Through the Flinders Ranges to Blinman - 26 Sept. 2016

A bit of an odd day but all turned out well in the end.

After my walking feat of the day before and at the suggestion of one of the ladies at the caravan park shop/office, I decided to walk to some waterfalls. First I took the wrong road, soon remedied. There was only one other car in the carpark and with the walk twice as long as to Arkaroo Rock and the hills looking steeper, I squibbed on walking on my own in that much wilderness. Instead, from the same starting point, I did a short walk to the top of a mesa-like land feature, Twidale Top, again with 360 deg views.

A couple of cars at Station Hill Lookout

Caravan park and cabins dotted in the centre.
Posh eco-cabins, a few dots at the left.

And so on to Wilpena Pound, the feature of the Flinders Ranges. I got started on a walk but didn't get far before the path was blocked by the rarely flowing Wilpena Creek. 

Flooded Wilpena Creek

At that point I gave up, realising that what I wanted to see wasn't going to fit in with my lunch plans. But it did get me organised for the next day. I noticed an art exhibition in the woolshed and decided to call back for that after lunch.

Lunch was at Blinman, an old mining town that looks pretty ramshackle. The mine was actually at Blinman hence working men's type buildings rather than the managers type buildings at Burra.

I chose lunch at the local (only!) cafe. A miner's pastie – aka a Cornish pastie, of course. It was full of the traditional veggies, no meat. But unlike any other Cornish pastie I've ever eaten, one end had been dipped in sugar and there was apple inside – a two course meal in one! It really was delicious. 

Dessert wasn't. Yesterday's 4WD guide said that when cooked, quandongs had a rhubarb-y flavour. Yum! So I bought a quandong crumble pie to follow the pastie. Way too much pastry for one lunchtime but there wasn't much else on offer anyway. So - no rhubarb-y taste – not any taste at all really. Disappointing but I'll know for future reference :-)

I lunched on the verandah ... with flies for company. How like Oz!

Across the road from the cafe, there was an art exhibition at the Blinman Memorial Hall – painters of the Flinders and nearby areas. It's an annual event to raise funds to keep the town's historic buildings standing and also to support the Flying Doctor services in the region. There was some very good work there but the raffle prize was such that I didn't buy a ticket. What if I won?!

As planned, I returned to the exhibition at the woolshed at Wilpena. I want to win their raffle! [Late note: I didn't  :-( ] But overall, the Blinman exhibition was marginally better. Here though, I did find out that these two are part of an annual series of exhibitions. Not realising it, I'd also visited two others on the program, at Port Pirie and Parachilna. I might even fit in one or two more (of twelve) on the way home.

I asked when the woolshed was last used for sheep and shearing - 1985. And you could still smell the animals!!

The drive to Blinman was quite pretty.

Also, the number of wildlife spottings increased – more emus and kangaroos and now dragons (some of whom I'm sure would have been squashed before they got across the road), kookaburras and black hairy caterpillars!

A friendly little dragon

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree ...."

A very hairy caterpillar  :-)

In spite of the messy visit to Wilpena Pound, it turned out to be another more than satisfying day.

I found an extra blanket and slept soundly without having to turn the heating on :-)

Flinders Gorges - 25 Sept. 2016

From the beginning I'd planned to do a half-day 4WD tour offered (for a price!) by Rawnsley Park Station. I wasn't fussed which day I did it but as it happened, doing it on my first morning helped orient me for the rest of my stay. I wanted to see the Brachina and Bunyeroo gorges that I couldn't get to in my little car.

Spot the rippled rock - like sand in the shallows at the beach
 - as it indeed was at the time it solidified

There has been an unusual amount of rain in the area – creeks which are normally dry were flowing briskly. Fun to be driving along them, i.e. in the water! - just glad it wasn't me doing the driving.

I was happy with the wildflowers that I saw – and lots of Salvation Jane or, more indicitavely, Pattersons curse … it does look pretty though! However, the tour guide said better is to come. The rain has kept temperatures down a bit and many buds are still waiting to burst open.

Bush tucker was on offer! I tried and very much liked the leaves of Afghan hops, a plant introduced from Afghanistan by the early cameleers. The plant made good padding for camel saddles apparently. There was a tang to the leaves but it wasn't bitter, more sweet if anything. It would make an excellent addition to a mixed or green salad.

The other was a quandong, a so-called native peach. A lovely looking fruit, a beautiful red. But very little fruit – it was more stone. The fruit itself was dry with not much flavour. You'd eat it if you were hungry but otherwise not bother – in my opinion!

