South Australia: The Flinders Ranges and Saunders Gorge Sanctuary

How will I ever make sense of all these stars out here?  Feeling so tiny yet a part of it all, standing bleary-eyed on a Flinders Ranges red-dirt slope.  And what about the dark spaces between the stars?

These were my unanswered questions at the Rawnsley Park campground in the witching hour.  I guess it’s OK not to know the full picture.  Dan and I smashed the sameness of our working lives with a five day trip to the Flinders Ranges in April and a July weekend getaway to Saunders Gorge Sanctuary.  The little Outdoorsy Odyssey gets an airing on regular weekend days, on the crags of Morialta for me, and endless mountain bike single track goodness of the Adelaide Hills for Dan.  Despite it being one of the wettest Adelaide winters in recent memory, we had some blue skies too.  But going away is very different from the half-dayers.

One pleasant afternoon in April we pitched our new glam tent (you can stand up in it!) at Melrose.  My guy took to his wheels while I hiked to view the quartzite Cathedral Rock, nestled high in a dark gully on the slopes of Mount Remarkable.  Frustratingly the trail stops before you can get close to the rock, so I stepped through a fence and moved a little closer for a marginally better view of the tantalising rock.  Ah Melrose, if only you could build a good-quality hiking track up to Cathedral Rock to complement your classy network of international-standard mountain bike trails.  The town attracts both hikers and riders, which is a lovely dynamic – Over the Edge bike shop sells bikes, accessories, t-shirts and great coffee and cakes, plus a row of clocks set to the times of other MTB precincts of the world.  Melrose is a place where Dan and I can be on holidays and be satisfied with our respective taking to the trails.

I could either give someone real feedback about Cathedral Rock, or tell myself that taking it in from a distance at sunset keeps the mystery strong.  Also I had to get off the hillside before last light because I couldn’t remember the rest of the 5km loop.  I was treated to beautiful dusk purple colours and made it back to camp OK.

Dusk at Melrose

The next day I went up Mount Remarkable in glorious weather.  This well-loved hill climb was 12.5km return of sidling along and gently up, with what must be the biggest amount of scree of all the South Australian hikes.  After my Lakes District Great Gable scree incident I could only smile at this scree – the path generously gives flatness cut into the hillside and no need to skate down steep ground.  There was a bare-bones wreck of a light aircraft which crashed in 1980, downhill of the track on its scree resting place.  A local said to me the wreckage travels down the slope a little every year, behaving like a glacier.

 

Scree & the Willochra Plain

While hiking the hillside in open woodland there were massive views of the Willochra Plain, but at the Mount Remarkable summit the yaccas and trees obscured things.  When I stopped there to snack on my scroggin with chocolate I heard a constant buzzing, to then see this bug suspended in the space about a foot above my head.  I much preferred its company to the bull ants (those who know me well are aware I have an ant thing).  On a brief part of the descent I had a dragon lizard for company, plenty of time for lunch, then finally near the trailhead Dan magically appeared on his bike, “There you are!!” and when he rode away he carved up some dirt slopes, busting some fancy moves – look at us both in our happy places. 

Mount Remarkable - with photobomb yacca on the right

Autumn sun

Monday northbound 

 

Aah the Flinders Ranges, where the beauty always outweighs the cluster of mozzie bites and a persistent sore throat.  We relocated to Rawnsley Park on my birthday.  On the one-year anniversary of being on Kala Pattar, looking at Everest, I stood on the ridge of the gentle Ulowdna Range and looked at Rawnsley Bluff.  The late afternoon light settled easily onto its orange rocks and greenery of pines, eucalypts and spinifex.  At this point the Flinders Ranges are semi-arid with a palpable sense of remoteness.  The Clem’s Corner trail sidled the south side of the range, and at a steep drop-away we both delighted in the airy feeling.  It was like we were in the amphitheatre before vast flat lands, then the Elder Range and the Chace Range were the stage, all in that golden light as the day grew old.  I made out the stripes effect running across the ranges.  Dan had the buzz of discovering a hiking trail that was very rideable, backtracking to see what I was up to.  Everything came together – a personal reward for getting past the tricky times this past year or more.

