16 to 22 July 09

Thursday 16 July 09

We spent the morning doing the washing and once again the weather turned nasty so we had to put up our little camping line in the annex. In the afternoon we went to Centrelink to lodge our rent assistance form and to find out if we could get our Timbercorp investments off our asset list. Unfortunately Centrelink still had no information about Timbercorp going into liquidation.

We then called into various tyre companies to find out which tyres would suit us best for replacement. When we found the tyres which we decided were the best for our purposes we had to wait for them to be sent from Adelaide so we arranged for them to be fitted on Monday. This was the first day of the first Ashes Test and what a disaster. Our strike bowler has forgotten how to bowl at a crucial time in his life and the other bowlers aren’t much better. I would like to stop watching but Barry wants to watch it. Fortunately we are only able to sensibly watch the first session because it gets too late to watch anymore.

Friday 17 July 09

Neither of us can remember what we did today but it can’t have been much for us both to forget. We did watch a bit of the first test again in the evening and the disaster continues.

Saturday 18 July 09

We left home and Foxy at 9.30 am to do the Pitchi Ritchi Railway trip to Quorn and back. This is a narrow gauge railway steam train that travels up through the Flinders Ranges using original Ghan wooden carriages and steam locomotive.



The narrow gauge railway (the original Ghan) closed in 1956. According to the literature the train was originally called the Afghan Express because the track was mainly built by Afghan labourers. It was later shortened to the Ghan and the name stuck. The actual history of the Ghan is very interesting. The track eventually reached Alice Springs and was never built all the way to Darwin. It was frequently affected by washouts and rail buckling due to intense heat in the desert. The train was more often than not late arriving. The conductor told us a story of an occasion when the train arrived at Marree at 10.00 am on a Wednesday and a man looked at his watch and remarked that it was good to see that the train was for once on time. The conductor said yes it is a pity it should have been here last Wednesday. During the war the track was very busy with as many as 6 trains a day leaving Adelaide to take troupes and goods up to Alice. After the war it fell into decline again and when the coal mines found it impossible to transport a reasonable amount of coal on the narrow gauge rail a standard gauge rail was built. The standard gauge rail went as far as Marree and then everyone had to disembark to change to the narrow gauge train which continued on to Alice Springs. The standard gauge rail closed in 1980 and a new railway line was built 150 kilometres west of its original position to make use of modern rail technology and trains. This is also away from the Flinders Ranges and therefore not subject to the floodways. I think they have also overcome the rail buckling problems but I haven’t seen any literature explaining how. The train now goes all the way through to Darwin but it takes 3 days and 2 nights to get there and costs a fortune to travel on. Even the situp carriages are beyond our means. I would love to do either that trip or the one that goes east west across Australia. The India/ Pacific or IP as it is called these days travels from Sydney to Perth again with some interesting history. I don’t know any of the stories but I do know that a some point in its history it used narrow gauge, standard gauge and broad gauge so you were on and off the train like a yoyo as you travelled across the country. Modern rail has meant that you do not need all the little towns to service the railway so many of them have died and are just ghost towns now. Some have survived to become tourist towns and others of them service there areas in other ways such as farming and mining. This country has a relatively short history in terms of European settlement but it is rich and varied.

Our train left on time at 10.30 am and we travelled through some pretty scenery and because of the recent rains everywhere was lovely and green.











We had the train captain and the conductor with us for a fair bit of the trip and both were great fun and full of stories. The other people we were sharing the carriage with were also fun and interesting. Once couple from Gidgeganup near Perth in WA and a man who appeared to come from everywhere from the way he spoke.

We spent most of the trip either hanging out of the windows or standing on the little outside balcony things taking photos and getting covered in coal smuts. It reminded me of the trips I took on the train as a kid to Folkstone where we frequently took our annual holidays.

The train was different because the seats were facing each other along the length of the carriage where our English ones went across the width of the carriage with a corridor along the length of the carriage to reach the toilets.

We arrived in Quorn on time and walked through the town to find a café for lunch. We had lunch in the Quandong Café.

As usual we had focacias for lunch and I bought some quandong pies to take home. I also found and bought some dried quandongs so I can make my own pies at some point in the future.

We then went for a wander around the town and took some photos of various buildings.

On one shop wall was a list of various films that have been partly shot in and around Quorn. The Shiralee and Robbery Under Arms were two that I recognised but the list was much longer and included at least one fairly recent film. It was not really surprising that the area attracts film producers because it really has some beautiful scenery and some of the shops and buildings being quite old lend themselves to film makers.

Travelling back to Port Augusta was just as good as the trip out but with no photographs this time at least not for me. We arrived back in Port Augusta on time and dashed home to rescue Foxy who as usual had been kicking up a great big fuss. We forwent the Ashes to watch The Bill and New Tricks and I am not sorry because it was another awful day with the Ausie batsmen and the umpires letting us down.

Sunday 19 July 09

The morning was spent doing nothing much but in the afternoon we took a trip to Wilmington to take a look at Alligator Gorge. This trip takes you up through Horrocks Pass which is a pass up through the southern Flinders Ranges and has some quite steep, winding sections in it. We have travelled this way once before when we went to Melbourne to see Garon and Sue and we stopped off at the lookouts on that occasion so we didn’t bother this time. The gorge is in the Flinders Ranges National Park so we had to leave Foxy in the caravan and pay to get in once again. I wish we had found somewhere to buy an annual pass at the beginning of this trip. Fortunately it was worth paying for as the gorge creek was running.

There are a couple of lookouts at the top but you don’t get a very good look at the gorge from either. The trip down into the gorge was quite easy although steep because stone steps have been built all the way down.


At the bottom it was quite difficult to get to the part that was called The Narrows because the water was quite high. We struggled through some using stepping stones and by wading through water on occasions, but after about 200 metres we decided we had gone far enough.

