Griselda’s Hill was overlooked by very scatty clouds as I left the weird other world around Arkaroola.
I would not be walking any more in this National Park as I realised it was too steep and rocky for my abilities these days.
It was enough to have been here and absorbed its otherwordliness.
I was heading to the western side of the Flinders, via Copley and Leigh Creek.
The Copley Road is very different, still dirt but better than that from Blinman, and far more winding, taking me through gorges and two Aboriginal settlements, Nepabunna and Iga Warta, before it became open country, bare, harsh, and dominated by sheep.
I will miss the emus, so stately in walking, so ungainly in running, and the beautiful Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies. If only I had seen a real quoll…
Some country seemed as if painted by a child, with scattered pointy trees, mostly dead.
After the long stretch of dirt road (about 130km) Copley was welcome; a tiny relic of a town, but with a great bakery/café and an obvious community vibe.
Back on the Outback Highway, the North Flinders Ranges kept me intrigued with their variety of formations and coverings.
I was curious to see Leigh Creek, knowing the town had been relocated years ago to get at the coal beneath. Echoes of Adaminaby… and Acland.
South Australia’s only coal mine, state-owned to supply coal for power, it had still been operational when I researched for Rich Land, Wasteland, but was due to close in 2015, so I didn’t get to that state.
The ’new’ town of Leigh Creek is a bit sad, as it was devastated when the mine closed, and people left in droves. The garage has a fascinating photographic exhibition of its history, which reads rather like that of the Snowy scheme.
But it is such a nice place, seemingly well-designed, with plenty of cheap empty houses, and a fabulous IGA that is as cheap as anywhere, and sells everything!
A local told me he was horrified when some perfectly good houses were recently demolished.
Where is the bureaucrat or politician with vision to restart the town and publicise these affordable houses in a housing crisis?
It had begun to drizzle, and it kept up for some hours.
I had intended to walk in Parachilna Gorge, but the weather said no.
I called in at Parachilna anyway, where the rejuvenated Prairie Hotel is on all the tourist maps and brochures,
A revelation.
There were dozens of caravans and 4WDs parked and double-parked out the back there, but the hotel, with its brewery and gourmet restaurant, is no longer an outback pub, but the city transported to the outback.
A tourist oddity.
In Port Augusta, two sights had me puzzled.
The first is what seems to be a white salt lake either side of the highway.
The second is a large wind farm just outside town where not one of the many turbines was turning, not even slowly, so I assume not commissioned or connected. There was also a solar farm there beneath them.
Given that Port Augusta was where the coal power station was, it would make sense to use its infrastructure.
(But on my way back past there a few days later, I was glad to see that all the blades were slowly turning.)
One treat was the Port Augusta Arid Lands Botanic Garden, an achievement covering all the areas of the Fiinders and beyond.
The other was the Port Augusta Vinnies’ op shop, as I had run out of reading material.
I had stayed in Quorn that night, and was headed for Melrose Showground for the next, before my final NP stay, in the Southern Flinders Ranges at Mt Remarkable.
After winding through charmingly rugged and narrow gorges, I hit farming country, with clearly higher rainfall.
The ridges bore a sheen of green and the Patersons Curse weed was more lush and widespread than I’ve ever seen it.
The bright yellow-lime of canola crops began to appear alongside the wheat fields.
I detoured to Port Germein on the Spencer Gulf, a charming old windjammer wheat port with a very long jetty (currently closed after tidal surge damage). The pub does good coffee too…
And then on to the National Park, hoping for peace and quiet. But of course I had forgotten I would be there on a weekend, the last of the South Australian school holidays, and it was not far from Port Augusta.
Truly, my timing has been appalling on this trip.