On Foot Through the Flinders Ranges

BY A. Salkin, December 1955 - january 1956

It was a collection of Kodachrome colour slides that first drew our attention to the Flinders Range. The sweep of great valleys and the sudden upthrust of the mountains immediately appealed to us, but, more than that, there was rich colour and a pleasant absence of scrub.

We finally decided to go after a weekend trip to Mt Torbreck. Eight hours bashing through scrub, snow and slush, and we began to see the Flinders as a paradise for bush-walkers. So in early July' we packed our rucksacks and left Melbourne.

At the head of Spencer's Gulf we first glimpsed the beauty that we were to find throughout our trip through the Range – a subtle beauty that must occur only at this season, when showers, mist, low cloud and weak sunshine transform the harshness of the desert into unbelievable softness.

This softness was only in the distant view, for as soon as one's eyes dropped to nearer, more intimate objects it became obvious what this country could be like. The land was barren. The red soil supported nothing; even the few struggling bushes of spinifex and saltbush seemed withered and dead. The occasional house we passed told a yet more pitiful story. W e would pass them at intervals of five to six miles-good houses built of stone, deserted, fast becoming derelict. We found it hard to believe that early pioneers had once grown wheat here. We wondered how it must have felt to see the desert slowly creeping back when the rains had failed.

Just north of Hawker we camped in one of these deserted homes.

The next day it was raining, and a freezing cold wind blew from the East. Having insufficient stores for a long trip we went back to Hawker and purchased what food we could, This, unfortunately, was mainly tinned food. As we had brought dehydrated vegetables from Melbourne our food for the seven days amounted to only 20 lb. Each - a little less than 3 lb. per day, which is ample.

When we woke the following day it was still raining, but by the time we had finished breakfast it had slackened off to a light drizzle. We headed across six miles of flat country to a low saddle which would give us entry to the inside of the Range and allow us to walk between the Elders Range and the Hills of Arkaba.

Once inside the Range we left the outside scene of desolation and entered a strange colourful wonderland. Instead of soil the ground was cowered with chips of red, brown and green slate. Out of this slate a small pine tree grew. Twenty feet high, shaped like a Christmas tree with grey-green foliage, it gave the place a park-like atmosphere. Other vegetation was sparse, consisting only of Mulga trees, She Oaks and clumps of coarse tussock grass. There was also a small plant growing in between the chips of slate, which when seen at a distance, gave the ground a variegated appearance like shot silk.

We walked in the general direction of the Elders Range and after crossing a number of low saddles in the undulating terrain, came to a wide creek, which we deduced from our map (8 miles to 1 inch Army Survey of the Lake Frome area) to be Mern Merna Creek. This was wet, and in fact running quite fast and deep. It is one of the drainage arteries of the Range and runs roughly West to empty into Lake Torrens.

River gums, some of which are over a hundred feet, grow, in the creek bed. Quite high up in these, sometimes twenty feet from the bed of the creek, there would be debris in the branches, an indication that at flood times the creek must rise to this height. We forded Mern Merna Creek and located a tributary, named Slaty Creek which drains a Northward valley running between the Elders Range and a series of low slate hills that undulate with perfect symmetry for ten miles or more.

The creek lived up to its name and followed a series of fissures in an almost vertical slate bed. Here again the slate was in beautiful hues of purple, brown and green. The water (which was running) was quite pure, and in this we regarded ourselves as fortunate, for the Flinders Range is notoriously dry. We soon found that the easiest method of covering distance was to follow the course of the creek. This, though the creek meandered, was preferable to constantly climbing and descending the undulating hills.

The weather, which had started badly, was improving slightly, and though cloud obscured some of the EIders Range it would occasionally lift a little off the top. The Elders Range is a great hog's back of a mountain. It rises in a long arch of sixteen miles, reaching the highest point at Mt Aleck, 3,700 ft high. Seen from the Adelaide-Alice Springs train it presents a flat slope of rock, but from the eastern side it offers a different, more interesting view. Here the intricately folded strata can be seen, red rock with trees and shrubs growing in between bedding planes, blue with distance.

The geology of the area is complicated. Beds of rock ranging from Pre-Cambrian times to alluvial deposits of the Pleistocene period lie in beds of great vertical thickness. Massive blocks of sandstone and quartzite have been tilted to angles of sixty degrees and more, revealing rocks that were laid down on ancient sea beds before the appearance of life on this planet. The scenery of the Range is due mainly to differential erosion. The more resistant rocks formed the high mountains, while streams dissected the softer rocks into undulating hills. These streams have quite a youthful profile; hence the tremendously fast run-off - fast enough at times to scar the river gums with boulders which are carried along.