Clem's Corner trail behind Rawnsley Park - ideal for both modes of transport

Don’t you love it when you have to leave your sleeping bag in the middle of the night to pee in the wilds, but then receive the joy of millions of stars and constellations you don’t usually see this time of year?  While I tried to make order of the skies at Rawnsley, three shooting stars happened in quick succession!  What does it mean?  While the kangaroos shuffled around me in the darkness.  Awesome.

I don’t know what it means, but Yoshifumi Miyazaki from Chiba University believes our bodies relax in pleasant, natural settings because they evolved there.*

 

On the last whole day before returning home I hiked up Rawnsley Bluff, Wilpena Pound.  Dan powered ahead of me on foot in case he wanted to trail-run.  I took in more orangey rocks and other riots of colour at my pace, and found the ascent to be cruisier than expected.  The views were spectacular as I made my way up the steepness, and at the summit cairn.  It’s good to know whether steepness means risky vertiginous (where’s my climbing gear?) or just nice-steep, and fortunately Rawnsley is the latter.  Once on the ridge of the Pound, there’s a detour of about 1.5 km return to check out Wilpena Pound and perhaps sprawl out on an idyllic flat rock in the sun.

View from Rawnsley Bluff

 

Wilpena Pound

There be dwagons

I loved the simplicity of noting the time and the kilometres for when to take little breaks.  Other than that just follow the trail, look at the flora, rocks, birds, insects and the vistas.  Say hello to fellow hikers although it was pretty quiet.

 

Later that day back at camp I chilled out, read with a cup of tea and a biscuit, and did stretches.  Dan came back from his afternoon ride with a report on what he saw.  We watched the skies turn to mauve at dusk and then the stars returned in their finery.  “This is the life,” I said.

Rawnsley Bluff

Saunders Gorge Sanctuary

This private conservation property is between Mount Pleasant and Mannum, to the east of the Adelaide Hills, and was a great opportunity for Dan and me to get away for a weekend in winter.  This place had a beautiful gorge of its namesake, and wide open grassland hills – something for hikers, 4WD’ers and mountain bikers.  Well, not the single track but Dan enjoyed the 4WD ways and some grassy cross-country sections.  The Nature Lodges were solar powered, and came with pot-belly fireplaces and decking with your own special view of native shrubs going downhill to meet the Saunders Creek and its line of stately gums.  The owners Brenton and Nadine did an amazing job maintaining this property, and they fought a bushfire that came close to the buildings a couple of years ago.

Saunders Gorge

I did a three-hour loop along the gorge, hoofing it up the hill to Shepherds Lookout, then zig-zagged down a slope to find the next creekline along, to the north.  There were trail markers in the Gorge, a small section of the Lavender Federation trail in line with the lookout, then occasional markers in the other creek.  But mostly it was about following the topo map Brenton gave me, so this added a bit of calling upon the ol’ skills which was good!

 

I was advised the creek crossings in the Gorge might be a wet-boot experience, but I scouted enough rocks and narrow sections to jump across.  The Gorge was pretty with all the water babbling through, and rockiness almost like (you guessed it) the Flinders Ranges.  The bare hills in a green time of year reminded me of the Lakes District for about a minute, until I saw the familiar gums and kangaroos again.  The view of Collar Rock was striking and almost creepy, with purple-blue-grey clouds behind it. It was a round rock formation on the opposite ridge in the shape of a mannequin’s headless neck.  Down at the creek I walked inside a burnt out tree trunk, spooky, black and smelling of smoke.  Near there, I joined a rough vehicular track and returned with what seemed like the same galahs for company in the branches.

 

Collar Rock

 

Burnt out tree trunk

Kangaroos on slopes

 

I could relate to the article where Miyazaki makes that comment about relaxing in natural settings.  Sometimes I let out a sigh of relief when I’m hiking.  I paused on a hillside and watched with wonder at the kangaroos hopping along an improbably steep slope.  Later I leaned over a rock on higher ground and tilted my shoulders forward, towards the grassy downward slope and creekline below – spinny.  At the lookout a 4WD’er said to me, “You’re keen and eager!”

 

I replied with “something like that.”  I might have thought the same of them when I saw the ridiculously steep ‘rough option’ on their path.

 

The next morning before we left I tramped up to a ridgetop I’d been eyeing from the lodge window, and its high point showed me my tracks from the day before.  Views in the other direction were of plains that went on forever, but with a twinge of sadness that Monday was getting close.

