Blog 10 - Flinders Ranges - 4WD adventure - Wednesday 15/7/2015

Wednesday 15th July

It’s our two week, travelling anniversary. The water here has done amazing things to my hair, well not really I have Lego man hair that is; it is stuck to my head like a helmet similar to how Lego men look.

The top of Wilpena pound and the peaks of Flinders ranges are hidden under low clouds and the grey skies are threatening rain with possible hail. It’s a cool 8 degrees this morning as we check out the 4 WD self-drive tour brochures at the general store, before heading to Merna Mora Station 15 mins down the road where the tours start. I’m not usually keen on 4 WD type adventures but the photos indicate a not too rough ride and promises some ruins worth looking at.

Merna Mora is another huge station covering 130,000 acres with a mix of merino sheep and cattle on it plus tourist accommodation for camping and on site units.  We had chosen no.2 Heritage Trail. Its description read as follows: “An informative trek through time. Explore old Ghan Railway line, fettler’s cottages and remarkable lime kilns. Follow historic bullock wagon tracks up onto northern Elder Range. Trace the hilltops of Bunbinyunna Range for panoramic views. Sites of interest including fossil beds and early architecture.”

It read like an interesting and not too demanding track and to be honest the first half was pretty true to form. We paid our fee, collected our map, key for gates, two page “points of interest” notes and a long verbal explanation of all the details on the points of interest. Like lambs to the slaughter we headed to our car. A family group with three 4WDs were just ahead of us and had disappeared out of sight by the time we had heard the same long list of details, as they had.

First of many gates I opened

The first gate was out the one we had come in at the station, so out I hop open gate, Moose drives through, close it and hop back in. Drive down the road to the start of the drive another gate, repeat the hop out, and hop in procedure. Who needs gym? We drove on a very good track. We saw the area where Chinese pioneers grew vegetables and supplied many local mining towns.

 After a few false turns trying to follow the signage we walked up a creek bed to the Double Arch Culverts on the old Ghan railway line built in 1880’s. We fumbled with flicking from the map to the “points of interest pages” before coming to point 7 when suddenly, in brackets there was reference to how far these points were apart. Moose was confused when I read these out to him. Turns out the “kilometres in brackets next to the descriptions started back at the first gate. So a bit of mathematics was involved to bring us up to date and the trail got easier to follow.

At the top of a hill sat the ruins of the Mern Merna Fettlers’ cottages, these were what all that was left of a railway settlement. One half of the larger building had been a school where up to 20 kids attended right up to 1957 although the train line closed in 1955. 

The community was made up of about ten families. In the distance to the South west were the remains of the Fels family settlement. It was built around 1910 and like so many in the day it was a big family with 13 children. As we headed through points 8 noting the steel railway sleepers halfway through the cutting which had been used on much of the Ghan line because timber was not readily available, I commented to Moose that I was quite enjoying the drive and it wasn’t too rough at all. Warning bells should have gone off as the last time I made such a declaration I broke every bone in my ankle!

The next couple of points of interest included driving along a creek bed, looking at Lime kiln ruins which had made concrete reside from Dolomite rock, which was used in building many of the culverts and bridge abutments for the railway.

Point 14 of the 43 highlights had us sitting under the original overland telegraph line put there about in 1870, followed by instructions of how to get from the track across the bitumen road onto another track. This is where I realised those words I spoke earlier were a mistake. The instructions said …… “Continue through steep creek crossing with caution. Extreme care steep creek.” (The word steep used twice for a reason).

We headed downwards into the creek bed, the decline was so steep the towbar tongue bottomed out, Moose had to get out and remove it so we could do the steep entries and exits which were now clearly the way forward. I was still a little delusional at this point and thought it was a one off.

Photos just don't capture the angle of these dips

Point 20 is rambling about the local vegetation while I internally scream “I want to go home” The track is called Bullocky’s Pass. I swear they have left it in its natural rock infested state as each wheel of the Ute seems to tip toe not so gently over them. God knows how people in bullock wagons coped with this.

Time for Lunch

The view is pretty good!

The family group were parked up in front of us at the look out. They had a fire and bbq going and the kids were ringing their grandparents to tell them how much fun they were having, as there was good phone signal up here. I wanted to ring a helicopter to bring me back down to where we started but instead sat and had a picnic with Moose then walked a bit further to get a better look at the view at which point the shrill of my phone alerted me to a call from Jess. There I was on top of a mountain with not a building in sight, a cold wind blowing and my heart racing from the terror of the drive (I do not exaggerate) and Jess as usual, seems to know I needed a chat.

Again I had convinced myself we were over the worst. How wrong can one be? Our next instructions stated “veer left. Extremely Rocky for 100m. Proceed with caution” Now a 
100m may not seem a long distance, and on a regular road it isn't but by god on an EXTREMELY rocky one it feels like 100 kilometres. My hips were screaming their protest. I tried to meditate to relax them but the vibrations of the rock smashing wasn't helping. The name of this challenging road – yes they called it a road; was aptly “Devils Spine”

Wagon Gap – geez Louise. Warnings of “proceed with caution and steep descent so select low gear” did not prepare us for the 90 degree angle our vehicle would find itself in as it went down one steep bank and up another. Moose worked hard at trying to go down at an angle to take some of the sharpness out of the bottom. Most of the time there was still a grinding noise as he aimed back up the other side.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I seen we were going out a gate, though I was too sore to get out and open it so Moose had to take on that duty. We crossed the main “Scenic drive “road and hindsight tells me, we should of just headed home there and then but we had a map and we were going to follow it. Why did I not read ahead??? Next instructions “Stop here and make sure vehicle is in 4WD low range as from here it is a long steep pull of 800 metres to Hearn’s Cairn Lookout”.  Long & Steep was an understatement, the Ute was pointed at the sky as we headed upwards.

Here we met the other cars as they parked at the look out. My stomach was in my mouth as I realised we needed to go back from whence we’d come.

One of the drivers got out to tell us his radio channel in case we got in trouble – we have no radio! There is a walking trail from here but neither of us is interested. Even Moose is finding this hard going. The Cairn was erected by the Hearn family and I’m not sure if it was because they loved Frank Hearn or because they didn’t like him very much at all as this is where his ashes are.

At this point I decide to look ahead on the map and spy another loop to yet another high lookout, we work out how to bypass it as I seriously don’t want to go up another steep, long climb. We start the slow descent over incredibly rocky track to the bottom of the ranges and open the last gate to a main road. Where I could cry from relief as we drive past Cooee Crest which is where the bullock cueing yards are and return our gate key to Merna Mora Station.

Moose says to tell you the scenery was spectacular – I personally was so sore and stressed I hardly noticed.

It was 3.12 and we are back on flattish ground. We thankfully head back to Rawnsley Park station. Bonnie was asleep through most of the track, only showing concern when she was sliding towards the door on one of the steep climbs. Moose queued the car up for a quick squirt of water to remove the wads of mud stuck to it. The kettle was on the minute I got back to the van for a well-deserved coffee.  At the same time the clouds finally let go of all the rain they’d held onto all day for a hard and short downpour. Campers around us sit warming themselves around their camp fires. 

We bunker down for a quiet cosy night of TV.

Wilderness Moose & Rocky Moz signing off x