The mountains have some effect on the weather, and a ten-inch rain belt occurs in the vicinity of the Range (fourteen inches at Wilpena). The rain occurs mainly in a couple of months (June- July, I believe) and may fall as much as three inches in one day. The creeks drain this out to the great lakes of Frome and Torrens, although water very seldom ever reaches these. The lakes are not true lakes but saltpans of enormous dimensions, Torrens being over one hundred miles long. We camped by the side of Slaty Creek on a bank of slate. It was difficult to knock pegs into the bare slate, but sleeping on it presented no difficulty, for close by were growing tussocks of coarse grass which when cut and spread out made an excellent mattress. The winter days were short, and it would be quite dark by six. We generally made camp at five, eight hours walking a day being quite sufficient.

We followed Slaty Creek up to a high valley, where it petered out. From here our view, of the Elders Range was particularly fine. The valley, led on north, and as we should have to travel northeast to reach Wilpena Pound we climbed through a gap in the wave-like slate hills and got our first close view of the Pound. It was some ten miles away, across undulating slate hills, and we could see the south-western buttressed wall. At two points separated by a sugarloaf the wall looked fairly low, and so we headed in this direction.

The Pound is perhaps the most peculiar feature of this area. A massive block of sandstone stands isolated, with sheer cliffs rising 2,000 feet above the surrounding slate hills, and a complete syncline gives its centre a saucer-like depression forming a natural pound. From below it looks like an extended fist, the fingers being the buttresses. It is little wonder then that the aborigines of these parts call it "Wilpena" or "The place of bent fingers". There is but one easy entrance to the Pound, and this is via Wilpena Creek, which empties the depression through a deep gorge.

By five o'clock that night we had crossed the slate hills and were experiencing some difficulty in finding water. We eventually found some by following a dry creek upstream. In the lower reaches of the creeks there is a tendency for the water to flow below the surface, percolating through the thick layer of boulders that form the bed. Higher up the rock is bare, and there are usually some small pools.

It hailed heavily during the night, and in the morning it was still hailing. We made a fire, using the bark from the leeward side of a fir tree which was reasonably dry and ate our breakfast close to it, for the weather was bitterly cold and hail was falling intermittently". Having no gloves, we experienced great difficulty in untying and folding our tent, which was in a wet semi-frozen condition. And this was in the heart of the Flinders Range, the place known as South Australia’s “Land of Winter Sunshine”.

Low cloud obscured the Pound, but on a compass bearing we headed in its direction and eventually, after much strenuous climbing, got a misty view of the low gap we were heading for. The gradient became steep, and the final entry, into the Pound was a thrilling scramble as we used both hand and footholds.

In the Pound and its vicinity, because of a slightly increased rainfall, a great number of small bushes grow, and these were just coming into flower. Unfortunately, we were a little too early and saw, only the buds of what promised to be a blaze of colour. The central area of the Pound was a perfectly flat grassed area, very green, waterlogged, and possibly marshy. Across this area lay the exit from the Pound, towards which we beaded down the gently sloping rock whose surface was very much broken with large boulders, The flat land, although in places two inches deep in water, was quite firm. It took us a number of hours to reach the other side of the Pound and Wilpena Creek.

After following the creek for a short distance we were fortunate to come upon a deserted house. This gave us a roof for the night and allowed us to dry our tent and clothes. The house, built of stone, was old. It had belonged to a man who had farmed in the Pound. Transport had been his chief problem, the creek washing out his road at each successive flood period. After a number of years he had become disheartened and had gone to farm in a more accessible area.

The building, which was substantial, showed more wear than it should have done through natural causes, doors and window frames were smashed, and a number of floor boards had been ripped up. As if proud of their work the vandals had deeply scored the plaster with initials and signatures. There is outside the Pound a tourist chalet. Tourists are brought up to this remote region by coach to enjoy (presumably) nature. It is indeed a pity that people who walk the few short miles into the Pound are not adult enough to realize that they are destroying an example of early Australian architecture.

The west side of the gorge through which Wilpena Creek flows rises to form a peak on the lip of the Pound, With a little effort we quickly climbed this in what remained of daylight. The view, was rewarding. The extent and shape of the Pound could be clearly seen. Southwards the Elders Range was lit by the low northwest sun. The weather, as happened on most days, had cleared completely for the last hour of daylight. Northwards we could see our future track through fantastically upheaved mountains. One valley stood out very clearly. This was the Aroona Valley. It stretched out in a thirty-mile "S", as perfect an example of a rift or double-fault valley as we had ever seen.

