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

Crossing the Tanami

Once again, my expectations were totally wrong. I'm not sure why the Tanami Desert is called a desert. Arid zone, definitely, but ... I was expecting, again, the red earth with spinifex and salt-bush that I'd encountered around Broken Hill. The soil is pretty red but there the similarity ends. There are some bare patches but mostly it was shrubby scrub and, relatively speaking, quite a lot of trees. Not trees that would challenge a giraffe, expect perhaps how low to stoop, but nevertheless, proper trees. Mostly, until quite near the end of the Tanami Road, the landscape was flat, with the occasional bump on the horizon. At the end it became more hilly, as might be expected approaching Purnululu.
Termite mounds abound, mostly small but some are rather large lumps. At one spot they looked like a field of stelae, reminding me of my visit to Tunisia. Even I of little imagination could see things in them, lots of animals, of course, but one was a dead ringer for a terracotta warrior.
There's not a lot of wildlife to be seen – as sparse as the cattle of the area. But there have been the odd sightings of camel, kangaroo, brumbies, wedge-tail eagles, kites, a few colourful birds (blue-winged kookaburras, Major Mitchells, rainbow lorikeets and budgerigars amongst them). The stand-out stunner (so far) has been the red-winged cockatoo, with its, yes, red wings!, green body and black contrast. Plus a dingo, wandering about the Purnululu campsite after dark!
There are many more wildflowers to be seen, compared to when I was in Central Australia in May. But it's hardly a riot of colour as might be expected in other climates. So many Australian wildflowers are tiny. But beautiful and delicate when you get up close to them.
It says something about the Tanami that a fuel storage tank can be remarked upon, And the bus got a laugh when a tin shed with wind sock nearby was described as “Coyote [Mine] International and Domestic Terminal”.


One thing that gave me a thrill was stopping at the northern end of the Canning Stock Route at Bililuna. I have vague memories of learning a bit about it at school but more recently, thanks to my friend Pamela who found it at her workplace in a secondhand/antiquarian bookshop in Stamford, England, and sent it to me, I read a book about, and with large swathes by, Canning's 2IC, H.S. Trotman. Absolutely fascinating. Some of it grim, some of it dreadful, especially in the way Aboriginals were treated.



Me on the Tanami Road



Morning tea stop





Termite mounds



Junction: Canning Stock Route and Tanami Road

Wildflowers

Remote: at the WA/NT border



Be prepared!

Clouds ... but no rain



Did it!! Crossed the Tanami Desert: Intersection of
the Tanami Road and the Great Northern Highway