Blinman

Thursday 28/3/13

Today we drove from Adelaide to Blinman just north of the Flinders ranges.  We took the highway because we didn’t have time to do any wine tasting in the Barossa or Clare Valley. As we don’t really like white wines, and these areas produce remarkable Riesling’s, we didn’t care.  Also, our wine cellar is full, and more wine would encroach on the beer reserves.

This stretch of road is the most boring so far on our trip.  There is only farm land, with nothing growing (possible due to the dry conditions).  No tourist stops, nothing worth seeing.  Even the lakes were dry.

This must be our record driving day, at 510kms... 

Friday 29/3/13 (Good Friday) - Blinman

We left the van behind the Blinman Hotel and got an early start, heading for Arkaroola in the Gammon Ranges.  To start off, we had 160kms of dirt roads, the first 20 or so were pretty bad condition, correlated and rutted, so we had to go pretty slow.  Once we hit the main road (still dirt), and surface condition was much better we were able to drive at around 100kmh, slowing for the floodway’s and wildlife.

 

 

We stopped at Chambers Gorge, which had some aboriginal markings on the rocks there.  We walked through the (dry now) Gorge - which would have been awesome if there was some water -and found the markings.  They were scratched into the rocks, so were standing up to the elements.

 

 

We got some direction on the attractions when we reached Arkaroola, and it was just as well, because the main thing I wanted to do was go swimming in the “Paralana Hot Springs”, but the girl said they are not thermally heated like the hot springs you think, they are heated by radioactive material, and themselves are radioactive, and are green and horrible looking. Needless to say, we didn’t go there.

Instead, we went on a 4WD track to Nooldoonooldoona Waterhole, stopping at the “Pinnacles” and Bollabollana Spring along the way.  This track proved the worth of having a 4WD as the tow car, because this track would not be accessible in a 2WD car.  Most of the track would be possible in a 2WD, but there are tough bits where only 4WD will get through.

 

Parts of the track are along river beds, so whilst it was easy to drive on dry river beds, it was not as much fun as it would be if it was flowing.  At least a little bit would have been nice.  We found some rocks that were a sparkly as gliter, and crumbled in your hand whan you squeeed them.

 

On our way back to Blinman, we went to see the Ochre wall.  This is a very crumbly / soft rock that the aborigines used to make paint from.  This particular wall has all the colors and is very pretty to look at.  In the area, there are hard rocks with the same colours, so it pretty amazing that some ended up soft and some were as hard as rocks.

Even tho it was Good Friday we decided to have a local pizza. It was one of the BEST PIZZA EVER. The supreme had even prawns!!!

Saturday 30/3/13

We did some more 4WD driving as most of the places to see in this part of Ranges have only 4WD access. Before we hit the dirt road we went to see Great Wall of China on Mt Emily. We took a 4WD track along a “Scenic Route”, but this time, the 4WD’ing was much tougher - but nothing that the Pathfinder (with awesome driver Graham) couldn’t manage. We went to see the Patawart Gap and don’t ask us what is it as we don’t know. We went to the place and it was just some flat field with trees and .....nothing other than a massive gap between mountain ranges!!!  Some of the roads where so narrow that we had to fold mirrors in and in some Graham was “making” roads for the car (at least it was he was telling me he was doing). I just saw him breaking some trees.

We were shown some slate rocks, and the (older) people recalled when they were at school, and had a piece of this rock in a timber frame, and would use another rock to scratch markings on it, then a wet cloth to eraze it.  We tried a little slate markings of our own..

 

Sunday 31/03/13

We had enough of driving on those crazy roads and wanted to do some walking. We stopped at the nearest petrol station at Angorichina Village and stumbled upon a 12km return walk to the Blinman Pools. This was the first place where we found some water in creeks, and they were jam packed with yabbies.   Graham was trying very hard to catch them but poking them with a stick wasn’t working very well.

The walk was great, and it was very nice to see some water about. Lidia found a rock that resebled Australia (barely). I was hoping to catch Lidia falling into a pool during one of the stepping stone croosing but unfortunately she was as sure footed as a mountain goat.  But, one of ofthe crossings, she steped on a pile of algea instead of a rock and her whole trainer went into the green.  Her aboriginal name now translates as "one wet foot".

There were kids swimming in some of the pools, but not quite hot enough for us to jump in.  We also saw some cactus with massive flowers on them.

 

We had pizza again form the pub for dinner.  Those pizzas are amazing. We asked them, and the chef makes the bases and all, really unexpected to have such a nice pizza in Blinman...