We have arrived safely at the kids place in Melbourne. We spent last night at Dimboola. What A terrific choice it was! We decided to stay in a unit rather than camp out as a wet camper canvas would never dry out in Tasmania. The unit was small but more than adequate. As Dimboola is two kilometres off the highway, its quiet with only the croaking of amorous bullfrogs echoing over the camp ground. The Wimmera River is beside the park, and so it’s only a short walk to enjoy some attractive scenery.
In the evening we went to the Victoria Hotel for dinner. It was built in 1924 by the Ballarat Brewing Company. It’s step back in time with ageing, cracked but still very comfortable chesterfields in the lounge and reading room. The shelves are stocked with the classics such as books by Conrad and Maupassant, as well as whole sets of encyclopaedias. The chicken parmis were great, especially with the Cape Jaffa Sauvignin Blanc to help wash it down. 

On the drive back to Melbourne, our only major stop was to have lunch and a wine tasting at Seppelts at Great Western. A very nice spot to enjoy food and wine.

Well, that’s that for the trip. It has been a terrific chance to see and experience so much of Australia, including; meeting the many people of the outback, the relics and stories of the Ghan, the natural history of central Australia and the Flinders, and eat at some wonderful venues. As well as getting robbed in Adelaide, losing stuff, and breaking bits off the camper-trailer. A very great adventure. Will have to do some other spots next year if we can drive up in 2018!

 We are seriously on our way home. We left Arkaroola on Sunday morning and drove to Hawker. On the way we drove through the Flinders Ranges and Wilpena. The road is bitumen through the southern Flinders so travel is a lot faster and a lot less dusty. At the end of the dirt roads is the small town of Blinman. Blinman was the site of a major copper mine and even today there are mine tours available. We did not have the time for a tour but did have time to enjoy a famous Blinman meat pie. They are just huge and taste great. I followed it up with a quandong tart – takes like a rhubarb and pear mixed together. Now quandongs are not only very tasty and very interesting. The quandong tree is a root parasite. It uses the nutrients directly from the roots of another tree to grow. Once the quandong is big enough it can go out on its own. We saw plenty of quandongs at Arkaroola. 

The southern Flinders ranges is very beautiful. The roads bend and twist, cross creeks, and provide spectacular views of this magical country. 

After arriving at Hawker, we looked at our watches, mmmm, only two o’clock so why not get to Clare. So we did, taking the R.M. Williams Way there. We arrived at Clare caravan park at just after five. It closes at 5:30. Set up camp then went to Sevenhills Hotel for a meal. A very good choice. This morning we visited Crabtree Winery, Annies Lane winery and had lunch at Paulets. The Bush Devine cafe at Paulets has wonderful views of the Clare. Gum trees dotted around rolling green hills, with the bright yellow of canola dominating some pasture. 

However the high point of the day was our early morning visit to Martindale Hall. This has to be the best Victorian era Georgian Italianate mansion / great house we have ever visited either here in Australia but even in the U.K. The house, the grounds, the halls interior, the furnishings, the paintings, the clothes hung in wardrobes and on dressers are all original. You are asked not to touch anything but there are hardly any of those dreadful roles and barriers, and glass screens people like to put inside stately homes.
The hall was built in the mid nineteenth century by a very wealthy family. They had made their money in sheep grazing and were originally from the Lake District. It was this money, 30,000 pounds of it that paid for the building in 1858. By the twentieth century, the house had to be sold, and eventually was bequeathed by a subsequent owner to the University of Adelaide As a venue for agricultural studies. In 1986 it was passed to the National Trust. It’s a building that had has always been loved by whoever owned it. 

Its interiors and exteriors were used in the film “ Picnic at Hanging Rock” to show the school in the movie. While we were there, the sound system played Handel not Beethoven as in the film.

We have had a quiet afternoon after returning from lunch and will be continuing our journey to Station Pier tomorrow morning. We have met some delightful fellow travellers including some other Tasmanian refugees. All of them thoroughly enjoying retirement and their lives on the road.

Here we are in Arkaroola. Arkaroola is private wilderness sanctuary to the north and immediately abutting the Gammon ranges national park. It’s dry and hot in Summer but this time of the year, well, it’s still dry but it’s not hot. Overnight, it’s cold and over the day it gets to the high twenties. It’s perfect walking weather. Sunny, warm enough and usually a breeze to keep the flies from finding us.

