Five Bloomfields and a Mighty Big Caravan: Flinders Ranges

Welcome back for another leg of our journey. This time we part ways with the coast and head north from Port Augusta for a week or so.

We left Streaky Bay and our friends the Chapmans and headed straight for Port Augusta where we had arranged to meet Tig's parents Pip & Greg who picked up a Britz pop top 4WD in Adelaide. Port Augusta has a fantastic Information Centre, the Wadlata Outback Centre, where we spend about 2 hours and the adults could have easily spent more. This is a pretty good recommendation in itself as entertaining a 3, 5 & 7 year old in one building for more than an hour is a big call.

Once we had been to the Visitor Centre it was time to head north towards Coober Pedy. With Coober Pedy about 550kms from Port Augusta we decided to cover the distance over two days as the kids travel all right for about 300km. We stopped for the night at a rest area overlooking Harts Lake. The wind was strong but that didn't deter Greg from taking Kai and Maddi for a walk down to the lake, which included crossing a railway line. We had seen trains on it from the rest area so their adventure would have stopped there if it wasn't for Maddi spotting a drain pipe going under the rail line for them to walk through. The pipe’s diameter was about 1.2 metres so for the kids it was easy but us adults had to duck a bit. The three explorers where lucky enough to have a train pass by just after they got through the pipe on their return journey. The wind that night was so strong that by the next morning the water had been pushed across the lake to the eastern side. This revealed an old mining track leading out into the salt pan, which the kids took Thea back to inspect before we left.

Harts Lake Rest Area

Back to the salt pan in the morning

Maddi's secret tunnel under the rail line

Mining track exposed

We drove onto Coober Pedy and after a visitor to the Tourist Centre we set up camp at the Big 4 in town. It wasn't your usual Big 4 with lots of facilities but it did have a swimming pool housed inside a covered water tank in order to keep it cool. The kids and Thea tested it out and the verdict was it was very, very refreshing. While in Coober Pedy we went on a tour run by the caravan park. It included seeing four of the local churches (one inside a dug out), a disused opal mine, an opal shop, a great video about the discovery of opal and mining history and a currently used dug out home. (A dug out is a home dug into the side of the hill, which keeps it nice and cool, but they lack windows.) We also got to try our hand at noodling, which is fossicking through the waste of open cut mines that used dull dozers. Apparently miners that used bull dozers often had a huge loss (Thea thinks it was 40%) of opal due to the method of mining it. We unfortunately didn't make our riches and only found some pieces of gypsum but the girls had fun and wanted to return later in the day. The heat was so bad that this wasn't encouraged and a swim was offered instead.

Coober Pedy dug out church

Earth mounds at Coober Pedy

Trying our luck at Noodling

After two nights in Coober Pedy we turned onto the dirt and drove east to a very small place called William Creek. It basically consists of a pub, runway, house to accommodate the pilots, scenic flight office, some very basic accommodation, amenities block and a few power poles for powered sites. It was stinking hot and we passed the afternoon with board games, paper figurines and ice blocks under the awning trying to catch any breeze. The following morning Pip and Tig took to the skies for a scenic flight over Lake Eyre while Greg, Thea and the kids packed up camp and played games as the day warmed up. Once back from the scenic flight and with the temperature heading well towards the forties we were glad to leave William Creek in our air-conditioned cars by 11.30am.

Tig and Pip's little plane

Lake Eyre had some pinkish colour

Lake Eyre

From William Creek we followed the old Ghan Railway towards Marree stopping for lunch at Coward Springs. Coward Springs as the name suggests has a spring that has been fashioned with railway sleepers into a plunge pool with a framed edge, decking and even a metal pool safety gate. The kids enjoyed a splash in the pool for a couple of minutes while the adults draped our legs over the side in order to pass Kai between us as we hadn't unpacked his swimming vest. Unfortunately there was no shade over the pool but there were some very old she oak trees nearby that provided excellent shade for lunch.

Kids entering Coward Springs

Kai and Thea

The she oaks that was our lunch shade

Our next stop was Lake Eyre South Lookout but first we had a quick side of the road stop to check the car over as Thea and Maddi smelt something burning from inside the car. Thankfully everything was in order and the smell didn't reappear. It was so hot outside the car and with no shelter anywhere in sight it would have been a terrible place to break down. At Lake Eyre South Lookout we had a quick look at the information board and took a few photos then it was back in the car to that beautiful air-conditioned comfort. With the landscape so barren we got a good view of the lake as we drove along so didn't need to hang around at the lookout too long.

