Flinders Ranges

Glass Gorge

Flinders Ranges

Flinders Ranges

16/5/2012  -  Up fairly early this morning to a beautiful day.  A little chilly to start with but still beautiful.  We are heading out to do some sightseeing today and check out more of the Flinders Ranges.  We had brekky, I packed some sandwiches for lunch and we headed out.  Our first stop was Wilpena Pound mainly so we can get some mobile and internet service to pay the Telstra bill and let the girls know we are okay and where we are.  We had a look around while we were there but are glad we decided to stay at Rawnsley Station now.  Wilpena Pound was okay but lots of trees and not a lot of sunshine coming through and some of the sites were tight.  Fuel was $1.75 a litre there.  We then went up Stokes Hill Lookout and the scenery was breathtaking, in more ways than one.  The wind was freezing, but the views of the ranges were worth it. The colours, contours and different shapes of these ranges are so beautiful. It was then on to Appealinna Ruins  where the rocky remains of one of our pioneering families, Joseph and Sarah Wills family home is and there is also ruins of a Mine Manager’s home and various other mine workers huts.  They used to mine copper in this area.  It was easy to see the Mine Managers house was built so much better than the Wills’ house was.  There was documentation on each ruin so it was really interesting to read all about Joseph and Sarah’s lives and all the trouble Joseph had with the Mine owners and the other landholders.  Then it was on to Blinman, an old copper mining town.  There are still many old workers cottages in the town and other old buildings and an old copper mine just out of town they take tours through.  We had Moko there and drove onto the Glass Gorge via a dirt and sometimes corrugated road.  The gorge was great with lots of really interesting rocks.  Most of them were flat just like a thick tile.  Parts of the cliffs there looked like they were made up of tiles stacked on top of each other.  We could have spent ages there but pressed on to Parachilna.  On the way there we came across a lookout. I called it a self made lookout, because it didn’t look like a dozer had made the track.  We went up, up, up to the top of this hill and wow, what a great view from the top.  (It was well worth all the fingernail marks in the seat). We crossed Oratunga Creek that was a big rocky dry creek bed and after that the landscape just flattened out with some ranges in the distance but it was really hard to believe only a few minutes ago we were surround by them. Parachilna was only a small town with a great looking pub called the Prairie Hotel that is apparently well known for its great food.  The old Ghan Railway line used to run through the town too. We ate our lunch down the road from there and we had some great views of the mountains.  From here we headed back to camp via Brachina Gorge.  The rocks exposed along  the gorge date from 500 to 650 million years old and age from west to east.  This was a great drive even though the road was dirt and corrugated but the gorge was well worth it.  Most of the drive through it was up Billy Creek, a dry, rocky creek bed with cliffs either side of it and a few puddles of water here and there.   After we came out of the gorge we drove back to the main road and back to camp.  What a great day and what great places we have seen today.  We have taken heaps of photos of the ranges but none of them will do justice to the beauty of this place.