Shortly after we have left Port Augusta the landscape changes dramatically, and what a welcome change it is! The hills are covered in lush green. The creeks carry water. We haven’t seen this for weeks, not since we left the Atherton Tablelands. For 5 weeks and 7,000 km all rivers and creeks that we have crossed were bone-dry. The only exceptions, West, South, and East Alligator River in Kakadu National Park, are tidal waters, estuaries, fed by the sea. This is an arid country.
A new feature begins to dominate the scenery: Red River Gums, beautiful, majestic trees that tower over the landscape. And there are emus, lots of emus. This seems to be a wonderful region.
However, dozens of farm ruins dot the plains and tell a different story about droughts, bush fires, and floods. About promise, disappointment, and eventually failure. The climate has proven to be totally unreliable. Don’t make a mistake: Even now there are way more dry creeks than ones that carry a bit of water.
But there is no denial: It’s springtime, and we are eager to soak in the green, yellow, and purple hues of the blooming flowers and bushes. We are so tired of grey spinifex grass!
The Flinders Ranges are a bushwalker’s paradise. We set up our tent at a stunning campsite at Wilpena Pound, and emus and kangaroos that roam the (dry) river bed are regular visitors. The Pound is a geological feature, a wall of mountains around a natural amphitheatre of around 17 km in diameter. We climb up two of these mountains, Mount Ohlssen-Bagge, where we take the whole family (including kids and grandparents), and St. Mary’s Peak that only Claudia and I conquer. Both are hard, steep climbs over loose gravel and rocky outcrops, but the views are rewarding. In the distance, the gleaming expanses of Lake Torrens dominate the scenery. No, it's not water reflecting the sunlight. Lake Torrens is usually a dry salt flat. It has only been filled with water once in the past 150 years. Have I told you that this is an arid continent?
Hard to believe, but hundreds of millions of years ago a huge inland sea covered this ancient landscape, formed layers of sediments that hardened under the pressure. The sea receded, the layers tilted upright and started eroding. Narrow gorges in these folds provide an insight into our Earth’s early history. We drive through them — the cobblestone-sized gravel is brutal on our car — and admire the different colours all representing a different stage of this geological timeline.
We had to make a detour to get to the Flinders Ranges, and for a while we had toyed with the idea to remove them from our itinerary. We are glad that we didn’t!
[Port Augusta, 12.-13. September]
[Wilpena Pound, 13.-18. September]
