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The Outback The Heart Of Australia The Australian Outback acts like a big red magnet for lovers of wild places. You can't spend long in Australia before you start to hear tales and see pictures of this mystical, barely populated area, about the size of mainland Europe. Australia can be circumnavigated via the tarmac of Highway 1 in a few weeks. But our aim was to get into the heart of the island continent and slow down to the appropriate pace, sit and look, meet the people, be a part of it for a month or so. |
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Flinders Ranges, Outback South Australia The extraordinary cauldron of Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges. We climbed to the top and enjoyed spectacular views in all directions. | |
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Situated North of Adelaide in South Australia, the Flinders Ranges are the
eroded remnants of a once lofty range of fold-mountains. Old beyond comprehension, the layers of rock visible here read like a guide-book to the last 1,000 million years of geological events. Most famous for the almost circular range known as Wilpena Pound, the range is 420 kms long. Dreamtime Story The Adnyamathana people have a history of tens of thousands of years of harmonic occupation of the Ranges. Their Dreamtime story tells of two giant Arkaroo snakes who came South to Wilpena, creating the parallel ABC ranges, to gate-crash an initiation ceremony. They caused a willy-willy (dust-storm !) and ate all but two of the attendees. Wilpena pound represents the two sated serpents, with the lumps at either end being their heads. | |
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Proposed Itinerary Parramatta - Parkes - Hay - Menindee Lakes - Broken Hill - Flinders Ranges/Wilpena Pound Gammon Ranges/Arkaroola - The Strezlecki Track - The Oodnadatta Track - Marree The Finke Desert Track - Finke - Alice Springs - Kings Canyon - Uluru The Return. 
Why ?The ride was the product of a plan hatched by Andy and myself over a beer in Bristol, UK in 1999. Our Pub-Plans have a habit of coming true and this was the grandest to date. The aims were the search for tranquility, solitude, wilderness, strange and spectacular flora & fauna. Breathing space from the ratrace. Maybe find time to hatch another unlikely plan... |
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The first thing I met was fly with a buzz, and a sky with no clouds. The heat was hot and the ground was dry, but the air was full of sound. |
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