I was thrilled to see some emus on the drive to Parachilna. Now they became a commonplace! Kangaroos too although not quite so numerous. We saw yellow footed wallabies – rock wallabies, basically. But why yellow-footed when their tails are also yellow, very long, and much more easily seen? There are more birds than I can possibly remember but lots of rosellas if the artwork on the tomato sauce bottle is accurate! And few birds stay put for a photo :-(

Spot the wallaby!

The formation of the ranges was explained – layer upon layer of different types of rock going back to when the area was under water completely, each layer representing events millions of years apart. These events also gave rise to different soil types which explained the quite varied vegetation in a relatively small area – from heavily treed to grassy hills to plains.

The Brachina gorge is also referred to as the Geological trail and, because of its long history, gives rise to a steady stream of PhDs.

On the way back to RPS we detoured to Stokes Hill Lookout, a hilltop seemingly in the middle of nowhere – but it was a wi-fi hotspot!

In the afternoon I did my first walk – to Arkaroo Rock, a rock with a wave-like inner formation that was covered in (not particularly good) Aboriginal paintings (and the sun at exactly the wrong angle for photos!).

Arkaroo Rock ...

... and paintings

I last walked a rocky path like this when I was in the Kimberley back in 2012! I puffed and panted a bit but I made it! 

The path went from this ... 

... to this!

With occasional views like this - Rawnsley Bluff

The path was partially looped and on the return walk I was rewarded with the sound, if not often the sight, of a babbling creek.

Back at RPS, before getting to my cabin, I turned off to Station Hill Lookout, a small hill that gives 360 deg views of just part of the 30,000 acres that make up RPS. The station runs 3,000 head of sheep but tourism has become the bigger earner of the two.

Looking in this direction, Rawnsley Park Station extends
to the top ridge of the Chace Range in the distance

An excellent, tiring day. The bed is comfortable but the nights get cold. I had to turn on the heating during the night!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The thing about wildflowers in the outback ... they're tiny!

My foot, for comparison

My hand - not for comparison but to hold the flowers up :-)

Native hops

Not a dandelion but a type of yam

Port Augusta to Rawnsley Park Station - 24 Sept. 2016

This was planned as an easy driving day, allowing time in particular to visit the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden. I had wonderful memories of such a garden in Central Australia, the Alice Springs Desert Park, where I thought I'd pop in for half an hour which turned into half a day. Sadly, the Port Augusta version wasn't a patch on the one in Alice, to the point where it didn't keep me waiting until the 10am cafe opening time for breakfast.

Red flowers?

However, I did enjoy a short section of a cliff walk with stunning views of the head of Spencer Gulf where Matthew Flinders had landed. This was the red earth I was hoping to see on this trip.

Red cliffs and mangroves

So on to my next stop, the water tower lookout. A lot of stairs, two days in a row! Good but unexciting views of the city.

From water tower to lookout tower

Breakfast was a takeaway affair from a bakery in the main shopping centre. Fine, for what it was but I'd planned on cafe-style for the day. I was sitting on a street bench looking at the Court House, one of the cities many fine old buildings ... granted, looking across a car park!

Court House

Northern Gateway - former brewery now incorporated into a shopping centre

Onwards to Quorn. It wasn't until after I booked all my accommodation that I looked at the Pichi Richi railway timetable. Perhaps a blessing in disguise that it wasn't going to fit into my timetable. I passed it en route to Quorn – it did look fabulous! 

Pichi Richi steam train - a hit with tourists with more time (or different priorities!) than me

But on reaching Quorn I discovered that the train was expected to be 45+ minutes behind schedule. Not bad for a supposedly 1¾ hour journey!

Street frontage of Quorn's rather grand railway station

Quorn station, track-side

I had thoughts of driving to Rawnsley Park Station via Parachilna and Blinman. But a check on the roads at the Port August tourist info centre revealed that wasn't going to happen. Maps showed inconsistent road surfaces. Local knowledge confirmed the Parachilna > Blinman road is unsealed. Not good in my little car and doubly so after bucketing rain giving rise to mud at best and floods at worst.

Nevertheless, I wanted to see the Prairie Hotel at Parachilna so drove there for a late soup lunch and a lemon squash. A long way to go for a drink! Especially as there was no other way to get to Rawnsley except by retracing the whole of that drive back to Hawker.