We walked the other way along the gorge until we reached the Terraces which water looked quite good with running .







I would not rate it as one of the best gorges I have been in but it was quite nice.

The trip back up the steps gave us a nice work out. We met a mother coming down with a toddler. The mother was wearing high heels and the toddler was finding the steps hard going. I didn’t fancy the mother’s chances of getting back up without carrying the child and heels are definitely not the right footwear for this kind of terrain. I enjoyed the drive to the gorge through the ranges more than I did the gorge. Some of the views were beautiful with the lovely green valleys. We watched a bit of the Ashes in the evening but we turned it off before it got to the point where Haddin and Clark started to make a game of it at last.

Monday 20 July 09

Barry took the car into Port Augusta to get the new tyres fitted, and I did some washing while he was away. Cleaned the caravan and added some photos to the last blog we published. In the afternoon we went back to Centrelink to see if we could get something done about Timbercorp as we had printed off the emails we had received stating that the creditors had voted to liquidate the 41 companies making up Timbercorp Investment Securities. This time the person we saw said that they had some information about this and he found it on his computer. Unfortunately you need a degree to understand what the information was saying and as he and nobody he asked for help had one we were no better off. The info did state that Timbercorp was in liquidation but it said that this did not necessarily affect the investors. More info would be coming. Paul the man we were talking to said that he would pass the question to the local FIS (Financial Information Services) officer who would call us when he had some info for us. Meanwhile we wait and one thing we have discovered about Centrelink is that they do not back date payments when things need to be updated. We watched the ashes until Haddin and Clark were out but then we gave up as it was clear that we were done. When we checked back it was all over.

Tuesday 21 July 09

We packed up once again and headed for Burra. This used to be a small copper mining town but the copper mine is long gone and it now survives on tourism and farming and very well by the look of things. We were going to stay at the free site on the town oval but when we got there it was obviously not commonly used for this purpose and the toilets were roped off so we decided to use the caravan park. As it turned out we were lucky to get in because throughout the rest of the day the park filled up and I don’t think there was a spare spot anywhere by early evening. We put up the annex as we had decided to stay for a week and took Foxy for a walk along the river. We then drove into town (we could have walked because it is only a 2 minute walk away) but we didn’t realise this until we got there. We bought bread at the local bakery and called in to the visitor centre to buy a passport and key to look at all the various spots around the town to view including the old copper mine. We have done this before but last time we were rushed so we thought we would have another try now that we have no call on our time.

As it was turning cold again we turned on the little fan fire and settled down with the tv for the evening.

Wednesday 22 July 09

This morning the weather is very windy and it rained during the night. I have spent the morning writing up this part of the blog and trying to keep warm.

Reading through the booklet that came with the passport and key we got from the tourist bureau, I discovered that Burra is made up of several small townships

The first township to be established was Kooringa in 1846. This was the first company town in South Australia to be built. The second township was Redruth which was a government town, built to accommodate the police station, court house and lockup, in 1847. There were other government workers housed here also. Aberdeen was built in 1849 by the Bon Accord Mine to recoup some of their losses and to provide housing for miners who didn't want to live in the company houses and other people who were starting to settle in the area. Llwchwr 1849 no information about this place, Hampton 1857 was founded by Thomas Powell, I don't know his history, and named after the home town of his wife in England. It was home to 30 miners but when the mine closed this town virtually died and was abandoned in the 1920s with its last inhabitant leaving in the 1960s. There are only ruins to see now. This harsh country does not take long to get rid of anything man made, until plastics came along of course. Copperhouse 1858 no history about this place either, Lostwhithiel 1858 and New Aberdeen 1872. The name of Burra (an aboriginal word) was officially adopted in 1940. The townships of Redruth Aberdeen and New Aberdeen are often referred to as Burra North. Burra is heritage listed and a large number of the buildings are in the hands of the National Trust.

Going by the number of people who pour in and out of the caravan park it is a thriving tourist destination.

The rest of today we did nothing much.

4 July to 15 July 09

Saturday 4 July 2009

We left Copley to drive to Hawker which was 250kms south back towards Port Augusta. We arrived at Flinders Ranges Caravan Park around midday. We set up the van and as we were staying for at least a week we erected the annex. Everything went without a hitch for a change and in the afternoon we chatted to neighbours Rod and Jo. A nice couple who left their caravan at home and borrowed their son’s camper trailer (big mistake) but they have now cleaned it and repaired it and it is liveable. The caravan park is one of the best we have seen, very well appointed with excellent ablutions and quite a reasonable price. There are no suitable camp sites around this area. Most of the camp sites are in the National Park and no dogs are allowed. There was one camping ground that said dogs were allowed but when we rang to ask the price it was nearly as much as some caravan parks with power etc.

We had decided on Hawker because it appeared to be the most central to the various gorges and Wilpena Pound that we want to visit.

As it is Saturday and The Bill is on (a favourite of ours) Barry did not waste any time setting up the satellite dish so that we could watch tv. Fortunately that also did not take long to find the satellite, sometimes it takes ages, so we were set up in a few minutes. Fortunately using the satellite dish we can watch ABC from any state so we used Queensland so that we could watch half an hour earlier than South Australia.

Sunday 5 July 2009

We spent the morning updating the blog and I think Barry downloaded some photos from his camera.

