Arkaroola and the Gammon Ranges

We've had a couple of weeks without phone or WiFi access so there's a bit of catching up to do on our travels.

Arkaroola is about 200kms from Wilpena on the northern edge of the Gammon Ranges.  Of the next 1,000km we are to travel only about 40km is on sealed roads.  We travelled to Arkaroola via the Bunkers Conservation Reserve.  This was a pleasant drive on a good quality unsealed road.  Some rain a couple of months earlier means that the opportunistic plants are flowering.  At one point we drove over a crest to see Lake Frome in the distance.  Lake Frome is the 4th largest lake in Australia after Lake Eyre, Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner.  The lake is dry at the moment and the sun reflected bright white off the salt flats.

The Gammon Ranges are very different to the more southerly Flinders Ranges.  The rocks here are some 800 - 900 million years old - that's VERY OLD!!  Arkaroola and its surrounding areas are a geologist's paradise.  Arkaroola Village is a privately run complex just outside the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park with plenty of accommodation options and activities.  There's also a small museum with plenty of information about the area.  Near the entrance to Arkaroola Village is a collection of rocks from the area.  There are all manner of rocks here - igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.  The area is also rich in many minerals, including uranium, and over the years there have been many mining ventures, although they have all ceased due to the difficulty of mining and transportation from this rugged and remote area. We saw many types of ore including uranium lodestone and white asbestos (the good, well bound type, not the dangerous, fibrous type).  Many of the rocks are iridescent under UV light - showing brilliant colours, blue, green, red, yellow and orange.

We booked into the caravan park for 4 nights and also paid to do the World Famous Ridge Top Tour (more about that later).    As the sun dropped, the golden light lit up the surrounding hills.  In the darkness we were able to sit outside and  look at the stars.

The next day we boarded the 4WD truck for the Ridge Top Tour.  This had been recommended to us by a few people and we're really pleased we did it.  We spent the next 4 1/2 hours bouncing along the rough tracks up and down the ancient rocky ridges.  The scenery was stunning - and rugged.  We took plenty of photos, a difficult task due to the very bumpy ride.  We wouldn't hesitate to recommend this tour to anyone going to Arkaroola.

We stopped at Coulthard Lookout to look back at Arkaroola Village and Mt Oliphant (name after Sir Mark Oliphant, Governor of SA in the 1970s, a member of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s and first president of the Australian Academy of Science), and then proceeded further into the Arkaroola - Mt Painter Wilderness Sanctuary.

We bounced past Mt Painter where the ashes of Reg Sprigg and his wife Griselda (the original owners of the property) were scattered.  Finally we arrived at the spectacular Sillers Lookout.  From Sillers Lookout we could see the Beverley Uranium Mine and out to Lake Frome in the distance.

Photos just don't capture the grandeur of this area - you really need to see it.

In the evening the village was inundated by athletes.  40 teams of 4 local and international athletes together with their organisers and supporters are due to begin a race from Arkaroola to Pt Augusta.  The XPD - more an expedition than a race - is held about every 18 months and this time it's SA's turn.  The 750km race incorporates running (orienteering), cycling, kayaking and rope work - with a 10 day time limit.  Participants carry everything they will need in a backpack and, armed with a map and compass, they set off through the bush towards pre-established checkpoints.  The elite athletes are expected to finish the race in 3 1/2 days with the final team due in 9 days.  The race began at 9am the following morning with a warm up run across a couple of ridges and within 30 minutes the first teams arrived at the village to collect their maps and set off towards their first checkpoints.

After we saw off the runners we got into our car to do some exploring.  First stop was The Pinnacles, volcanic plugs of hard rock left behind when the softer rock eroded around them.  This area was widely explored by Douglas Mawson and the valley around The Pinnacles is called Mawsons Valley.  On our way back to the main track we came across a quandong (native peach) tree covered in ripe fruit.  We relieved it of some fruit which Cherryl stewed up later in the afternoon - it's one of our favourites with cream or ice-cream. 

Next stop was the 19th century copper smelter.  This is mostly ruins and ironically the newer brick smelters which are still standing were never used.

Then it was on to the Arkaroola Waterhole, a permanent water source in a lovely rocky gorge.  We drove back to the campground crossing many dry river beds.

While driving around we came across several "monuments" which had aboriginal dreamtime stories on them.

In the evening we booked into the Observatory Tour run by Arkaroola Village.  There are 2 observatories with powerful 14inch telescopes to look at the heavens.  The area is ideally suited to astronomy as there is almost no light pollution and skies are usually clear of clouds.  In the cool of the evening we were able to gaze at Saturn and see its rings clearly.  We saw a number of other celestial bodies - the Swan Nebula, Alpha Centauris (our nearest stellar neighbour 4.3 light years away) and a globular cluster.  We could also pick out the "Emu in the Sky" in the Milky Way.

In the morning we packed up and headed to Leigh Creek, the last shopping stop before we ventured onto the Oodnadatta Track.