South Australia trip Part 7 - Brachina Gorge in the Flinders Ranges

For those of you who are regular visitors to my blog you may recall that last year I was writing posts about our South Australian trip last year. 

If you remember we were heading from north to south following the Oodnadatta Track and the old Ghan railway line. I just realised that I left you all at Marree at the end of the Oodnadatta Track in South’s Australia’s outback in December!   Sorry! You wouldn’t want to spend summer out there with the heat, wind, dust and flys, so we had better move on!

 If you missed the last part - you can click here to catch up - South Australia Part 6 - Outback on the Oodnadatta Track

After having morning tea in a shady park in Maree we continued south.  We stopped in Lyndhurst to have lunch on the verandah of the community hall and discovered that we had a flat tyre on the camper trailer – it possibly happened at that one last railway siding ruin at Farina that I wanted to stop and look at! 

 
Please click on "read more" to keep reading and see more pics! see you there!
 


 We found out there was a 7-day-a-week tyre repair business around the corner, so we went around there. However I think the proprietor was having lunch, as he told us to come back in an hour! We really didn’t feel like sitting in Lyndhurst for an hour, so we pulled over under the shade of a small scrubby tree, and changed the tyre ourselves. Well my husband changed the tyre, and I fetched and carried, and took pics!

And so, tyre replaced, we continued on south to Leigh Creek, where they have a massive coal field that supplies much of South Australia’s electricity needs. Leigh Creek is a pretty town with lots of trees lining the roads. They however don’t have Sunday trading, so we were unable to get the tyre fixed.  I tried to get onto the internet, but something was still wrong with our internet connection thingy – very frustrating. So I called home on the mobile and let everyone know we had got off the end of the Oodnadatta Track safely. 

We were back on the bitumen  - and heading towards the Flinders Ranges which where beckoning in the distance.

South of Leigh Creek we turned east into the Flinders Ranges to where there are a number of bush campsites in Brachina Gorge.  You can camp here if you have a South Australian Parks Pass. There are six 2WD sites, and seven 4WD sites. The Brachina East and Teamsters campgrounds have toilets and a self-registration station.

 We found a lovely campsite in a lovely shaded setting by the dry river bed, and after we had set up camp we went for a walk along the river bed, and looked at some other campsites further up the river. We had the place to ourselves – lovely. 

Back at camp we had a resident emu pair grazing in the grass near our campsite, seemingly undisturbed by our presence. 

During the evening the bugs drove me crazy as I tried to download the days photos and write my diary, so I packed up and went and sat by the fire with the others. We toasted marshmallows and enjoyed our solitude in Brachina Gorge. 

The 8km long Brachina Gorge cuts a wandering course through the Heysen Range. Over thousands of years the creek has cut through a huge bed of shale, quartzite and limestone that was once the bed of an inland sea. Torn and twised by the cataclysmic events, eroded and weather beaten, the ranges in the gorge are quite spectaucular. They reminded us a lot of gorges in Karajini National Park in Western Australia.

The track follows and crosses the creek bed in places, so a 4WD is recommended. I think it would be wise to check with the South Australia National Parks authority before going into the gorge in winter.

Next morning the emus were up before we were and we saw them strolling along the track when we emerged from our camper. We packed up after breakfast and trundled slowly out of the gorge looking at the various rock features and taking photos on the way out. 

 The 20 kilometre self-guided Brachina Gorge Geological Trail passes through 130 million years of earth history. Trail signage provides an insight into past climates, the formation of the ranges and the evolution of early life forms. The trail is best travelled from east to west, commencing at the Brachina Gorge/Blinman Road junction. A geological map and more detailed information on the Brachina Gorge Geological Trail are available from the Wilpena Pound Visitor Centre.

 We saw quite a few emus and a family of distinctive and colourful Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies which have been brought back from near extinction by the Bounceback project. Their population numbers had dropped dramatically due to hunters, foxes, and the abundance of rabbits. 
They really are a pretty wallaby with lovely markings. Can you see in the pic below how he is sitting on his tail which is draping down over the rock in front, and how he is holding it in his from paws?

 In South Australia, colonies persist in the Gawler Ranges, Flinders Ranges and Olary Hills. At least 24 colonies are known to have become extinct in South Australia. Most of these represent at least half of the known colonies in the Olary Hills and Gawler Ranges regions. - Australian Dept of Environment

 We would have liked to have camped in Brachina Gorge longer, but had to move on. Our next stop south was Hawker where we had our trailer tyre fixed, did some grocery shopping, managed to fix our internet “thingy”, and downloaded heaps of emails while we had lunch in the café at the Hawker General Store. The steak burgers have to been seen to be believed. When they say "with the lot" they mean it! Enough for two people at least! You certainly can't picked it up in your hands and eat it like that.
There is 3 pieces of steak in there, as well as bacon, eggs, cheese and lots of salad.  

 From Hawker we turned back north to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges and the next part of our trip. I will return pics of Hawker in another post.

Brachina Gorge is 62.39kms north of Hawker.

For more information on the Flinders Ranges, please click here - Flinders Ranges National Park

 If you missed any of my previous posts about our South Australia trip you can catch up by clicking on the links below -

• Part 1 - On the road through South Australia
• Part 2 - Granite & Woodlands Discovery Trail - Hyden to Norseman, Western Australia 
• Part 3 - Crossing Australia - the Eyre Highway and the Nullarbor, Western & South Australia  
• Quandongs - delicious bush food 
• Part 4 - Rock Formations and wildflowers in the Gawler Ranges National Park 
• Part 5 - Woomera, Coober Pedy, Arkaringa & the Painted Desert
• Part 6 - Outback on the Oodnadatta Track

Thanks for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. Have a wonderful week.

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