In the afternoon we visited Jeff Morgan’s Art Gallery and Coffee Shop. This has a panoramic section which we had been told was well worth the visit. When Barry discovered that it cost $7.50 to go in he said “You can go, I’ll wait”. As I thought he was being a cheap skate I paid for him as well and I’m glad I did because it was magnificent. Jeff Morgan has built a circular room and painted a 360° panorama of the view from the top of St Mary’s Peak which is at Wilpena. We were told to get this view for real we would have an eight hour walk which is beyond us these days. I have never seen anything so amazing and beautiful. Unfortunately I did not think to take a camera and I also didn’t think he would allow photos but I heard somebody else asking if it would be OK and he said yes. After looking at the panorama we went to another room where he had three huge canvases hung (although they did not look like canvases). One was a view of the waterhole at Arkaroola which we missed when we visited there, another was of Cooper Creek at sunset. The third was through a doorway and we thought we were walking outside. This one was called Rod’s Creek which we haven’t seen and again was really beautiful. You could almost believe you could walk up the creek. There was a tape of birds singing to add to the impression of being outside actually in the creek. We sat in chairs that had been placed against the back wall for about 10 minutes soaking up the atmosphere and it was hard to drag ourselves away. We treated ourselves to a coffee and quondong chocolates (wild peach) before heading for a drive around the little town.

After this we drove out to see Jarvis Hill Lookout. Magnificent views of the ranges both on the drive, about 6 kms, and during the climb to the top, and at the top of the hill. The climb was quite strenuous and a bit of a work out but well worth the effort. Unfortunately Foxy was in a hurry and almost dragged Barry off his feet. There is not much of her but she sure can pull.

Photo left Barry and Foxy walking ahead of me as usual back down from viewing Jarvis Lookout and a view from Jarvis Lookout.

When we got back I downloaded my latest photos and found a few new ways to enhance them and correct a few mess ups. I had one that I was going to delete but I found a button that said sharpen which improved a blurry photo enough to make it worth keeping. So I went back and played with some of the photos that I took out at Innamincka.

No early night tonight as I am hoping to see the Federer/Roddick Wimbledon tennis final if it isn’t too late. At the moment they are one set all and level games in the third set.

Monday 6 July 09

The Federer/Roddick match proved to be too long. I sat up until after two am but I gave up at 11 all in the 5th set. It was riveting stuff to watch but I thought I would be a wreck the next day.

I dragged myself out of bed in the morning but it was afternoon before we managed to do anything. We decided on a drive out to Willow Waters. This proved to be a bit of a waste of time. Again the drive out to the gorge was lovely with the different colours in the ranges all around us but the gorge was nothing special and there was almost no water. A tiny dam has been built to hold the water back in the gorge but obviously there hasn’t been enough rain to make this worth while. We still managed a few photos. Rod and Jo from the campervan next door left there little dog Mindy with us while they went to Wilpena Pound, which is a national park and no dogs allowed. We took both dogs for a walk up through the gorge. Mindy was very good but she wanted to be where Foxy was all the time. This proved difficult when I climbed out of the creek to get to the car. It was a very steep climb and with her sure footed four legs she didn’t have any problems. I on the other hand struggled and hanging on to Mindy was challenging. Foxy, being off the lead just did her own thing. Photo a view of the Willow Springs Gorge. Looks like a lot of water flows through here on occasions.

Back in town I found a general store which really is a general store it was a bottle shop, post office, camping, groceries, giftware, clothes, hardware, bakery, coffee shop, linen and anything else you care to mention. Admittedly the stocks are limited but I think you could find pretty much anything you wanted in that shop provided it was generalised. We also called in to Hawker Motors which is a paper shop, garage, petrol station, gift shop and visitor centre. These businesses sure know how to make use of space.

Tuesday 7 July 09

This morning I packed a picnic lunch and we headed out to Wilpena Pound. This is a sealed road as Wilpena is a very popular place. There are several places on the road where there are pull offs for photo opportunities, most of which we stopped at. About ¾ of the way to Wilpena you come to Rawnsley Park Station. This has a caravan park, which takes dogs, a resort and appears to be a working station. There are several walks around the place which take you up into the hills in various places and we went to the park office for a walking map. The walk I was interested in which went to Rawnsley Bluff proved to be 12.5 kilometres which is a bit beyond us these days, particularly as it said some challenging sections, so we gave that a miss. We might look at one of the other walks if we go back that way before we leave Hawker.

Photos below Rockart at Arkaroo Rock and some Grevillea I found growing near Arkaroo Rock. I thought Grevillea was native to Western Australia so I was wrong again.

We drove on to Wilpena Pound and came across another photo opportunity which turned out to be a car park with a walk at the end to Arkaroo Rock. This rock has Aboriginal rock art. We had lunch and then tackled the walk (which said allow an hour).When we eventually bought a walking map it is listed as a hike not a walk and says 2 hours. It said some moderate inclines and average fitness. Barry and I decided that we have dropped below an average level of fitness because we were puffing and legs aching by the time we got to the top. Unfortunately the rock has been fenced off, no doubt to stop idiots adding graffiti to the beautiful Aboriginal paintings. We took some photos through the grill but whether they will be any good I don’t know. There were a couple of other rocks on the way back which proved to be a loop but there was no more rock art. This is such a beautiful part of the world that snapping photos all round is part of the walk.

Arriving at Wilpena and the national park yet another fee was required. There doesn’t seem to be anyway that you can buy a national parks annual pass in South Australia that takes you into them all. We debated whether it was worth paying as it was already 2.30 pm but we looked big and paid up. At Wilpena there was nowhere to park as many of the people who were parked had been very inconsiderate and were taking up 1½ bays. Barry dropped me off to go into the shop to get a map and parked in a disabled bay for a few minutes. We drove around the resort camp ground which was packed with campers – it is school holidays in South Australia – and then around the resort itself but we still did not find anywhere to park. Eventually we found a bit of bare ground and stuck the car there in the hope that it wouldn’t be a problem and went off for a walk. Again most of the walks in and around the pound are more that 6 hours and from what we were told there is no way to actually get a visual of the pound itself other than from the air. We did one walk which was 1.4 kms and enough after the walk to Arkaroo Rock, which was called Drought Buster. We never found out why but the walk was nice with only a few rock climbing bits. There was a steady incline so it gave your thighs and calves a bit of a work out but it was probably good for us. We did see some yellow footed rock wallabies and some feral goats which we could have done without seeing but they are now part of rural Australia. Photo yellow footed rock wallaby.