The weekend also came with more cups of tea and pre-dinner beers and awesome cheese at the Nature Lodge.  This was followed by pub dinner in Mannum’s Pretoria Hotel and stepping down to the Murray’s edge, the water reflecting the night lights of the houseboats.

Perhaps the feels are so great because of our evolution in nature.  Therefore I suggest Mondays are highly unnatural, although they do pay for the petrol, the new hiking boots and all that.  I don’t suppose beer and awesome cheese were in our evolution too?

*National Geographic, ‘This is your brain on nature’, January 2016

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El Niño Tasmanian Summer

At Savage River there was a dinky little wooden jetty, where I decided it was warm enough to plunge into the moment of this idyllic watery forest place.  Dan waited patiently for me.  OK, it was mountain water, so I was breathless and out within a minute, chilled limbs and all.  But I’d do it again!

After some ups and downs, I’m glad to report I immersed myself in the Tarkine Forests of Tasmania.  Just the thing for when a girl’s First World problems seem big enough to need flushing out with temperate wilderness in summer.

A big kudos goes to Dan who endured much road-tripping across the north and west of Tassie, when all he really wanted to do was do more mountain biking around Hobart.

The first forest dose was Tarkine Forest Adventures at Dismal Swamp, 50 km out of Stanley in the northwest corner of the island.  The slide from the visitor centre and café is a super novel way to travel to the forest swamp or sinkhole floor.  I slid much faster for the second half, thinking this is what a luge must feel like!  Woo-hoo!  The forest boardwalk down there was serene and lovely, with sculptures inspired by the blackwoods, freshwater crayfish and the spirit of the country.  Then at the cafe we stuffed ourselves with coffee and double helpings of scones with jam and cream.

Awesome slide, Tarkine Forest Adventures at Dismal Swamp

Several hours later we arrived in Corinna on the Pieman River, where there is no internet, no phone coverage and no TV, and the rainforest reaches to the back door of your cottage.  Bliss!  Dan and I chilled out.

The Pieman River cruise was our big activity on the Friday.  On board the Arcadia II, built in the 1930s, I was particularly keen to see the dense Tarkine forest and how it hugs the waterline for miles, with beautiful reflections.  Also it’s not as busy as other parts of Tassie.  The boat was small enough for us to dangle our legs over the edge on the bow.  After a 90 minute ride we approached the Pieman Heads and you can make out the surf crashing on the horizon.  We disembarked and wandered the river mouth and the sands in idyllic blue-sky weather, with packed lunches in hand.  The shacks here were windswept and frontier-looking.  The beach was untidy with chunky ancient logs, down from the forest to their resting place.  

The Pieman River

The return journey gave space to wonder at this remote landscape without the challenge of carrying big packs over boofy terrain.  Our hosts Norm and Lorraine both had a good dry sense of humour, classic for Australian tour guides, and a vast knowledge of the area.  The next day I went on the shorter Sweetwater cruise to learn more about the area and its interesting history.   

The forest reclaims its own.  Norm said that the oldest locals, now in their nineties, remember the Pieman as sludgy and with degraded banks when they were very young, from the gold mining.  But you wouldn’t know, because it is a pristine forest once more.  Even the old building foundations were unrecognisable.

People are allowed to bush camp along the Pieman River State Reserve.  They take their dinghies to favourite spots like Lover’s Corner – named after a couple who lived there and prospered from the gold rush in the 19^th century.  Visitors camp among brown top stringybarks, a eucalyptus tree known to grow as high as 90 metres, with a life cycle of 300 to 400 years.

The fires that closed the Western Explorer Road were around 30 km north of Corinna, plus the nearby Mount Donaldson trail was closed and the air smoky a lot of the time.  A hotel staff member at Stanley said there was no loss of property but people were, of course, feeling sad for the loss of thousand-year old trees and the wildlife.  The Mawbanna area fire was part of over 100 fires across the state this summer, started by lightning strikes.  I learned that the peat soils can smoulder for months until you get heavy enough rains (like 100ml!)  It was hard to imagine tall-tree forests ablaze.  At time of writing, over 50 days have passed since the fires started and only now the Tasmania Fire Service can start to reduce their operations.