Arkaroola was a pastoral lease for many years until it was bought by Reg Sprigg, a geologist and academic, in the 1960s as a sanctuary for rocks, plants and animals. It’s the northern extreme of the Flinders Ranges. From any high point, there are Ranges of abrupt hills as far as the the eyes can see to both the north and south. 

We are camped in a powered site, not far from the shower and amenities block. Around us are tall hills, bright orange in dawn or afternoon light, acacias snarled up the steep slopes. On this our first night, a full moon came up between two hills making an arresting sight.
We are staying here five days. On our first day, after breakfast, we got a lift from the sanctuary owners to the start of the Acacia Ridge walk. It begins about five kilometres along the road. We were joined by an older couple, Michael and Rosemary on the walk. As we took loads of photographs, they left us for dead, but waited for us every five hundred of so meters along the track. The track goes steadily upwards and provides some terrific views of Old Arkaroola station and it’s surrounding hills. At the top there is a branch to the summit, wow, there are some great views north. It is some very impressive scenery. On the way, we saw different types of flowers and shrubs including fox tails, red hops, dead finish, bush tomatoes and Sturt’s nightshade, a tall plant with blue flowers rather than the purple bush tomato flowers. We saw bush pears, big and green but not for eating yet. 

From the summit, the track winds past a huge steep rock face and then drops quickly on a slippery surface. We grappled our way down till we reached the road, then only a short distance from the village. By now it was getting warm, so we relaxed over the afternoon beginning with lunch of ham-cheese toasties at the cafe. We later returned in the evening for dinner. It’s a very good restaurant. Afterwards we walked along the gravel, stony road up to the campsite.

The next morning, we decided to walk the Mawson Spriggina walk. Spriggina is a 15cm flatworm that was one of the denizens of the pre Cambrian seas and oceans. It’s named after Reg Sprigg, it’s discoverer. The walk commences near reception, and heads past the motel style units, then onto the rough Arkaroola countryside. It undulates around hills, and dry creek beds with some wonderful views. We saw some interesting plants including the beautiful Curly Mallee, as well as hakeas and coolabahs. We reached some fascinating volcanic intrusions. These were ancient upwelling of lava that never reached the then surface, but were trapped into the tough sedimentary rock. There is Sitting bull, as well as the Pinnacles. Their orange colouring contrasting with the blue grey of the sedimentary rock remaining. The walk continued back. We met a mum and baby red kangaroo. They were a bit nervous about us but we still took some great photos as they watched us. In the afternoon, Jennifer drove to Bolla Bollana Rockpool. This very pretty Rockpool, is reached by quite a rough Track. The next Waterhole was an even more difficult road trip. After seeing the 4WD AHEAD OF US rocking and dropping, we piked, and turned around only to meet another car on this really narrow bit of road. We nestled the car as far off the road as we could, giving the car a massage with dead finish. Much of the scratching merely removed the caked-on bulldust, but there has been some slight damage. The result is called bush pinstripes.This acacia is tough and spiky. We got back about 4:30 and chilled out over the evening. 

Today has been a quieter but still very interesting day. We visited the mining museum with loads of interesting stuff about geology and many examples of rocks and fossils found here in Arkaroola. This was timely to do as Jen and I did a geology field trip over the afternoon. Mark Sprigg drove us out to see several interesting geology features of this area. Arkaroola, like the rest of the flinders ranges is part of an uplift that was created by the ramming of what would come to be the eastern states of Australia with the much more ancient original australian continent. In Arkaroola there are some important faults, we saw one today. It’s movement is frequent but tiny with about 300 microtremors per year. At faults there is weakening of the barrier rock layers usually provide and minerals can come up and penetrate the sedimentary rock. We visited disused copper, and manganese mines. There was also a reasonably successful gold mine. The gold was all near the surface and not in a vein. No one could figure out why until only very recently. The reason is quite amazing. Apparently a particular type of Cyanobacteria eats gold. Then water bubbling up the fault, carries the bacteria including its contained gold up into the upper levels of sediment. This makes Cleopatras talent for drinking pearls look stingy. We visited the ochre wall. Ochre from here would go all over Australia. An endemic mica containing iron was considered very valuable for its glistening red colour as a paint. As Mark drove across a creek, he told us over the car engine noise that two years ago, scientists had been studying the rock formations and fossils here. It’s ancient, about 700 million years which is long before plants and animals but in the Proterozoic. This was the site of an immense coral reef, made up by bacteria and primitive life forms and was larger than our current barrier reef. The atmosphere was much lower in oxygen than today and so these bacteria survived on carbon dioxide and sulphide gases. Impressive stuff. However, the highlight of the day was our visit to Tillite Gorge. It’s a steep, rough road but Mark handled it expertly. Tillite Gorge is named so because the sedimentary rock contains huge rocks. They were dumped from a glacier into a shallow estuary or sea a very long time ago. The larger rock floor of the gorge is scratched by the ice grabbing stones and ripping them along. It must have sounded like four fingernails on a blackboard. Apparently, this actual site was instrumental in discovering Snowball earth. This was 800 million years ago, and describes our whole planet covered in a giant glacier: A giant snowball.

