading to the Flinders Ranges to do plenty of research before hand on the internet or anywhere else you can think of, talk to the Info Centre at Port Augusta (who gave us the Flinders Ranges and Outback book and a booklet of walks in the Ranges) and hope you get someone helpful at the Wilpena Information Centre.

I would also recommend you do the Bunyeroo Gorge drive from the Wilpena end, not the Brachina Gorge end, as you are kind of going the “wrong way” if you travel from Brachina Gorge, (as we discovered when looking at photos of the Bunyeroo Gorge road after we had driven from the Brachina Gorge end!)

I have come to the conclusion that I am NOT going to camp off-grid during the winter months unless we are a lot further north. I am so sick of being cold.

Flinders Ranges Part 2

Wildlife

The area is full of kangaroos, wallabies and emus. On the main bitumen road between Hawker and Blinman there are so many roos and emus, and an unbelievable amount of road kill roos. But we all love seeing them and apart from the occasional roo or emu that ran across the road in front of us on the Bunyeroo Gorge Road, it was all good. You just need to keep a close eye on both sides of the road and slow down if you see them as they are pretty easily spooked. It's funny, at Halls Gap the roos would eat out of your hand if you let them and the emus just wandered where ever they wanted. The roos and emus at Flinders Ranges are easily startled and ran away much of the time. We saw Red Kangaroos (definitely saw this), Western Grey Kangaroos (I think – we definitely saw grey kangaroos of some sort, unless they were large grey wallabies of some sort), Red Necked Wallaby (I think), Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby (definitely), emus, some type of parrot which we think is a type of Ringneck, although it could also be a yellow bellied parrot (as I never got a really good look at it), a wedge tail eagle or three a Red Capped Robin and a bunch of little finch like birds that flittered and flew too fast to get a good view of. It's times like this I think doing the flora and fauna strand of my degree, rather than soil and hydrology, may have been more useful.

Wilpena Pound

I hate to say it, but I found Wilpena Pound underwhelming. You see so many postcards of dramatic, steep, red rock walls with beautiful coloured skies behind them or the sun shining on them, making the red so vivid. I think that set us up in part to feel let down, because that is not what we saw. I am almost 100% sure that St Mary Peak (the highest peak) was hidden by cloud pretty much the whole time we were there. I think part my disappointment is simply that the day was grey and drizzly and cold, so it wasn't very enjoyable. But I think the main reason is, you can't see how majestic and huge and stunning Wilpena Pound is from the floor of it. You can see the occasional glimpse of the red rock in among the trees, both at ground level and on the ridge sides, but it wasn't very prominent. To be able to see it, I think you need a sunny day and to be able to hike up to the top of the ridges and look outs. We just couldn't do it with our two kids. At times like this I wish our kids were older so we could enjoy the full experience, but if we wait until Rory is old enough then Tilda would be too far along in high school to make this journey possible. So, we do the best we can and enjoy what we can do, and I try not to feel disappointed at the things I miss out on.

 The walk in to Wilpena Pound is pretty

 Morning tea at the Wilpena Homestead

 The (not so) good views of the red walls of Wilpena Pound

Brachina Gorge

I thoroughly recommend the drive through the Brachina Gorge Geological Trail. Geologically this region is just amazing (hence all the rock pictures below). It covers a geological range of 630 – 590 million years ago There are all sorts of different types of rock, from quartzite to sandstone, shale, limestone and a whole bunch of others. These have all been laid down at different ages and layers (not all together, although some are on top of each other). The views of the mountains are beautiful and the Gorge drive is stunning as well. The kids got a bit bored but Greg and I really enjoyed it. Tilda's quick (and young) eyes saw a rock wallaby which was wonderful.

He insisted I take his photo (but he's so darn cute anyway!)