Just below the peak in a sheltered gully we found a quantity of hailstones which had collected and looked like snow. We wondered if this was a normal occurrence for Central Australia. Although the Aroona Valley looked well defined from the lip of the Pound once down below we found that this was not the case, for the main creeks flow across it and it is difficult to decide which valley is the Aroona once one is in the bed of a creek.

After we had followed one creek for some distance it suddenly dropped over a series of falls and into a gorge with steep towering walls. Realizing that this would take us out into the desert we turned north and moved parallel with the high mountains which form the western boundary of the Aroona Valley.

This western boundary is a steep wall of red rock riven at a number of places by deep gorges, and we followed Buneroo Creek through one of these near-vertical cracks. We regained the Aroona Valley by climbing over Mt Rupert (2,150 feet), from whose summit we could see the desert with the green lines of tree-bordered creeks making their way to Lake Torrens across the dun-coloured land.

Our camping spot that evening was one of great beauty. Tall river gums shaded it with their scimitars of grey-green. The barks gave it colour-browns, silvers, purples and pinks. The bed of the creek where we got our water was another source of delight. It was composed of large water-worn pebbles and boulders of numerous hues. There were red sandstone and quartzite, green, brown and purple slate, and other rocks it would take a geologist to identify.

Some of the rocks gave us quite a shock when we used them to build our fireplace. When they got hot they would explode with a sharp crack, and chips of rock would go flying in all directions.

We reached the Aroona out-station, which is now roofless with its mud and netting walls slowly crumbling away. Probably one of the last people to use it was Hans Heysen, the man who spent a great deal of his life painting the wonderful scenery of this area.

We came out of the range by inadvertently getting into another gorge, the floor of which was narrow and the walls tremendously high and sheer. As its direction was constantly changing from north to west to south it was a little difficult to know in which direction we were going. That was until we felt a steady rush of hot air.

Then we realized that this gorge led to the desert. We were carrying at the time half a bottle of water, and the gorge was quite dry. We were, however, lucky enough to find shallow pools on some boulders and with the aid of a short rubber tube filled our other bottle. Once out in the desert it was relatively simple to see where we were, for the main creeks appeared just as they are marked on the map, only green instead of blue.

Parachillna and civilization in the form of a pub, a post office and a railway station lay fourteen to sixteen miles away on a bearing of 345 degrees. As it was four o'clock we decided not to walk it in the evening but instead walked to Parachillna Creek, which, although three hundred yards across, was unfortunately completely dry. Here we camped and had a tin of cold beefsteak pudding and a spoonful of condensed milk each.

As the light was beginning~ to fade all the galahs in the area took off in formation, flew up the creek, and in a rosy cloud wheeled, changed to grey, then flew back down the creek and dispersed, all seemingly without reason.

We were awakened in the morning by a tremendous roar like that of an aircraft a couple of feet above our tent. After a period of some minutes it came again, terrifyingly loud. It was the galahs doing their dawn fly-past.

With our remaining water we made porridge and then began the trek across the desert to Parachillna. This we could not see, but setting a course we headed in its direction. The desert, much to our surprise, was not featureless. There were . patches of bare sand and rocky land but also a good deal of vegetation. There were varieties of saltbush and spinifex and four distinct types of coarse grass, as well as low bushes, some of which were in bloom with yellow flowers opened to the morning.

We also came across quite large gum trees apparently existing on some source of underground water.

The freezing temperatures of night had gone with the sun's appearance. The cool dawn had also gone, and the day grew hot. At ten o'clock we had smoko, and as it was thirsty work we finished off the condensed milk. At eleven o'clock we saw, smoke from a train on the Adelaide-Alice Springs railway. A little later we saw what appeared to be a rectangular object. This turned out to be the water tank at Parachillna Station. Even after recognizing it we still had a long way to walk and arrived at the pub very thirsty.

Over two of the finest beers we had ever tasted we chatted to the barman, who told us that the country had newer looked better. We looked out of the window at the sparsely covered earth with hardly a blade of what we would call grass and wondered how it must look in bad times. We asked him how many people lived in these parts. His reply was "Far too many." This land was worthless. It broke the hearts of men, and yet they would not leave it. It was a gamble. One good year like the old days and they would make their fortunes, but that year never came.

We went outside and sat in the sun and felt the wind throbbing across the desert. It came for 2,000 miles across grassless waste over the gibber plains and the low stony tablelands with a timeless incessant roar. We turned our backs to the wind and looked whence we had come. The range filled the eastern horizon, stretching to infinity north and south. We had walked a hundred of its four hundred miles and had gained an intimacy that only the walker can know.

(Article Ends)

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