It has been a very interesting afternoon. Jennifer got more tips about 4WDing.

This evening, we had dinner at the restaurant, before walking back here and snuggling up in the camper trailer.
One thing I have learned on the walks here is that in dry, relatively cool weather conditions, thirst is NOT a reliable guide to hydration requirements. When I walked with Di and Dave I had a lot more fluid and electrolytes and felt fine during and well after the walk. Here I drank only to quench thirst and felt fine during the walk but completely awful that evening and the next day. So the point is, keep those fluids up!

It’s Saturday and it’s our last day before departing in earnest to catch the boat. It is still overcast which might put a mozzie on tonight’s astronomy experience. Mm. Any way we gave had a terrific day, doing the final short walk in Arkaroola. It’s called the Bararranna Walk and it’s Highlights are the tellurite lined creek from Tellurite Gorge, and the Bararranna Gorge and Stubbs Waterhole. The track is a circuit beginning from Welcome mine trail head. This was the site of a copper mine so there is lots of malachite and ansurite fragments on the ground. The mines are vertical drops mostly with just a few bits of timber marking them. However unless you were silly enough to go near them, they don’t pose a risk to adults. The track winds westward, its narrow and rocky and eventually comes to a slate and shale field. There are Emu bushes here, it’s a pretty red fuschia flower. It’s on the blog prior to this one.

 We dropped down into a creek bed, and went downstream, climbing down the dry waterfalls. Everywhere tellurite rock. This forms beneath melting glaciers as stones and small boulders drop into the sea bed. When this sea bed sand becomes rock, the erratics are still imbedded. We enjoyed our cups of tea nestle don the rocky outcrops. We were on the lookout for rock wallabies but no luck, though we did see some wallaroos. 

The track follows the creek to its junction with Arkaroola creek. Here we found Stubbs Waterhole, and it’s very still, very beautiful. Sheer quartzite walls with a green Rockpool. The rivergums all standing mute as sentinels near the banks. There was a small yellow bird drinking water and then flew up to sit in a tree near the Waterhole. Arkaroola creek is also fine walking. The track now requires small and large boulder hopping rather than scrambling. The stones are of so many colours reflecting their many origins. We diverted to visit Bararranna Gorge. There’s a massive ripple rock platform tipped into the vertical. There are masses of blue flowers. There is some water in the rock pool. It is a very peaceful sight. We carried on along the creek and ultimately back to the car. We passed some interesting geology. There was a huge rock that had been scratched by stones moved by a glacier. There was the formation called Humanity seat which is vertical sedimentary rock consisting of quartzite and shale. There is a spot early on in the walk where you see two small hills, these contain evidence of early bacteria that once created the huge coral reef I mentioned earlier. 

The walk has been terrific. Though only seven kilometres, we were tired out by the end. We drove back to the restaurant at Arkaroola. The kitchen was closed by now so we had chocolate cake instead. 

Right now I’m sitting beside the camper, I’ve had a shower so smell a bit better, and Jennifer has put on the clothes to wash. Arkaroola has been a great place to visit. I can really recommend it for the adventures and beauty it offers to the traveller.