Flinders Ranges Part 1

My first thoughts about the Flinders Ranges are of being cold, almost constantly cold, despite wearing thermals plus 3 other layers! True to form, it seems whenever we try to camp off grid (be it a free camp, State Forest or in this case, National Park), it rains. So it rained and was quite miserable the day we arrived and the second day. It cleared up throughout the third day there and we got to enjoy a bit of sun, and then the rain set in again that night and it rained on the day we left. So really, my opinion of the Ranges is pretty much seen through a grey drizzle.... not the best first impression :)

The drive out to the Ranges is lovely. From Quorn to Hawker there are a lot of ruins; beautiful old stone buildings that have been left to fall apart and crumble. They are beautiful and it is such a shame that they have been left to all down. I saw quite a few Flinders Ranges postcards with ruins in the sunset or sunrise on them and many of the ones we drove past could have been the ones on the postcards. Admittedly, we saw them through misty or drizzling rain, but they were still postcard worthy. I think they are a remnant of a time when it was more profitable to farm there, or perhaps it is just that over time the stations have grown much larger and there has been no need for the old buildings in these larger, amalgamated properties.

Not a great photo as the weather sucked and I was having camera issues

The Ranges are beautiful to look at, even covered in cloud. There is so much difference throughout the ranges. I thought they would be much more like the Blue Mountains, all rugged and sharp with deep gorges in amongst the mountains. I didn't expect the green rolling hills and almost open plain areas between the mountains. It is a beautiful mix of environments.

Probably the best views we had of the outside of Wilpena Pound

We camped at Dingley Dell, a National Park site with a (very clean and non stinky) drop toilet, garbage bins and fire pits. There were 2 other campers the first night, we were there alone the second night, and a Winnebago was there the third night, but each time they camped at the opposite end to us (wonder what that says about us???) and you didn't even know anyone else was there. I don't think it would be all that pleasant if it was full, but there are only a limited number of marked sites so it wouldn't be overwhelming. The camp site is right on the bank of a creek.... you can tell from the geography that it is a creek, because there was no water in it. All of the creeks were dry and they all had interesting rocky beds. At Dingley Dell the creek is a mix of rocks with a lot of shale. You could see why people build with it, as it breaks off in lovely flat rectangular pieces. The kids and I had a lot of fun playing in the dry creek, finding different coloured rocks to draw with and generally exploring. There was almost always a kangaroo or two bout 20m away keeping an eye on us.

View from the campsite

We had fun drawing on the rocks, exploring which rocks gave which coloured writing and making rock towers, when it wasn't raining, As these photos show, we did get some sun on Tuesday afternoon and all had fun playing

 A rainbow using coloured rocks

 Testing rock colourrs

Tilda's rock tower

It wasn't this dark really, just had camera issues. By the time it was this dark we were hiding inside out of the freezing cold

Port Augusta Part 2

We visited the Arid Region Botanic Gardens twice. The first time we all went for a walk around various trails. It is an interesting garden, with a lot of information and plants that I am not familiar with. They have some demonstration gardens of different types of arid region, waterwise courtyard or back gardens people could plant out. I liked this idea as it had planting schemes and information on water use (appealed to the sustainability geek in me) and helped me to see what sort of gardens you could still reasonably enjoy in this area. It receives around a quarter of the rainfall we get at home each year.

 This plant requires an Emu to eat the seeds for it to germinate 

 Stunning flowers of the Eucaplyptus Youngiana

Sturt's Desert Pea

The second time, Tilda and I stayed there to do school work while Greg and Rory went to run some errands. It was a very beautiful and relaxing environment to do school and a nice change from the table in the caravan. When Greg and Rory came back we enjoyed a yummy lunch at the cafe there. I definitely can recommend the cafe if you are in Port Augusta.