We saw a couple of self drive tours advertised but when we asked about them one was cancelled because the station has changed hands and the tour is no longer offered and the other is about 20 kms and takes 6 hours to do. We decided that would be a bit much for our tyres.

We decided that if we wanted to see Wilpena Pound we would have to look big and pay up for a flight over it. This proved to be not too expensive but we can’t get one until Saturday morning. This means we will have to extend our stay in Hawker, but that is not a hardship. We might even treat ourselves to another look at the panorama in Hawker again.

On our way out of the park we stopped to walk to the Solar Power Station. This proved quite interesting with banks and banks of solar panels powering stacks of batteries housed in what looked to be sea containers. We could hear a generator running so there had obviously not been enough sun to power the whole complex. The info board said that the solar power was added rather than enlarging the existing diesel generator, so it is obviously a combination that runs the resort. The info said the solar panels were sufficient to run 30 houses and the resort appeared to have that and more, with the shops and the powered sights for the caravan park.

Photo solar powered power station at Wilpena Pound

We arrived back at the caravan park to find uproar because Foxy had been crying all day left in the caravan. The park owners asked us to give them the keys to the van if we left her again and they would get her out and walk her if necessary. We pointed out that she cries if we go to the toilet and there is nothing we can do about it but they didn’t like her crying all day. It’s a good job we don’t worry about her crying all day because we would never do anything, and it doesn’t hurt her, she just gets frightened. If she had her way she would spend the whole day and night sitting on Barry’s shoulder, or lap.

Wednesday 8 July 09

The morning was spent doing some chores and in the afternoon we took a walk up Policeman Hill which is a small hill overlooking Hawker. It wasn’t much more than a bit of exercise but it did give us a bit of a puff to get up there so it raised the heart rate a bit.

Thursday 9 July 09
I’ve got a bit lost with the days but I think this was washing day and as there was quite a bit and we used our little machine it took us rather a long time.

Friday 10 July 09

We decided to do the ‘All Gorges Tour’. We drove back up the highway to Parachillna and called in to have a look at this historic town. Yet another casualty of the ‘Old Ghan’ shutting down in 1956. It proved to be just another scruffy little place with not much to offer the tourist. We then turned off the highway and headed for Angorichina which has a store, a garage and a caravan park. It is nestled in the hills and was quite a pretty spot. Barry bought some fuel here. Not much because as usual out in the sticks it was expensive.

Our next stop was Blinman. This proved to be quite a big place and thriving. The road from Wilpena to Blinman is almost all bitumised so it is obviously popular with tourists. It has a hill lookout which we did. This proved to be about 1.5 kilometres and gave us yet another workout. The views were worth it and the hill was covered with rock wallabies all of which scattered when they saw us. On the top of the hill we stood and watched a wedge tail eagle using the thermals to float above us. They are such graceful birds. We walked down the other side of the hill and past the sand green golf course.

Photo above is a small log cabin near the Wild Lime Cafe in Blinman

It was almost lunch time so we called in to the Wild Lime Café for lunch. This was smoked roo foccacia followed by quandong pies. The pies were delicious as was the smoked roo. I am not partial to kangaroo as I find it a bit gamey tasting but I discovered that smoking it takes away that gamey taste, so it was really tasty.

Photo Great Wall Of China!!!

Our next photo stop was at what is called the ‘Great Wall of China’. The hills in this area appear to be layered and this particular section did look quite like pictures you see of the Great Wall of China. We were a bit cheesed off that we took the 2 kilometre drive out to look at it because it didn’t look much different up close to the view we got from the main road and it certainly gave the 4x4 a bit of a workout.

Photo below rock formation in Brachina Gorge

The next section of this all gorges tour was a turn off the Wilpena/Blinman road through the Brachina Gorge. This was really lovely with lots of boards along the way telling us how old the rock formations were and what they consisted of. There were camp sites scattered through this area which is all part of the Wilpena National Park. We had Foxy with us which was a bit of a problem and we had to pay to drive through the park again. There were a few photo ops which we decided to do on the way back which proved to be a mistake because we didn’t go back the same way.

Photo below on the left is one of the camp grounds in Bunyeroo Valley and the one on the right is a view of Bunyeroo Valley

We drove through the Brachina Gorge until we reached the flatlands and then turned around to back track through the gorge until we came to the turn off to Bunyeroo Gorge. This started with a drive through the Bunyeroo Valley which was really beautiful. Miles and miles of native pine trees. If they had been a bit more even you could almost believe you were driving through a plantation. These trees are really lovely and such a lovely colour. The gorge itself is not quite as spectacular as Brachina Gorge but still worth the drive. Again there were several camp spots along the route. As it is still school holidays in South Australia the National Park was full of tourists. It costs less to camp in one of these camp sites than it does to use the Wilpena Pound resort camp sites but these camp sites have far fewer people. You just have to take your own shower tent with you and heat some water to wash with. The porta potty is a necessary item as well as some of these areas are really difficult to dig holes in. I would have loved to stay for a few days at one of these camp grounds but that was not possible with Foxy with us.

Saturday 11 July 09

We woke to rain and as we were not sure what the situation was re the flight over Wilpena Pound we decided to drive to the airfield at Rawnsley Station to find out. This proved to be a wasted journey because the field was deserted when we got there. We drove on to the resort and were told by the girl at the desk that “Common Sense should have told us the flights would be cancelled”. We obviously lack common sense. As the clouds were down over the hills there was no point in doing anything else so we went back to the caravan and spent the rest of the day keeping out of the rain. We were able to rebook the plane for tomorrow.

Sunday 12 July 09

This is the professional photo of Wilpena Pound mentioned below. As you can see it is clearly a pound but we didn't even see this never mind take a photo of it. I got glimpses but Barry got nothing being on the wrong side of the plane.

The sun was shining when we woke this morning so we again drove to the airfield. We had a wait while the pilot cleaned out the plane. He said it was a bit rough up there and they had a bit of a mishap. This did not go down well with me as I am not a good air traveller but he said he would try to keep out of the wind and use a different route. I really enjoyed the trip but I wasn’t able to get a good photograph of Wilpena Pound. I saw it clearly enough and it is quite obvious why it is called a Pound because it is completely surrounded by hills. The pilot said the actual pound was about 17 kilometres long. He also told us the width but again I forgot what he said. Because of the route the pilot took to keep out of the wind Barry did not even see the pound so he was a bit disappointed but the rest of the trip we both really enjoyed. The ranges surrounding the pound are really spectacular and seeing them from the air was really special. Unfortunately my photographs through the planes glass windows are not very good but maybe Barry’s are better.

http://www.safilm.com.au/Location/Showcase.aspx?p=88&tid=1&cat=1&img=82

This link will take you to a picture of Wilpena Pound with a view that neither of us got, just so that you can see how spectacular it is.

After the flight we drove along the Moralana Scenic Drive. This was pleasant rather than spectacular and as I was feeling a little tired we didn’t stop for photographs. This drive comes out on the main Hawker/Leigh Creek Highway and right on the junction we came across 2 young girls standing beside an obviously brokendown vehicle. Barry of course cannot go past a break down and stopped to help. I asked what was wrong and the girls (young and pretty) said they didn’t know but the car had overheated and steam was poring out. They turned out to have a badly split top radiator hose, and as with most people they were not carrying spares. It amazes me how unprepared many people are driving around in the outback. Quite often garages do not have spares and you can be stuck for days while something is posted out to you. We did have spare hoses and although the hose was not actually the same as the one the Mitsubishi needed Barry was able to modify it and make it fit. At least they did have plenty of water with them which, unusually, we did not have. The girls drove to Hawker with us to find out how much the hose cost but nobody in Hawker had anything like it but thought about $18.00 would cover it. The girls gave Barry $20.00 and offered to take us for a cup of coffee but as I was still feeling a little rough he declined.

We had used up a fair part of the day by this time and as it was once again cold we retired to the caravan and downloaded photos.

Monday 13 July 09

Photo Old Ghan Railway Station - Restaurant and Art Gallery

In the morning we did a little shopping in Hawker’s general store and took a photo of the Old Ghan railway station which has been turned into an art gallery and restaurant. When we got back to the caravan park I discovered that the building next to the park office appeared to be full of dolls so I asked to look at them. It turned out that the mother of Corrie (park owner) makes dolls as a hobby. Most of the dolls were porcelain and she said very expensive to make. She swapped to making miniatures when it became too expensive for her. She also joined a doll club at one point and went to a doll school so she also had dolls from these sources. Some of the miniatures were set in doll houses and her work shop shows that she is still beavering away at her hobby. She made all the clothes herself for her dolls and some of them were made with such a fine crochet needle she said you cannot buy them in an ordinary craft shop. There must have been hundreds of dolls there.

After lunch we drove about 18 kms down the highway to look at some caves that purported to have aboriginal artwork in them. The climb up to the caves was arduous and a bit slippery in places as we had a bit of drizzle, but worth the effort. Both the artwork and the views were good. As with the last lot of Aboriginal artwork that we went to, this lot had been fenced in to stop graffiti artists from damaging them. We should be getting fitter but it never feels like it when you are clambering around up the sides of these hills. There were 3 caves that we looked at but we noticed that all the other tourists looked at the first one and decided that was enough effort for the day.

The top photo in this section is one of the caves that had Aboriginal art work and the one on the left here is just a rock formation that took my eye and the one on the right is some of the rock art we found in these caves. According to the signs the Aboriginals use ochre and charcoal mainly to do this artwork and all of it tells some kind of story.

Back to Hawker and fortunately we remembered to go to the post office to get the mail that Ann had forwarded to us the week before. We had checked at the post office on the previous Wednesday but they had nothing for us and we forgot after that. We were relieved that we remembered before we left Hawker because it is always a hassle to get mail forwarded from one post office to another. Back at the caravan park we started the preliminary packup ready for the move tomorrow.

Tuesday 14 July 09

We left Hawker to travel back to Port Augusta. We had decided to bypass Port Augusta and go through to Orooroo but I had left a prescription to be filled in Port Augusta so we had to go back there. We stopped off on the way to call in to the tourist bureau in Quorn to find out about the “Old Ghan” steam train that runs between Port Augusta and Quorn as we might do this historic trip. It turns out the train only does this trip on Saturdays and looking at the time table it does not do much during the summer months. We didn’t look at Quorn itself because it was raining and if we do the train trip we will get a couple of hours to see it.

We arrived in Port Augusta at about midday and even though we had said we would never use the North Stirling caravan park again after the last time we were here (mainly because of their noisy peacocks) we have come back. We didn’t like the park we stayed at a few weeks ago because it was one of those places where there were notices everywhere telling you to do or not to do something. It was also quite expensive.

The afternoon was spent shopping and buying a new microwave. We think the one we have only need a replacement high voltage fuse but as the nearest technician is in Whyalla the cost of driving there, paying the labour costs and buying the part meant it was no more expensive to buy a new one. Hopefully this one will last longer.

Wednesday 15 July 09

Another wet miserable day which we have spent sitting in the caravan. Barry spent the morning putting photos in the blogs we wrote earlier and I spent the afternoon catching the blog back up again to today.

June 22 to July 3 09

Monday 22 June 09

We left Copley at 8.45 am to go to Arkaroola which is part of the Flinders Ranges but the map also says Gammon Ranges so it is a bit confusing.

We stopped for a short visit at Iga Warta. The impresive rock carving at the entrance is actually moulded fibreglass.

This is an aboriginal shop and appears to be a camping spot for tourists, with a gorge. The shop wasn’t open and as we didn’t have a lot of time so we couldn’t explore the area. We took a couple of photos and carried on along the track.

We drove through the Aboriginal township of Nepabunna which the people can be justifiably proud of. It was well laid out beautifully kept and quite picturesque.

Past this we came to Italowie Gorge. A really lovely spot which would have been great for a picnic stop but again we didn’t have time.

We arrived at Arkaroola at 11.30 am with an hour to spare before our Ridge Top Tour began.

We wandered around the immediate vicinity and took some photographs but we again did not have time to go to any of the other areas shown on the local maps.

The Ridge Top Tour was fantastic and in some places quite hair raising. There were 11 of us plus the driver. We were packed into the back of an open 4x4, 5 on one side and 5 on the other facing each other. The other man was in the front (lucky bugger).

I think it was a good job we couldn’t move because that stopped us flying up and down the seat as we went up and down the hills, some of which were really steep.

Taking photos other than when we stopped was impossible but the views were magnificent.

There were three stops on the route, the last one being at Sillers Lookout.

This is at the top of a particularly steep hill and once at the top you get lovely views of the surrounding ranges and the flat land in the distance where there are Uranium mines operating.

We have been surprised at the number of mines in South Australia. We thought most of the mining and gas and oil was in Western Australia but this is not the case. SA has copper, coal, iron, uranium, gold, gas and oil as well as plenty of small mines with other minerals such as talc.

We had tea and lamingtons at Sillers Lookout and then the trip back was even more scary because the driver, Sharpy, was in a hurry to be back on time. He was an Aboriginal and he gave us some interesting information about the local people and told us one of the dream time stories. He pointed out one mountain which he claimed had never been under water and was the oldest rock formation in Australia. He did say how old but I couldn’t write it down and forgot what he said.

We got back to Arkaroola at 5.30 pm and because we had left Foxy in the caravan we had to drive back to Copley. We got back about 7.30 feeling like our eyes were hanging out on stalks after spending the whole journey watching for horses and kangaroos. We saw nothing.

The following morning we discovered that we had a flat tyre.

Tuesday 23 June 09

The morning was spent sorting out the tyre – getting it patched. We decided that we would take the Strezlecki Track out to Innamincka so we needed to get at least one tyre replaced. The local man in Copley wanted $400.00 for a Bridgstone Dueler, and when we asked about other breeds they were also $400.00. We phoned Leigh Creek and they had a Bridgestone Dueler which was brand new but had been on a rim as a spare. He sold it to us for $280.00. Some shopping for the trip was next and that was about it for the day apart from making lists of what we would need to take with us to Innamincka.

Wednesday 24 June 09

Today we spent the whole day sorting out camping gear for the trip to Innamincka because we don’t want to subject the caravan to 465kms each way of graded road. Particularly as we have no idea of the condition of the track. We brought a tent, etc, with us for just this sort of trip. The caravan park owners do not charge for storing the caravan out in the back blocks. We had to take some stuff off the roof rack and store this in the van and take some stuff out of the van and put on the roof rack. I had some trouble getting Barry to give me a bit of space in the roller drawers for some food but I did get some in the end. The Engel was already full of frozen meat and fresh vegetables so I only had to add the milk, butter, cheese etc. It will be cold in the desert so we need to make sure we have plenty of bedding, especially under the airbed because the cold comes up through the bed and makes it really uncomfortable.

There is no Autogas at Leigh Creek or Copley so we will have to pick some up at Lyndhurst where the Strzelecki Track starts.

Thursday 25 June 09

Today we drove almost all the way to Innamincka. It was raining for all of the morning. Not hard but irritating and it made it difficult to stop at the first camp site that the map showed on the track. This did not matter because we couldn’t find it anyway. The next camping stop showing on the map said no dogs so we couldn’t stop there. According to the map there were no other camp stops on the route so that meant we had to push through to Innamincka. Fortunately we found another camp spot about 70kms short of Innamincka shortly after passing the Moomba gas and oil plant, and as it was 4.00pm we stopped there. Coming across an industrial plant in the middle of nowhere created an interesting change of scenery.

The track did not have a great deal to see, just sand dunes and low scrub in places. There were a few trees where creeks crossed the desert but they were few and far between. The sand was mostly a creamy white with some reddish brown now and again. The actual track went from really good to pretty ordinary with three patches of bitumen about 6kms long. There were several places where track crews were grading the road and fortunately the bad sections were short. Setting up the tent that we got back from Colleen and Craig (we had given them this tent several years ago but it was a bit small for them and still good enough for us and as we wanted a tent that was light and wouldn’t take up too much room this was good enough). Of course that first night we discovered all the things that we had forgotten to pack. Fortunately nothing that we couldn’t improvise without but irritating just the same.

Friday 26 June 09

Moved on into Innamincka where the final 10km of track became diabolical and covered in loose stones, all waiting to add to the profits of one and only tyre repair place in town.

The town only consists of a Hotel/Motel, trading post, laundrette, tyre repair and six houses. Although there are toilets and hot showers opposite the Trading Post.


The campsite in the Town common (dustbowl) alongside the Cooper Creek was quite good and only $5 a night. There are other campsites further along the creek at $15 a night but they are no different to the town site with no facilities apart from toilets, but run by the conservation mob instead of the shire.

The explorers Burke and Wills who travelled from Melbourne to the Gulf Of Carpenteria both died near Innamincka. They, plus a man called Adam who died before they reached the Gulf and King were the only 4 who travelled on from Cooper Creek near Innamincka to go to the Gulf. They left the rest of the party in a fort they had built at what is now called the "Dig Tree" with orders to wait no more that 4 months for their return. The remaining party waited 17 weeks and they finally left the same day Burke and Wills returned. There seems to be a series of errors that followed resulting in the deaths of Burke and Wills and King being rescued by Aborigines who kept him alive for 5 months before he was rescued. There is an official Burke and Wills web site which gives a great deal of the history and tries to correct some of the sensational stories that surround the expedition.

Prior to setting up our camp we drove 69km out to the ‘Dig Tree’ where the food and water was buried for Burke and Wills, should they return. This was along side the Cooper Creek and was the first sight we had of this creek. We are quite lucky to see it in full flood as this does not happen every year and is dependent on the rain in Queensland. This was a reasonable track once you got past the first 10km out of town, and once the Queensland border was reached the road was bitumen. We can now claim to have been to Queensland, albeit, only just.

The road from the bitumen to the ‘Dig Tree’ was worse than the Innamincka town roads.

On the way out after lunch we did managed to successfully shred the tyre that had been repaired in Copley.

On the way back to Innamincka we turned off again to check out the place where Bourke died.

Some of the views of the Cooper Creek are quite spectacular.

Burke and Wills died in separate places along the creek and according to the signs Wills died alone. Burke still had King with him who was rescued by Aborigines and he lived with them for five months until he was found and taken back to Melbourne. This is obviously how they know so much about the expedition and what went wrong. I would be interested to read the book and find out much more about this doomed expedition to get to the Gulf of Carpentaria. I know there was a reward offered for the first man to reach there but I don’t know why. I know it was important that the residents of Victoria learn more about the interier of Australia. Aparanently we now no more about outer space than the Victorian's knew about the interier of Austalia at that time.

On re-entry into Innamincka we called into the tyre place to discover they were only open from 8am to 9am, so we set up camp and promised to visit the tyre mob in the morning.

Our campsite by the Creek was well away from everybody else, and therefore, quiet with views of the birdlife in the trees on the opposite bank. Until about 6.00 pm when a mob of campers moved in fairly close to us and proceeded to wake the dead until about midnight. I slept through most of it but Barry was awake until well after they stopped.

The Creek is currently in full flow at quite a rapid pace.

Saturday 27 June 09

Visited the tyre mob and as expected the array of 17 inch rim tyres was not great so I settled for a reasonable second hand one, which gave us one new spare and one second hand spare.

We used the town hot showers at $2 for 4 minutes and then returned to camp and spent the remainder of the day as a rest day.

We sat by the creek and watched the birds, particularly a Whistling Kite who flew over head several times and was really graceful. I watched him on one occasion as he tucked his/her wings back and dove into the water. He came out with nothing so I gather he didn’t get the fish. I was surprised that he could see anything in the water because it was very muddy looking obviously with all the sand it was bringing downstream from Queensland.

In the early evening a huge mob of white cockatoos flew over several times making enough noise to wake the dead. They settled on several trees around us and then flew off and settled again but where they actually roosted was anybody’s guess.

There was a dead tree near our camp and on one occasion there were cockatoos, galahs, a kite, several small black and white birds and some crows all on this tree together. It really did look quite spectacular. We also saw some pretty little red and green birds but we didn’t get a close enough look to see what they were and a photo was out of the question as they were too quick.

Sunday 28 June 09

We drove out of town over the creek causeway which is quite a sight, and then on to Coongie Lake which is a permanent lake although nothing like as large as Lake Eyre. There are several other smaller lakes around some of which are permanent and some only fill when the Cooper Creek is in full flood.

On the way in we stopped for lunch at the remains of an old station outhouse that was presumably used by the mustering team. The outstation building has been done up by the Toyota Land Cruiser Club of SA and was very useful for lunch in the kitchen area as the flies were very friendly. There was also another building with a sign that said Meat House which was interesting. There was a small lake at this point and several camp sites a little bit further down the track that were also beside this small lake (or possibly this is part of the Cooper Creek).

The lakes are the end result of Cooper Creek, and as some of them are permanent we had expected a lot of birdlife but in fact it was very limited and therefore a bit disappointing. (When these lakes fill Cooper Creek carries on and fills Lake Eyre although most of the water that flows into Lake Eyre from Queensland comes from the Diamantina River. Lake Eyre also fills with local water occasionally)

However, the lake is quite impressive. I need to add here that Barry was disappointed, but I found the whole area absolutely fascinating and I saw quite a few birds although not necessarily a large variety. I got a lovely photo of a Whistling Kite.

Parts of the track in/out of the lake was excessively corrugated (the worst we have experienced) and we had an engine management light flash on and off on several occasions. On checking the manual this is a warning that the fuel filter may have water in it, but as it only happened on the badly corrugated sections of road it was assumed to be the possible cause.

Monday 29 June 09

As a precaution, the fuel filter was drained into a plastic bottle and checked for water, which proved negative, and therefore the corrugations must have been the problem.

We drove into Innamincka to take some photographs of the town and to visit the old nurses station that has obviously been done up and is being used as the head quarters of the Innamincka Regional Reserve.

We met a couple we had seen the day before at Coongie Lakes and chatted to them for a while. They had done some interesting trips and were interested in our trip up the Canning Stock Route as they intend doing that soon. They had travelled from Brisbane just using a tent.

Barry chatted to a man about the gas conversion who was interested because he is considering spending $14,000 converting his truck to gas and diesel. We were going to have lunch at the pub but it didn’t open for another half hour and as the Trading Post was not set up for lunch either we drove back to the camp site to make our own. On stepping out of the car we heard a hissing noise and sure enough we had another puncture. I was feeling quite guilty because I had talked Barry into not getting new tyres in Port Augusta because there is still some tread on the tyres we have and they would be fine for sealed roads. Not, as Barry had said, for graded roads though. Particularly really bad ones like those around Innamincka. Barry plugged this one, a first for him and it appeared to work. Not that we have given it the ultimate test back on the car. Now we have two new tyres on the back of the car and two fairly ordinary spares as well as two tyres with a bit of tread on the front. Hopefully this will see us through the rest of the graded roads we will be doing in the Flinders Ranges. I spoke to one guy who said his mate had 4 punctures in 2 days but I think he must have been driving like a maniac, or he had really ordinary tyres which is our problem.

After lunch we drove round to look at some of the Regional Reserve camp sites which looked pretty much the same as the ones we were using in the Town Common. Unless you had bought an annual desert parks pass this was an expensive way to camp at $15 per night. If you had travelled from Birdsville or Oodnadatta and spent a couple of weeks out in the desert this was not worth getting. We looked at Wills grave site (I say grave site but both Burke and Wills were buried in Melbourne and these are actually the sites where they died) and also at the site where it is claimed that King was found by Aboriginals and cared for, for five months before being rescued by a search party sent out from Melbourne to find out what had happened to the four men who had left the main party at Innamincka to travel on to the Gulf of Carpentaria. These were intrepid men who opened up the interior of Australia searching for inland seas and telegraph routes etc.

We had by this time just about exhausted what there was to see and do in and around Innamincka and I for one will never forget the experience. Hopefully we will be able to come back again one day and do some of the other routes through to Birdsville and Oodnadatta as well as crossing the Simpson Desert which we are told is quite an experience. I think though that we need an off road camper or van for this as tenting is getting a bit primitive for us these days.

Tuesday 30 June 09

We packed up the tent and headed into town for a much needed hot shower. We had been making do with strip washes in the tent and I needed to wash my hair and get properly clean. The wind had started to come up during the night and while I was finishing off my shower Barry sat and watched a dust storm blow through the town. Showers done, and fuel we had picked up the day before, we left Innamincka to head for Cameron Corner where Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia meet. I was interested to see this little spot and stand with both feet in three states which we were told you could do. What else is there we have no idea. Our Camps Australia book does not show any camping spots there. As we were driving the wind was getting worse and the dust storm was starting to make it difficult to see where we were driving. There were several occasions when Barry had to pull up or slow right down to a crawl to see where he was going. We have never seen anything like this before and were not impressed. Barry started to get really concerned about diverting to Cameron Corner as this was another 200 kms and we had no idea what the track was like or what would be there when we got there. We thought there was a good possibility that we would find it impossible to put the tent up and cook in the wind and dust storm and we had no idea how long it might last. We decided to give Cameron Corner a miss and head back to Copley. I was disappointed but I could see Barry’s point. Maybe we will get there one day in the future.

We had decided to stop on the way back past Moomba to get a photograph of this huge gas and oil facility but when we got to the lookout it was as if the facility did not exist. We could see nothing at all. We did manage to stop at Montecalina Bore which is an artesian bore and looked just like a small lake in the desert. Yet another tree absolutely covered with white cockatoos. The tree looked like it was covered with blossom. We could not stay here because this was the camp site I mentioned earlier that did not allow dogs, although we could not see why.

We arrived back at Copley at about 5.30 pm and picked up the van and put it back on a powered site in the caravan park. We then went for dinner at the Leigh Creek Hotel which is in Copley. The whole place is really confusing as the original town of Copley was called Leigh Creek and there was a Leigh Creek post office and a Leigh Creek general store. Later the town was renamed Copley and the post office and general store changed their names to suit. The pub however has always retained its original name. As a new town of Leigh Creek was built around 1980 this has added to the confusion. This town has a Leigh Creek Tavern which is also a motel and cabin park. So you could be forgiven for not knowing where the hell you are in this neck of the woods.

Wednesday 1 July 09

The morning was spent washing. Barry took a gas bottle to be filled and the rest of the day was spent cleaning the caravan and sorting the Nissan out. Taking the camping gear off the roof rack and storing it back in the van, moving all the food back into the van and putting the stuff that we had put in the van, such as the golf clubs and the dogs play pen, while we were away back on the roof rack. This left us with no time left to do anything else but download the photographs we had taken in Innamincka and drove to Leigh Creek for some shopping.

Thursday 2 July 09

This day was basically doing nothing. I was messing about with cross sums and Barry was updating the blog I think, adding photos to what we had written before.

Friday 3 July 09

After a very lazy morning I prepared a lamb roast and vegies to cook in the Dream Pot. You brown the floured lamb in a pan and drop it into an oven bag; you do the same to the floured potatoes and carrots and add them to the bag. You then seal the bag really tight and put it into water in the inner pot of the Dream Pot. This you bring to the boil and boil slowly for 20 minutes and then you put this into the Dream Pot and leave it for a minimum of 3 hours. It turned out really well. The potatoes and carrots were not quite like roast vegies but they were still really tasty and not a bit soggy which I had expected.

While this was cooking we drove to look at Aroona Dam which had been closed for road grading when we were in Copley before. The actual dam is quite small but the lake was surprisingly big and quite picturesque in yet another section of the Flinders Ranges. The dam supplies water to the towns of Copley and Leigh Creek and gives them more than adequate supplies. I left Barry in the car and did some extra trekking around the dam to get some more photos of where the lake appeared to go off around a corner. This extra walk was well worth the effort. Barry had worn shorts and was really cold so he wasn’t interested in leaving the car.

We carried on down the road to look at the historic town of Beltana. This proved to be yet another town largely ruins and a few buildings that were still occupied. It didn’t inspire us to get out of the car and take photos so we just drove around it. There were quite a few other tourists walking around and if Barry had been more suitably dressed for warmth, we may have got out of the car and walked around too. I could have but nothing really called out for a photograph.

The drive out to Beltana was quite interesting, the hills looked as if they had been blown there like sand dunes. Quite a different formation.