Well we have done it. Jennifer drove the Oodnadatta track over three days beginning on Saturday morning and finishing today here at Marree. We began the trip from Marla which is on the Stuart Highway after driving south from Alice Springs on Friday. We have done quite a bit of preparation for this trip, it’s nothing hard, well nothing compared to the ultimate one which is the Canning Stock route but it was the first remote drive we have ever done. 
Marla is pretty basic. A fuel station to fill up. A minimart. And a Caravan park where we stayed overnight. We set off the next morning. We lowered the pressures in both car and trailer and we noticed immediately how much smoother the car was on corrugations. But the corrugations at Marla are nothing compared to the bone jarring at the south east end of the track. 
Our target destination for day one was Oodnadatta. The track is pretty good with dips and corrugations aplenty but not much sand to speak of. The scenery is not overwhelmingly beautiful but it’s tough, dry and plants and animals here have to struggle. The Sandhills are impressive , long lines of sand lying kilometre after kilometre in length, and generally lie east west due to prevailing winds. There are pale yellow ones just south of Oodnadatta, and then big red ones near William creek which to be honest, does not have a lot else going for it. 
Oodnadatta means myrtle flower. I don’t know if it’s a blossom pink but it should be, as Oodnadatta boasts the quirky Pink Roadhouse. This is a great place, the staff are terrific but the decor is Pink upon pink. They do meals, mostly burgers! The kitchen closes for meals at six so we visited the Transcontinental Hotel to see about dinner later in the evening. No luck there, as they are closed for renovations. So Jennifer cooked a meal for us. The caravan park is a bit sad, three trees, and yet the amenities were very clean, water was hot and there was a shelter to escape the wind. It’s been really windy all three days of our trip. Jennifer is feeling a bit troppo with it. Oodnadatta is well worth exploring. The terminus of the Old Ghan ended at Oodnadatta for fifty years before the extension was built to Alice Springs in 1929. That was a sad day for the town as up until then it had been a very busy place. There was lots of work for the cameleers, the shopkeepers and publicans. But somehow it carried on and how it did is documented in the museum ( previously the railway station) in the middle of town. The building is in excellent condition and each room has displays about different aspects of life here. There are photos and displays about the Aborigines, the Chinese, the Afghans, the farmers, the railway men and their wives and their families. There are other presentations on the Old Ghan, the natural history of the area and the present efforts of the local people to make a living in Oodnadatta. We spent an hour there looking at all these interesting photos and documents. 

After leaving Oodnadatta, we planned on stopping at Algebuckina Bridge. However we arrived there so early we were just too tempted not to carry on further. We visited many of the old Sidings and stations that used to provide the services and stopping points for the train. Some of them are piles of stone and rubble while others are substantial buildings and facilities. They are are all made of local stone, mortared in place, with timber lintels. Galvanised steel roofs are now often replaced by fresh air. The stone walls are in two layers. In the railway buildings which are intact , the temperature is a pleasant twenty degrees despite much warmer outside temperatures. The lintels are timber for the windows and doorways. Near the railway tracks are the bore, a tall steel chamber and pump that taps up water for the train, and the water storage tower, a huge rectangular steel box an outlet to go to the steam locomotive. There are three or more steel rails at right angles to the tracks which are the remnants of the coal loaders. There is often a lot of coal fragments on the ground. There are often overland telegraph poles, with their ceramic cream insulators standing askew nearby. The only glass is not in the windows but in the piles of broken bottles that litter the surrounds ( railway men were solid drinkers). One station has been well restored, its nearer Marree and it’s called Curdimurka Siding. Every two years there is a hugely attended outback ball at this station. Most of the left over sidings and stations are pretty sad spots, the sole grave was a suicide at the first one we visited. Hmmmm. They are incredibly isolated in many instances with little opportunity for the fetlers ( track maintenance) to see other people or even escape their hot dry dusty work.

After Oodnadatta we stopped at Algebuckina Bridge. There are many bridges on the Old Ghan and many are still there. The longest on the railway and it’s still the longest bridge in South Australia. It’s way off the ground, about thirty meters and it’s long, at least five hundred meters. You can walk a short distance on the bridge today. The engineering is in the finest nineteenth century traditions of solidity, strength and a hint of real daring. The solid steel spans are supported by a crisscrossing of steel girders, with huge rivets. The forest below growing up in the creek sits well below this fine span. We carried on through to William Creek. We did stop briefly at the hotel there. There is really not much there. Downed a can of xxxx each then drove. We decided to camp at Coward Springs. And we are so glad we made the effort!

