Flinders Ranges Trip August 2010 - Day 3 and 4.

Once again we got up as the sun came up and packed up after a coffee. We continued south but the road tended to be several kilometres from the dog fence now, although we took a few trips down some side roads to the border and saw some ruins on the other side of the border but couldn't go across to take any photos. Then after slowing down around a corner I ended up with an emu trying to force me off the road. It ran into the side of the car, luckily the damage wasn't too bad, for either me or the emu (it looked confused for a bit and then ran off). The Paj ended up with some damage to the front drivers side panel between the door and the wheel. The main downside was that the drivers door would only a foot or two which made it much harder getting in and out to open the roughly 40 million gates we passed through on the rest of this trip (OK maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but not much).

Continuing south we passed through Silverton, stopping briefly for a photo.

Then it was on to Broken Hill to refuel and grab a bite to eat. Followed by one of the most boring drives in the world, across the Barrier Highway before stopping at Yunta where Brett topped up his fuel and I probably should have done the same, as with his new larger fuel tank he could almost have outlasted the lightly sipping Paj and I never would have heard the end of it. Then it was north from Yunta along the road to Arkaroola. We stopped at the ruins of Waukaringa for a few photos and ended up spending a fair bit of time looking over the remains of a gold mine situated on top a nearby hill and trying to work out what a long hand built stone tunnel was for.

On our maps we spotted an abandoned farm a bit further north and off the main road, so we went to investigate. It was pretty modern and probably only abandoned within the last 10-20 years. The maps showed another track leading out to the main road, so we started to explore and found it hadn't been used in many years but we ended up finding a great campsite of the beaten track. We set up camp shielded from the wind and gathered some wood for a campfire and settled in for the night.

The next morning we gave the sun a chance to warm things up a bit before we climbed out of bed as it had got a little chilly overnight. The disused road we were on continued to get worse and at times we ended up going across country as the washouts were too deep to drive through. We found another old set of ruins which looked like they had been used by miners or farmers. We found a metal stamp that we didn't identify until later on when we went for a tour of the mine at Blinman, it was part of the packaging for some explosives. Then finally we were back on the main road and we headed to the Flinders Ranges via  Erudina and Martin's Well. Along the way we stopped at Pugilist Hill lookout for a few photos.

Then it was onto the main road through the Ranges where we stopped at Rawnsley Lookout before heading off to have a look at Sacred Canyon.

Then as we still had plenty of daylight left we stopped at the Cazneaux tree -

and we continued on to the scenic loop around the national park seeing Bunyeroo and Brachhina Gorges.

We then went and checked into the Willow Springs station as we wanted to do the Skytrek 4WD track the following day. We set up camp at a great spot and went for a drive Stokes Hill lookout to the sun set over Wilpena Pound. Then it was back to camp for a great hot shower and some dinner and drinks around the campfire. Brett helped me experiment with taking photos using just moon light.