En route to the pub I got a huge thrill - I saw four emus grazing on the old Ghan railway tracks. A wonderful sight!

Prairie Hotel, Parachilna

The Outback Highway back to Hawker - no emus this time

Finally – Rawnsley Park and my caravan park cabin! Lovely for one (i.e. me), would work for two. The bunkroom sleeps four – child size … and would be a nightmare!

It was two rolls with spinach and cheese filling for tea. It's harder than I expected to keep up my Vitamin K quota.

View from the cabin

Burra to Port Augusta - 23 Sept. 2016

I'm going to have to come back to Burra and the Clare Valley. So much to see, so much beauty to take in. It got to the stage where I had to tell myself, “This is not my holiday. This is just passing through to get to my holiday destination.” I spent too much time in and around Burra so that I had to ditch some of my planned stops and take the most direct routes to Port Pirie and Port Augusta.

Burra Creek, its surrounds turned into a lovely park, play, camping area

Before the gold rushes at Ballarat and Bendigo, Burra was properous thanks to copper. Much of the old town has been preserved yet this is not a museum town. These beautiful buildings house 21^st century families and businesses.

Burra Town Hall

Catholic Church, Burra - one of the very many seen during this trip dedicated to St Joseph

Burra business premises

Other than a bit of a wander around the town itself, I visited the old mine site primarily to see the Cornish style engine house. And the reason for wanting to see that had nothing to do with history and everything to do with the TV show Grand Designs which showed the conversion of one such building into a home, complete with discussion about where to place the stairs to minimise loss of living area!

Engine house

View of the now water-filled old mine from a window in the engine house.
No way was I going out on one of those balconies!

A short drive to Mintaro brought me to Martindale Hall, the home of various grandees from the past. The sandstone Georgian building looks somewhat incongruous, sitting in an Australian landscape, albeit with an English style garden surrounding the house. 

Martindale Hall, Mintaro

There is a very grand entrance hall with magnificent staircase.

However, the rest of the rooms make a large but liveable home rather than something completely over the top. 

This bath is so big that it could be turned into an endless lap pool!

Outside, even the working buildings, garage, barn, etc, were beautiful, their honey-coloured stone glowing in the sunlight.

Later in the trip I saw a handful of flowering gums, but no gum nuts to match these beauties on trees lining the Martindale Hall driveway.

Having taken up much more time than expected, I raced through Clare, a bustling metropolis compared to most towns I'd passed through since leaving home, and cut across country to Port Pirie where my mother had lived for a while as a child. If she'd ever used the library, she would recognise it still – it was still in use until 2010 when the new new library was opened.

Old Port Pirie Library

I visited the art gallery / tourist info building where there was a good collection of recent works on show. I later learned this was part of the Flinders Ranges A Brush With Art annual event across a dozen galleries and spaces. I loved this, a cross between Aboriginal dot painting and pointillism, most notably practised by Georges Seurat.

Painting detail

I chanced upon the new library by fluke. From the art space, thinking a coffee might be nice, I saw what looked like a small shopping arcade. That was the library! The new library looks lovely from a patron's perspective but a chat with a librarian amongst the shelves revealed a few problems. On the plus side, it appears to be an extension to an old railway station. Looking through the far end library windows, it does seem like you're part of the station as you look down the platform.

I visited the local museum, housed in the old main railway station, a grand building whose tower I climbed (via ladder-like stairs that I tried not to think about) for a murky view of the city through very grubby windows.

The museum also housed a schoolroom of a bygone era. The teacher needs some remedial maths lessons!

Spot the mistake!

Finally, on to Port Augusta. On the way out of town I stopped by Solomontown Beach - a pleasant place to picnic, perhaps, but not inviting to swim .... too close to the port area.

Just up the road I turned into Port Germein briefly - to see its jetty disappearing off into the distance. 

After that I had to skip several more small towns I'd planned to have a drive-by look at, aiming once again to beat the lengthening shadows and kangaroos. 

On today's drive, the ground had become much less wet and canola was blooming everywhere.

Tonight I was staying in a conventional motel. I was alarmed to see a busload of Chinese tourists. I wasn't planning to have breakfast at the motel anyway. My consternation was at learning they would be departing at 5am. What time would they start packing and boarding the bus with how much excited chatter?

Well, as it happened, it bucketed rain from the wee small hours, blotting out the sounds of packing, and of people who would have boarded the bus in one mad dash. The rain woke me early, not the tourists!