Coward Springs still has a lot going for it. When the Old Ghan was operating, it was a destination in its own right. There was a hotel, which only closed in 1962 and there were hot springs. Coward Springs resulted from a mound spring, that when it punctured the artesian basin in 1879 made a huge outflow creating an instant oasis for birds and people. Now there was not only water enough for the thirsty steam engines but more than enough for dusty hot railway men, and holidaymakers from Port Augusta, to bathe in the hot (29 degree c) springs. The camping area / springs are nestled adjacent to the conservation park, and its on private land. The new owners have done a fabulous job, of getting the bore working again, reestablishing the wetlands, replanting the trees, bringing back the birds and creating a soaking pool for us ageing boomers to relax in. They have also restored the engine drivers cottage, which is now used as an excellent museum that tells the story of Coward Springs. They have restored the station masters cottage into their own home. And except for the bristling satellite dishes, it looks brand new and totally like it would have appeared in the springs heyday.

We went for a warm swim this morning, and a kite flew just above us, hovering as we floated in the water. 

We left Coward Springs and visited some other springs nearby. These are Mound Springs and the build up takes place over hundreds of years, forming a small hill, with a bubbling lake on the top. The water spills over, and as it is loaded in minerals, it coats and colours the mound. We saw Blanche Cap and the Bubbler. These springs are quite natural, and are simply areas where water under the heat and pressure of the artesian basin, bubbles to the surface. What I found truly amazing is that this water is millions of years old, it has percolated through rock for all of this time, before finally emerging in a rock fault to return to the surface but not as rain but as aquifer water. A notice board near Lake Eyre said there are 130,000 Sydney Harbours of water, in the Great Artesian Basin. How on earth can they know that?
Any way, I’m sure it’s a lot because all of central Australia is utterly dependent on this water. The route of the original Ghan was chosen because of the presence of reliable bores. Steam engines are very, very thirsty. All of the appalling problems in building and then maintaining the railway, were necessary because this is where the water was. Once diesel replaced steam, the game was over, and in only a few years, the Ghan was rerouted from Tarcoola well away from the difficulties of the old route. But for all that it was an incredible railway, full of stories, full of adventures and had far more charm than the smelly modern diesels that replaced these plucky narrow gauge steam engines.

We visited Lake Eyre today. We walked down from the lookout, to Lake Eyre South. The water is gone, at least for now. The soil was crusty and orange. The pure white salt filled the horizon. There is a blue mirage, a horizontal band that looks just like a vast lake but in truth, it’s not there, not today. In many spots along the Oodnadatta track we saw vast salt lakes, dried and flat with sand dunes abutting them. They are startlingly white, and not much will grow. Salt bush is the nearest inhabitant to a salt lake. Lake Eyre has a magical, perfect beauty, it tricks the eyes, and seems to abolish distance as you gaze over it.

We arrived at Marree, at 2:45 today and enjoyed some sparkling wine at the local Marree hotel. We drove around to the caravan park up the road and have settled in nicely. The owner, also called Jen, does dinner as well. So tonight, after sitting around the fire in a cradle, we had dinner of beef curry and then yummy trifle. Jen ( not JB) sang some songs and we all had a super evening. Tomorrow we are off to Arkaroola.

This morning we spent some time exploring Marree. The wide railway station platform has broad/ standard gauge on the right and narrow gauge on the left. Marree was the spot where goods, people and well just about everything, had to swap from the standard gauge train from Port Augusta to the narrow gauge train which took you to Oodnadatta till 1929’ then after this time, all the way to Alice Springs. There is a small museum in the old station office. A lovely Aboriginal lady showed us around. There are old posters for the Central Australia Railway, announcing holiday options. There are many old photographs showing the pitfalls of the Old Ghan. It was truly a modern adventure. 

The timetable was the roughest of estimates and could be weeks or as much as three months late getting to Alice. Trains were derailed. Sand hills covered the tracks. Trains crashed into each other. Rivers washed away the bridges. It was quite amazing it ran at all. The local Aboriginal people worked not only building the old Ghan but also worked as fetlers. It was an extraordinary time in Australia’s history with some rough customers working with no questions asked on the remote sidings isolated from their sometimes murky pasts. Afghan cameleers running hundreds of camels out of the main stations to supply pastoralists, but later the miners in the Kimberly Gold rush, and the scientists like Madigan who took off from Marree to cross and explore the Simpson desert. Wow! On the top it off we saw an actual emu chick wandering with his Mum in the streets at Marree.

Next stop is Arkaroola, the private sanctuary in the northern flinders region.