Earlier on the road trip near Stanley, we drove to Boat Harbour Beach under smoke, with yellow skies and headlights on.  We almost decided to keep driving because of the smoke.  Arriving at this pretty beach, we paddled our feet and checked out the colourful rocks there, along with other visitors. I put my sunglasses on to avoid ash in my eyes.  Yes, there were little flakes of ash blowing from the south and the sun’s filter gave everything a coppery glow.  You could even look at the sun and its weird colour.  This was our freaky outing to Boat Harbour Beach.

Boat Harbour Beach under smoke

On the Saturday Dan and I went for a comfortable hike to Savage River, less than three hours return.  You can rent kayaks but predictably I was happy walking under the shady canopy of the rainforest.  It was a dry rainforest, being February and in the middle of a Tasmanian drought and El Niño.  Neat duckboard steps led us past pale mosses (that could do with some watering), lichens and dirt-covered fungi.  Glimpses of the big river were brief but more special for it.  

River-through-trees views

Savage River swimming place 

In the afternoon Dan went for a ride on fire tracks (that were open), while I needed to respond to the beckoning steps further downstream, the Sweetwater cruise being the way.  In this smaller craft, Norm travelled us over to get close-ups of the Huon Pines on the banks.  Some of these beauties can be 2,000 years old.  They are the oldest tree species in Australia, and when they die down, clones can regenerate from the old trunk.  The wooden steps from the bank near Lover’s Corner seemed to lead up to nowhere!  Actually, they go to an enchanted forested gully with a cliff and Lover’s Falls, which were a February trickle but that was OK.  The steepness of the gully and the balcony feeling from the boardwalk was quite something, and checking out tree fern groves with trunks like I’d never seen before – 200 years old perhaps, and furry like Chewbacca.  I shouldn’t give too many spoilers in case you go, but it was a lost world in there.

Tree ferns, Lover's Falls gully

Then to add to the awesomeness, Norm had a Tasmanian tiger (aka thylacine) story.  Something about a winter morning at the Pieman Heads shacks with no people or pets around, and unexplainable animal tracks.  I experienced the wonder and goosebumps that is a Western Tassie resident telling a thylacine story.

Mount Field greatness 

There were only two days left for visiting Mount Field National Park, both of them with crapola weather forecasts.  I had my heart set on the Tarn Shelf circuit, that it could be the Holy Grail of day hiking. Waterfalls and forests give way to gnarled alpine high country and tarns, only a 1¼ hour drive from Hobart.  Because of the whiteout risks, Dan insisted on accompanying me and put off his riding for a bit longer.

It was about a half an hour drive from the park entrance to the Lake Dobson car park, up a good unsealed road.  From here we layered up (it was below 10 degrees!) and walked along the lake to find ourselves in the Pandani Grove. It is the world’s tallest heath species and looks like a palm.  Surrounded by these, along with colourful mountain shrubs festooned with berries, more mosses and silvery eucalyptus trunks, I was in fairyland.

Dreamy Pandani Grove

Mountain berries

We quickly gained about 200 metres in height, past ski lodges, and marching along duckboard into the whiteout.  The winds were strong enough to make our extremities ache and the rain was really cold.  We looked into clouds at Lake Seal Lookout (1240m) and a few minutes after that decided it wasn’t worth it and turned around.  Descending, the clouds parted to give views of Lake Seal, and the explore was enough to get a thrilling sense of the alpine environment.  We descended among small boulders, and twisted trunks all glistening with yellow, red and grey of the peeling bark.  The Tarn Shelf walk would have been six hours, but because of the weather situation we were back in just over two.  

Lake Seal

  
For the record, Dan lovingly helped me out of a confusion of boulders and back on the trail – such a good thing that he came along.

Back near the park entrance and low altitude, we rounded things out nicely with short walks to the graceful Russell and Horseshoe Falls.  Typical of mountains, the weather was very settled here.  Now I have unfinished business with Mount Field and Gokyo.  The two mountain regions could talk to each other and compare notes!!  But I love it.  I am back in Hobbiton and it makes me happy to know those mountains are there and I can access them again one day. 

Indoorsy Odyssey 

If you like beer, when in Hobart take the Cascade Brewery tour.  It is Australia’s oldest brewery, pumping out the pale ale since 1832.  Until 1992 the bell chimed four times a day for the workers to have their refreshments.  I swear I felt the good energy at a nook by the bottom of the stairs where the beer breaks were enjoyed.

 


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