Entry 7 = South Australian Flinders Ranges – Southern region

 Entry 7 - May 2017

We were barely back in Adelaide a week and were already starting to get itchy feet, with a desire to be off in our caravan experiencing the pleasures provided by a travelling lifestyle in preference to being at our base for our last 30 plus years, home! 

Even with Mary’s pleasure of having access to a nice kitchen cooking up examples of spinach soufflé and apple cake.

Our “mixed bag,” prediction for 2017 away from our now accustomed extended periods of travelling continued.

We refocused our time towards home maintenance duties with a list of “to do jobs” continue to grow.

There were the added bonuses where we attended a few functions catching up with friends, some we hadn’t seen since we commenced retirement. We spent a couple of days with the caravan catching up with Steve’s brother and family at a caravan park in Adelaide.

Steve's parents & us

And there was one of those special occasions with the arrival of our first grandchild, Isla Madison.

The new dad, Ash with the new grandma, Mary.

The new Grandpa

With the approaching onset of winter accompanied by cooler temperatures we were unable to fight the urge to be off in our caravan any longer.

We needed a travel fix to our wellbeing after a month at home.

We headed north towards the warmer regions of Australia but had to pull the reigns up tight from continuing onwards a few thousand kilometres to the beautiful warm climate of northern Australia. Sadly we still had those ongoing commitments at home requiring attention. It did feel good to be travelling again even if it was only to be for a short period of time.

For us it has been continually reiterated how enjoyable travelling with a caravan without a fixed itinerary can be. Just north of Adelaide we made a slight deviation from our normal route to the Hamley Bridge region where we caught up with a couple we had mixed with some 30 years prior.

Ron and Val love camping and riding motor bikes about in the bush. A planned visit for a couple of hours turned into a stay of 24 hours.

Us back in our days with Ron & Val & a young Tim our eldest son.

Continuing north from Ron & Val’s we drove for nearly 3 hours setting camp at Mambray Creek campground in the southern Flinders Ranges.

As soon as camp was set we were off on a walk along the Davey’s Gully track. We have always loved the beautiful rugged scenery of the Flinders Ranges which is reiterated every time we step out in this region walking along stony red brown dirt tracks amongst magnificent red gum and pine trees. The smell of the bush with the occasional kangaroo and emu bounding away in the nearby bush is delightful.

Unfortunately this time of the year also coincides with the end of the fire ban season. The farmers were busy burning paddocks of stubble, other people were burning a build-up of undergrowth and we found ourselves driving through a continual smoke haze along the route north of Adelaide.

When we drove into Mount Remarkable National Park towards the Mambray Creek campground the sky was blanked out by smoke. Unbeknown to us until our arrival, National Parks had also commenced burning to eliminate a build-up of undergrowth starting the day of our arrival which was to continue during the period of our planned stay. What the?

The presence of the smoke diminished the normal pristine views which also interfered with the quality of our photo’s.

Looking across Spencer Gulf towards Port Bonython & Whyalla

We visited Telowie Gorge, a lovely rugged gorge with a nice little walk. Apparently there are yellow footed rock wallabies there, none out and about that we spotted during our visit but we did see plenty of fresh scats at the base of some steep rocky outcrops.

Telowie Gorge

Another nearby publicized attraction was the Port Germain jetty which we heard had just been reopened after some repairs from storm damage. So a visit there was on the agenda too. We were really lucky to have a lovely mild day to wander out along the longest South Australian wooden jetty. There were a few people fishing from the jetty, but the fish they were catching were only about 12cm long. They weren’t even throwing them all back.

On the drive back to camp we noticed a large smoke area that looked awful close to where we were camped. We checked the Country Fire Service website and apparently it was a controlled burn that was under control. It looked like a large fire front in pretty inaccessible country. We crossed our fingers hoping we could continue our stay without the risk of having to evacuate due to an approaching fire or getting smoked out.

Mambray Creek campground was at the base of the hill in front of the fire

We set our own fire burning in our own controlled area preparing for a camp oven cooked roast tonight. Mmm what vegies shall we have – whoops, not quite that many- they won’t all fit in the pot. The timber wasn’t generating much heat today; we had to cook it a bit longer. Wow that sure did taste fantastic, now that we have our own fire pit we can do this at home.