We drove out to Quorn on the Wednesday. The drive is quite nice through winding hills and crossing over the railway tracks a number of times. It is a cute little town, with some very nice heritage buildings and is home of the Pichi Richi Railway. We would have liked to do the Pichi Richi Railway but it only runs on weekends, and not necessarily both days, and was going to cost almost $200 for us (and that is with Rory free!). Rory was very sad that there were no trains running but we did get to walk on the tracks and look at the carriages that were there, so that made him happy. We decided to have lunch there as we couldn't make anything as all our food was in the caravan and our caravan was still at the mechanics . We went into the only open cafe. There was some filming going on in there with a guy, who looked like the editor of one of the caravan magazines and a lady who we guess ran the cafe. We didn't stay as we didn't feel like the food options there. The only other food place open was the IGA. We wandered in there to see if there was anything we felt like. There was only one row of lights on in the IGA and a sign apologising for the inconvenience as there was a power outage. It turns out the whole (or most) of the town had no, or little, power, which explained why the cafe was dark and food options limited. With not much to go on we had a lunch of ice creams, salt & vinegar chips and apples. Of course, the kids got to play in the playground there. It is the first one we've come across with a quad bike rocker.

 The quirkily named Quornucopia is a beautiful old building

We had hours to kill on Thursday while waiting for the caravan to be repaired, as we had checked out of the cabin so had nowhere to go. That was the morning we did school at the Gardens. In the afternoon we climbed the old water tower, which is touted as one of the attractions of the town. There is a good 360 view from up there, but someone had urinated in it and it stank, which is kind of just symbolic of the town unfortunately.

Port Augusta Part 1

First things first, the Shoreline Caravan Park has the BEST showers I have enjoyed in ages. Very hot, great pressure and big waterfall shower heads. Super happy me :)

We ended up spending 8 days at Port Augusta, which wasn't originally part of the plan. There was nothing wrong with it, as such, just not our plan. We thought Port Augusta would be a lot bigger (shopping wise) than it is. There are 3 supermarkets, a Big W, a small Target, 2 cheap shops and a handful of other shops. There were a number of items we wanted to buy in preparation for the big trek “up the centre” but the limited shopping options made some of it impossible. We had hoped to be able to buy a dual screen DVD player for the car to entertain the kids on the longer drives coming up. In the end we had one choice from Big W. We also hoped to stock up on non-perishable stuff, which is perfectly fine but I guess I was hoping for an Aldi. If we had known the shopping limitations of Port Augusta we would have done our shopping at Mount Barker (when we were staying at Strathalbyn).

The views from the caravan park were stunning. It is adjacent to Spencer Gulf and there are beautiful views of the western side of the southern Flinders Ranges. The view every day was just beautiful. To the west of the caravan park is a big, long red cliff that edges the Gulf. This too is stunning to see and I thoroughly enjoyed gazing at it whenever I got the opportunity. Across the water is a major train line and yard. The trains are very noisy but also pretty amazing. I tried counting carriages a couple of times and got upwards of 50 before getting interrupted or losing count. Some of them were double decker shipping containers! I can't even begin to imagine just how much stuff is being shipped on these trains every single day. They run throughout the night as well and took a bit of getting used to but I didn't mind them. Rory loved it.

 Views from the caravan park (above and below)

Train for Rory

We arrived on the Sunday and on Tuesday took the caravan to get serviced. It turned out it needed new hubs and brakes (or something like that, I really probably should pay attention to those things in case I need to know, but I'm just not interested) so they needed to keep it for the night. The kids were so incredibly excited to stay in a cabin at the caravan park..... because it had bunks! Seriously! I mean, they sleep in bunks every night for goodness sake. I think Rory also enjoyed the novelty of having a bit more space as he ran from room to room (all of about 10 steps in total). It turned out the necessary caravan part didn't get shipped the first day and so they had to keep the caravan a second day, much to the kids delight, as we got a second night in the cabin.

I find it hard to describe Port Augusta. I found it quite sad. Both caravan parks have 8-10' high fences around them, topped with barbed wire. I don't know if this is an indication of problems in the past or if it is simply anticipation of problems. Most of the shops are shuttered with metal shutters when they are closed too and there is permanent CCTV in the main streets. I took the kids to a couple of playgrounds and just felt really sad at the state of the (perceived? anticipated?) crime and how hard it must be to raise your family in a place like that. There have been efforts to clean up and “gentrify” the foreshore area and there is a lot of potential there, but the shuttered buildings and uncomfortable vibe created by the locals loitering certainly detracts from it.