Advertisement
Published: June 30th 2008
Edit Blog Post
22 May - after completing the Oodnadatta Track, we were back on the bitumen again - but not for long! After a night at Copley, where we washed a large load of dusty clothes and cleaned up the worst of the Oodna dust from the caravan, we headed onto another gravel road (about 130km) to Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges. Arkaroola is an awe-inspiring place, it was an outback station until Reg and Griselda Sprigg purchased it in 1968 and turned it into a wilderness sanctuary. Reg was a world-renowned geologist and a leader in mineral exploration and oceanographic research and the property is one of Australia’s most ancient landscapes with granite rock dated at 1.6 billion years. We spent our first afternoon exploring some of the 4WD tracks set out for visitors to look around the area and drove through some of the interesting gorge and cliff scenery. The area has been in drought for so long that it was very dry and dusty, and most of the waterholes on the property were bone dry.
The next day we were up early to start the 4WD Ridge Top Tour at 8am - this was a great experience -
we travelled up and down the ridge tops in the back of an open 4WD, ending up at one of the highest points on the property, Siller’s lookout. It was a very good way to explore some of the dramatic and rugged mountain scenery of Arkaroola. Our travelling companions were seven retirees from Melbourne who were on a bus tour and we had lots of fun lurching around in the back of the wagon together!
The next day we drove back through the mountain scenery of the Flinders Ranges to Wilpena Pound. The campground here is in the national park and full of trees - too many in fact - the side of the caravan got too close to a large branch and the top of the awning got caught against the tree - luckily a couple of fellow campers lent a hand and we got her unjammed, no damage apart from our stress levels! Ended up joining our rescuers for drinks that night, which was a nice end to the day.
Wilpena Pound is basically a ring of peaks with a large flat crater-like area in the middle - not volcanic but old mountains, once very high,
worn down over millions of years. We walked up Mt Olssen Bagge the next morning - only about 6.5 km but straight up to the top and rather steep in parts. From the summit you can see right down into the Pound and across to the surrounding mountains. After lunch we drove through the Brachina and Booleroo Gorges, the road was very rough in parts, it seemed like we were driving through narrow dry creek beds, but it was well worth the drive. Brachina Gorge is basically a self-guided geological trail, with examples of many different types of ancient rock around 500 to 600 million years old -the colours of the rocks are very dramatic.
Well, we had to hit the road the next day as we only had 5 days to get to Canberra to meet Steph, who was coming over for a week to visit, but the Flinders is high on our list of places to visit again. The scenery is very diverse, with high mountain ranges and bare hills, wide open spaces, interesting and colourful rock formations, dry creek beds with large gums, and lots of wildlife. There are kangaroos, wallabies and euros everywhere. It was
Siller's lookout, Arkaroola
the morning tea stop on the ridge top tour! On busy days they park up to 5 4WDs at the top..... a favourite place of the famous Australian painter Hans Heysen, who captured the richness of the area on canvas.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.033s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0274s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb