We received a suggestion to walk up to a nearby hill to watch the sunset. After approaching the trail by car, we understood we could actually drive a fair way with our high-clearance 4WD, and after a few hundred meters of very steep climb, we suddenly found ourselves with our car on the top of a ridge… As we had everything with us, we decided to put out the table, chairs and start cooking our dinner to enjoy sunset in our preferred way with a glass of wine and a good steak ;-) I believe the lonesome walker didn’t really expect this kind of encounter when he reached the top of the hill after a two hour walk trying to escape civilization from the nearby village… he felt rather amused and offered to take a picture of the four of us.
The following day we had our brekkie in the tent, as it was too cold outside and the sun took its time to cross the mountain ridge. Instead we walked off pretty early to do a 7km walk across the Acacia Ridge and get a glimpse into the wildest parts of the Flinders Range. The kids walked along very bravely, and required only little help to reach the summit. The views were spectacular, from the sight of nearby soaring hawks over the various ridges to the white-shining, flat salt pan of Lake Frome.
Towards the North there was not a sight of civilization - no buildings, no roads, no humans… And again, it felt like in a dream – everything was so green, as I had never expected… I mean, why is there no civilization, if that piece of land looks so luxuriously green? I any other country suffering from overpopulation, there would have been dozens of towns instead. Obviously this area is generally a lot more arid than what we got to see.
This is where I started to understand something very unique to this continent: The weather cycles appear to extend far more than what I know from the four seasons back in Europe. Statistics displaying average rainfall, temperatures etc. are actually not representative of typical years. Instead, there are long periods of several years, sometimes decades of drought followed by several years of above average rainfalls, which bring vegetation back to life for a short period of time. This vegetation in turn provides the food necessary for generations of animals to renew themselves. All the way up to the indigenous people, life seems to have adapted to these long-period cycles and can survive long periods of drought in a way we can’t imagine. The dreamtime stories of the aboriginals, passed on from elders to the younger generations, are a kind of spiritual force to survive the hard years of drought until new life and abundance is brought in by a next wave of rain and floods. I really wonder what the true nature of these cycles are, such as El Nino and La Nina, solar flares, ice ages, and now the influence of industrialisation and globalisation on climate change.
After the walking trail, we went on to discover remoter areas of Arkaroola by car. There were sections where we obviously got close to the limits of the capacity of our Prado. Not the river crossings, but rather some steep sections with lateral inclines where I was seriously worried that the car would roll over sideways… Forcing our way through to some gorges at the end of the day, we had no time left to get out of the no-camping zone before sunset, and had to set up a bush camp against the rules of the station… which was almost as thrilling as the rocky Mt-Jacob’s four-wheel-drive track we took to get back out of Arkaroola the following day. From there we went on to explore the loop track in the Gammon Range National Park which we found pretty boring after Arkaroola, except for some wildlife such as a few groups of emus.
Also, all other publicly accessible track further South never reached the same degree of thrill experienced in Arkaroola. On the other hand, the scenery of the various mountain ridges managed to surprise us many times over the following days. This included the mysterious Chambers Gorges (where we also sighted some aboriginal rock engravings for the first time), as well as the ring of mountains around Wilpena Pound. On our last evening in the Flinders, we camped deep inside Brachina Gorge, which was a great finale to the Flinders experience, as it displayed a whole range of geological history.
Check the flickr photo set of the Flinders Range (incl. Arkaroola and Wilpena Pound)
Before heading back North towards Lake Eyre and the Simpson Desert, we took the opportunity to refuel at Hawker. Despite the rather disappointing general store, we were lucky to encounter a family who set up a small mobile market with fresh fruit and vegies. Apparently they came into town only once a month. One needs to be lucky in the outback (or desperate to live on and enjoy canned food…). That day we ended up driving another 270kms North deep into the night and straight into Marree, the gateway to the Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks and Lake Eyre…
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