Typical view between William Creek and Marree

There are not that many things to see along the road between William Creek and Marree but our maps did have a scenic marker dot called Plane Henge and we did try to guess what this might be, we discovered that Plane Henge scenic location had a lot of amusing structures, one of which was two planes on their tails with their noses in the air. Our other entertainment for this leg of the trip was emu spotting. We saw heaps of them and even had a near miss with one. The silly thing crossed onto the road in front of us, couldn’t decide which side to go off. Once he finally picked a side he discovered that there was a fence just behind the bushes on the side of the road so made another run straight across our nose to the other side. He obviously hadn’t quite had enough of us as we then had a race with him down the road for about a minute or so. For us it was great entertainment and thankfully Tig had his wits about him otherwise road kill emu he would have been.

Plane Henge

Funny sculptures

Emus, emus, everywhere!

Late in the afternoon we pulled into Marree, which is a small derelict looking town with a roadhouse, which is the supermarket, post office, petrol station and anything else you want it to be. Marree does surprisingly have two caravan parks but unfortunately the better looking one was closed probably since we are out of season, however the other one did the job.

Marree Roadhouse

From Marree it was neither the Birdsville Track nor Strzelecki Track for us (this time) as we headed south to the Flinders Ranges stopping at the coal mining town of Leigh Creek for lunch. Being a mining town, it was a little oasis in the middle of nowhere with beautiful green manicured ovals, swimming pools, community centers, tennis courts and lots of shady trees. We ate lunch at the local playground while we watched the tractor mow the oval lawn before continuing on to Wilpena Pound for the night.

Maddi at Leigh Creek Playground

As luck would have it we arrived at the office five minutes before they closed at 5pm, this meant that after a quick chat with the lady she suggested that we could put both vehicles on the first bus bay. This was a large area near the amenities with a big covered picnic area with two tables, sink, hot water and a BBQ. It is normally reserved for tour groups but as none were there we had exclusive use of the area. There are lots and lots of short and long walks into and around Wilpena Pound. We chose a 6km return walk into the Pound to the Old Hills Homestead with an option to add a two km climb to the lookout. The walk starts with a gentle climb on the fire trail and then a short section of walking track to the homestead where we all had a well deserved rest on the verandah, especially the kids. While resting we were greeted by an old man emu and 15 little emu chicks. They walked right up to the homestead and almost along past the veranda before taking off in a rush. It was an incredible sight, and as the girls walked up to the lookout they almost tripped over a couple of the chicks as were too busy looking for snakes (of the jelly variety) to notice the emus until they were almost on top of them. The view from the lookout was worth the effort and almost worth all the coaxing required to get the kids back to the campground. It was another hot day (37 degrees Celsius) and drinks and ice creams were in order in the air-conditioned café/gift shop at the campground. All the kids were pleased with their effort of 8kms, their biggest walk so far. Kai walked most of the way, needing a bit a help on the way home.

Flinders Ranges

Bus Bay 1 Wilpena Pound Campground

Hills Homestead and emus to the right

Emu chicks

Ella Bella our fashion queen

Family photo. Its as good as it gets for us.

Pip and Greg at Wilpena Pound Lookout

Walk back down from the Lookouts

Flinders Ranges

more Flinders Ranges

After two nights in our excellent bus bay it was further south to Yacka, just north of the Clare Valley, where the locals have added a couple of powered caravan sites to the local park and along with showers and toilets created a excellent, cheap overnight stop which we had all to ourselves. On the way we stopped at the quaint town of Quorn for lunch at a little café.

From Yacka we enjoyed the very scenic drive through the Clare Valley to Mintaro where we took on another Maze challenge before heading to the duck pond at Kapunda for lunch. Here we farewelled Greg & Pip who needed to head straight in to Adelaide to return their Britz while we took the self guided McLeods Daughters tour at Freeling including a drink at the Gungellan Hotel, photos at the Gungellan Truck Stop and a drive by of the now privately owned Drovers Run homestead. We managed to time it just right to head through Adelaide during peak hour which was busier than expected and made it to Tig’s cousin Trina’s house to a very warm welcome. After a trick reversing exercise into the driveway and chocking for the jocky wheel not seen since Ormiston Gorge we settled into Trina and Angus’s house for a few relaxing days in Adelaide. Their two kids Amy and Luke were brilliant with our kids and Kai in particular loved the toys, especially the train set. We opted to enjoy some slower days and did manage to get down to Glenelg for lunch one day and visit Trina’s church on Sunday morning before getting back on the road heading for Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road.