Each day we participated in walking the shorter tracks enjoying the magnificent scenery with the main longer tracks closed due to fires.

We also got to exercise our vocal cords spending many hours talking with other happy travellers including one couple (Greg & Jane from QLD) whom we experienced an early afternoon cuppa that lasted for around 7 hours.

On arrival for every visit to Mambray Creek we experience an instant lift in our personal wellbeing generated by the beautiful scenery and the wonderful aroma of bush smells. We will never tire from visiting the Mambray Creek area. We managed 6 nights this trip and could have easily stayed longer.

View from our awning side with constant company from kangaroos

View from the other side of our camp with van in middle of photo

After a week it was time to restock the pantry and fridge. We headed north about 50 kilometres to restock at Port Augusta. We continued east about a further 50 kilometres to a bush setting at Warren Gorge near Quorn.

Our incentive to head to Warren Gorge was the possibility for sighting some yellow footed rock wallabies which we had heard existed at this location.

Warren Gorge is another great bush location in the Flinders Ranges with an unstructured camping area scattered amongst predominately northern cypress pine trees “native pines.” The area is quite undulating with flat camping spots a rarity.

Whilst walking around the gorge area to assess a suitable camp location we saw quite a few grey kangaroos moving around and it wasn’t long before we spotted our first yellow footed rock wallaby. It was very exciting and we managed to locate a camp spot not far away from our first sighting of the yellow footed rock wallaby.

We spent a few hours watching about a dozen yellow footed rock wallabies along the 300 metre stretch of the gorge which was about 50 metres wide. We walked further out of the gorge following a walking track near the base of the escarpments which are connected with the gorge where we spotted a few more yellow footed rock wallabies scattered along the escarpment base.

It was extremely satisfying viewing the rare yellow footed rock wallabies.

Returning to our caravan we sighted two more which we were able to watch from the comfort of our caravan.

Can you spot the yellow footed wallabies?

This should help

Warren Gorge was very nice but for us Mambray Creek was superb. We seemed to have had our fix sighting yellow footed rock wallabies and decided to return to Mambray Creek because we could.

Leaving Warren Gorge

We propped at Quorn where phone reception was available and checked online for available sites at Mambray Creek which showed our preferred site had been booked with our second preference vacant so we booked that. A bit over an hour later we were back at Mambray Creek setting camp at what we thought looked like the second least shady site allowing for our solar requirements. Unfortunately the beautiful blue skies of the last week were now obstructed by cloud and it did rain early evening.

Tea was camp fire cooked lamb shanks. It was such a chore lighting the fire, seated around it monitoring the build-up of hot coals for our camp fire pot oven. “Not!”

What a delicious meal. We seem to eat very well whilst out bush camping.

Anyone would have thought winter was upon us. We experienced a very windy night with rain. Steve had to adjust the awning rafters a couple of times and attach some more ropes. The caravan even rocked a bit with some of the strong gusts.

#     Steve had a chat with the Ranger one morning; apparently there is a colony of yellow footed rock wallabies here with best sighting times first light or approaching dusk. Hence about 2.15 pm with nibbles and torches (in case the sun set before our return to camp) we went for a walk towards Hidden Gorge. Yes we spotted a few there too. They were more hidden in amongst the trees; the terrain was better suited to the wallabies than us. However the walk back to the campground was a delight, there were many grey kangaroos and also some yellow footed rock wallabies. Late afternoon was a good time for viewing the animals feeding. It was getting dark by the time we returned to our camp.

We had leftover lamb shanks for dinner, with a side of savoury damper. Mary added a bit of bacon, onion and garlic into the damper. Oh my - that was yummy!!

We spent 10 nights at Mambray Creek campground and we could easily have extended our stay further. This is one of the many unique Australian locations providing a good soul karma environment. It is a magnificent setting amongst large healthy river red gum trees with wild kangaroos regularly seen grazing nearby, at times the air is full of noisy bird chatter and the choice of many walks through marvellous terrain, from short to overnight hikes all available from the campground.

For this trip we filled the tow tugs roof rack with timber from our home garden trimmings which provided the fuel for many enjoyable nights spent around a camp fire relishing the spoils from camp fire cooked meals and sharing good conversation into the night with other travellers at a grand setting of a camp fire.

Unfortunately it was time to return home, to continue with our home front maintenance obligations.