FLINDERS RANGES AND SKYTREK

March 23:
The Flinders are an ancient mountain range with rocks dating back over 500 million years. The rugged and arid scenery is breathtaking and affords incredible views and fantastic hikes. The Central Flinders are organized in a national park 280 miles (450km) north of Adelaide and comprise rougly 100,000 hectares. The most famous attraction in this area is Wilpena Pound, a crater-like indentation surrounded by jagged peaks.

All around the national park there are plenty of opportunities to engage your four-wheel drive. Most of the tracks are on private land and permits must be obtained. These trails are rarely challenging and scenery and wildlife are their main attraction. An excellent brochure with detailed descriptions of the tracks and their highlights is available from the Hawker gas station which doubles as the visitor center. Tiny Hawker is also the last source for all kinds of supplies such as gas and food and has a post office and public telephones, and we stocked up here before heading into the boonies.

Probably the most renowned trail around is here is Skytrek on the Willow Springs Station, a 70,000 acre sheep property. It is about 38 miles (60km) long and takes roughly 6 hours to complete, including several stops to enjoy the breathtaking views. It was originally constructed to assist with mustering sheep and to build several mustering yards and mostly follows the ridge tops.

We had called the day before to book for the Trek to ensure that we could pick up our permit. As the owners are busy running the farm, they are not always at the residence. The Hawker gas station can issue permits, too; we called Brendan and Carmel Reynolds directly at (08) 8648 0016. Guided tours can also be arranged. We arrived at the property around 9am (the track has to be started by 10am) and chatted with Carmel for a while who provided us with an excellent brochure and map for the track. Along the way, 40 markers correlate to bits of information on the flyer about the history of the area, the farm, sheeping industry and local fauna and flora. It was very interesting and entertaining! We found this fact particularly intriguing: "A quota of 1200 kangaroos are culled out by a professional shooter on this property each year which is about equal to the number of sheep sold off each year." With a ratio of at least 2 kangaroos per human in Australia, these animals are quickly becoming a nuisance and threat to farmers.

The track starts out with a sandy bottom along a beautiful gorge. There are several spots where Aboriginal engravings can be observed on the rock walls. Native pines and river red gums grow along the track; gum trees are impressive in their ability to adapt to harsh environments and we had already seen quite a range of shapes over the last few weeks. We crossed a few dry creeks and passed through many gates. Several fences are constructed to keep the sheep within boundaries but we actually saw more emus than sheep. These large flightless birds can run up to 30mph (48km/h) but appear permanently befuddled. In places, the track was quite rocky but never really tough. Most of Skytrek could be driven with a 2WD; 4WD is only needed for the clearance and low range for some pretty steep hill climbs in the second half of the trail (pic01). We had already discovered that 4wheeling in Australia usually means going onto a remote, unpaved road which does not necessarily involve tricky obstacles but requires a reliable vehicle with high clearance. Most rigs are equipped with long-range gas tanks (950 miles or 1500km) and additional water supplies; our rock-crawling setup is very unusual around here and definitely provokes a lot of interest and curious questions.

We passed through an ancient sea bed where wave ripples can be observed in some rock surfaces. This is testament to the history of this old continent which was once covered by huge seas and lakes.

Further down, we reached Old Moxan's Hut (pic02) where station employees used to live until the early 60ies. It was built around the turn of the century and is one of many historic buildings in the Flinders. Skytrek passes through a protection area for the shy and rare yellow footed rock wallabies and the government has granted users of the track limited access to this area. The animals are protected and you're very lucky if you see one.

Now we started to climb the mountains towards Mount Caernarvon, one of the highest vehicle access points in the Flinders. Some of the ascents were positively steep and the views were dramatic. From Mount Caernarvon, we could overlook the Wilpena Pound (pic03) and Flinders Ranges National Park. The rugged peaks are extremely beautiful in their starkness.

Towards the end of Skytrek, we detoured for 4 miles (7km) to Skull Rock (pic04), an impressive rock formation probably formed by calcium run-off. Finally, we returned to Willow Springs Homestead and handed back our key.

Back on National Park roads, we continued to explore some of the phenomenal gorges and peaks of this area. We paid the daily entrance fee of $7 at the self-registration booth. We had learned the hard way that exact change is usually needed to buy permits in National Parks around Australia as entrance booths are rarely manned. The roads through the park are all unpaved but in very good condition and easily accessible by two-wheel drive. We stopped at several lookouts to take in the spectacular scenery of Banyeroo Valley (pic05). It was later in the afternoon and the warm light brought out the colors in the rocks. We continued through Banyeroo Gorge and passed several bushcamping (backcountry) sites which offered no facitilies but beckoned to the visitor with their beautiful, quiet setting. As we weren't quite ready yet to call it a day, we pushed on to Brachina Gorge. The National Park Service has installed several signs with information about the various rock types - it was mindboggling to read that most material was older than 500 million years! In fact, these mountains were high and mighty before Australia split from the super-continent Gondwana and journeyed north to its current location about 15 million years ago! We found Brachina Gorge to be one of the most stunning features in the park - the colors in the rock seemed to be ablaze and the rugged solitude was peaceful. We traveled along the river bed for a while; it was mostly dry and we crossed shallow water only once (pic06). With the jagged rocks this is a bad place to be caught without a spare tire and higher clearance might come in handy, though it is not necessary. Every so often, an inquisitive kangaroo would eye us from the side of the road but they rarely found us intimidating enough to scatter.

With a bounty of hiking trails available for all abilities and interests, it is easy to spend several days in this fantastic area but we pushed on into the true Outback.

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