Flinders Ranges & Outback
Hi everyone,
We are back from our 4 day Flinders Ranges & Outback experience! We began our trip on Saturday morning with a little Wicked Camper 4WD bus. We headed north to the Flinders Ranges National Park, a mountain area about 400km north of Adelaide. On our way to Wilpena Pound (the heart of the national park) we visited different nice towns like Clare, Jamestown or Orroroo (you can find the whole trip on our ‘Been there’ page). And the landscape began to change from a ‘green’ area with farming to a drier, but still plant covered mountain side.
Flinders Ranges
We stayed the night (in our car) at the Wilpena Pound Camping Area and got up on Sunday for a very long walk. We wanted to walk onto the top of St Marys Peak, but it was around 45°C (in the shade) and way too hot! The 22km round began in the valley and after the first 8km (around 6km in the sun) we both were really at exhausted. The problem: there was nobody around and no mobile phone connection! So we had to go further. We didn’t make it up to the top and missed the last 1,5km with 200 altitude difference. And it was good. We already had a good view, but if we had gone to the top, I’m not sure if we both would have made it back to the resort…
View from St Marys Peak (not the top)
The way back was also not so easy, even if it went downwards. The first part was more climbing than walking, but we made it! Totally flattered we came back to the visitor centre, where we first ate an ice and jumped into the pool to cool down and recover. As we had no energy to walk any further we decided to do some driving in the afternoon, which was also a good idea. We drove really nice little unsealed roads through the Bunyeroo Valley and Brachina George.
Brachina George
It was really beautiful and pure nature! The next morning we drove further up north into the inland. Here the landscape changed again and we felt really really like in the nowhere. Wide sandy land, towns with a population of 20 and stock (sheep, cows, horses) and native animals (Kangaroos, Emus) walking on the streets…: the real outback!
The endless outback
But as the time went by we drove back southwards in the afternoon. The next morning we visited the Outback Centre in Port Augusta and then made our way back to Adelaide.
Now we are really exhausted of the one day walk and around 1500km driving. We hope you can get an impression of what we saw from the pictures!
See you
Johannes and Verena