Gammon and Flinders National Park.
North Flinders Rangers.
We made our way south from Maree to a small mining town of Leigh Creek. We had great expectations of finding a small modern town with all the services, but found a ghost town as the coal mine closed down in 2015. Most of the shops, hospital and houses were unoccupied which was very sad. Those still living there are optimistic a new use can be found for the town as a tourist resort but it was not happening yet.
Our plan was to travel east through the Gammon Ranges at the northern extremities of the Flinders Ranges. We travelled on unsealed roads from Copley that climbed through hills and gullies full of red gums and sandstone. Stopped a couple of times to look at rocks and found a little green cooper steaks.
We found our way to Barracoola which is an old farm now taken over as the park HQ. The Park Service has doing a fine job restoring buildings and explaining the history of the former cattle run.
The temperatures were also a bit stifling at 35 degrees. We resorted to using the air conditioning while we travelled for a wee while.
We travelled another 30 kms north upto a spot called Arkaroola Wildlife Sanctuary. It was one of those private resort type developments offering accommodation, cafe, 4WD tours and much more for a healthy price. Well we opted for the bargin basement option of a bush camping site beside the river. The site has lots of interest for geologists as metals of one sort or another were mined from the area in the late 1800s. Maria spotted a bearded dragon up a tree at 40kph which was very impressive.
The following day we drove south again on the eastern flanks of the Flinders Ranges to a place called Wipena Pound. The setting and scenery was very dramatic with lots of red rocks coming to life in the morning sun. Especially good was the MTB ride on the Mawson Trail where I rode for 15 kms on some sublime grade 2 to 3 trails through cypress and malle forest. The 5 km walk into Wilpena Pound Basin above the resort was also very interesting but could be doing more to shoot the wild goats and maintain the tracks to what is clearly a very popular destination.
It was great to see rammed earth buildings used in the toilet blocks, cooking shelters and visitor centre buildings. They looked fantastic in the red earth and rock surroundings.
On our way down to Wipena we picked up another puncture in the rear tyre. Bugger. So we had to go down to Hawker to get the tyre repaired......yes you guessed it the tyre walls were buggered and only good for the scrap heap. So we put on the new GT tyre we bought in Alice Springs and are now driving around on two new tyres on the rear of the truck. All the locals say the gravel roads are very tough on tyres and so it proved for us. So we will not be planning to many long trips on gravel for the rest of our trip as we plan to go to South Australia for 3 to 4 weeks and most of our trips will be on sealed roads.
The temeratures has been very up and down depending on where the winds comes from. Strong winds off the land pushed the temps up into the 30s while winds from the west give us more moderate temps and the chance of rain.
We are off to the Ayre Peninsula next week via Port Augusta to see what that part of the country offers.
All the best
Rudy and Maria T.
We made our way south from Maree to a small mining town of Leigh Creek. We had great expectations of finding a small modern town with all the services, but found a ghost town as the coal mine closed down in 2015. Most of the shops, hospital and houses were unoccupied which was very sad. Those still living there are optimistic a new use can be found for the town as a tourist resort but it was not happening yet.
Our plan was to travel east through the Gammon Ranges at the northern extremities of the Flinders Ranges. We travelled on unsealed roads from Copley that climbed through hills and gullies full of red gums and sandstone. Stopped a couple of times to look at rocks and found a little green cooper steaks.
We found our way to Barracoola which is an old farm now taken over as the park HQ. The Park Service has doing a fine job restoring buildings and explaining the history of the former cattle run.
The temperatures were also a bit stifling at 35 degrees. We resorted to using the air conditioning while we travelled for a wee while.
We travelled another 30 kms north upto a spot called Arkaroola Wildlife Sanctuary. It was one of those private resort type developments offering accommodation, cafe, 4WD tours and much more for a healthy price. Well we opted for the bargin basement option of a bush camping site beside the river. The site has lots of interest for geologists as metals of one sort or another were mined from the area in the late 1800s. Maria spotted a bearded dragon up a tree at 40kph which was very impressive.
The following day we drove south again on the eastern flanks of the Flinders Ranges to a place called Wipena Pound. The setting and scenery was very dramatic with lots of red rocks coming to life in the morning sun. Especially good was the MTB ride on the Mawson Trail where I rode for 15 kms on some sublime grade 2 to 3 trails through cypress and malle forest. The 5 km walk into Wilpena Pound Basin above the resort was also very interesting but could be doing more to shoot the wild goats and maintain the tracks to what is clearly a very popular destination.
It was great to see rammed earth buildings used in the toilet blocks, cooking shelters and visitor centre buildings. They looked fantastic in the red earth and rock surroundings.
On our way down to Wipena we picked up another puncture in the rear tyre. Bugger. So we had to go down to Hawker to get the tyre repaired......yes you guessed it the tyre walls were buggered and only good for the scrap heap. So we put on the new GT tyre we bought in Alice Springs and are now driving around on two new tyres on the rear of the truck. All the locals say the gravel roads are very tough on tyres and so it proved for us. So we will not be planning to many long trips on gravel for the rest of our trip as we plan to go to South Australia for 3 to 4 weeks and most of our trips will be on sealed roads.
The temeratures has been very up and down depending on where the winds comes from. Strong winds off the land pushed the temps up into the 30s while winds from the west give us more moderate temps and the chance of rain.
We are off to the Ayre Peninsula next week via Port Augusta to see what that part of the country offers.
All the best
Rudy and Maria T.
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