Tramping creek beds, scaling breathy bluffs and heli-camping… Rawnsley Park Station perfectly curates wild walks.
It’s not yet mid-summer, but the Celsius is set to soar on this still spring morn. So, we’re out early. Kicking off our 5-day Walking the Flinders Ranges trek led by accomplished guide Damon, we head for Blinman Pools. With just daypacks on our backs, our base is at 1968-established Rawnsley Park Station, 430km north of Adelaide, where we’ll return to each afternoon. Nightly nourishment of station-reared lamb will refuel us at iconic Woolshed Restaurant. But first, we must earn our feed…
Creeks and waterholes
Black oaks neighbour the 300-year-old red gums that line Parachilna and Blinman Creeks, currently a patchwork of pools. One section explodes with native watercress, said to have a peppery flavour, while others are mossy, stony and still. Stone bones of long-abandoned dugouts mark where European miner settlers milked their goats.
Bank-hopping, Damon gathers a handful of flat rocks. They become stepping stones for our group to cross the deeper, faster-flowing sections. Damon, however, is a Heysen 105 Ultra Marathon runner, so he bounds from bank to bank like a yellow-footed rock wallaby.
Clumps of potato bush pock the trail. Showy daisies flaunt paint-white petals. And clusters of callitris pine cones hang like Christmas baubles.
“The resin from native pines was used as a glue for weapons by the Aboriginal people. And their termite-resistant timber was used, often for fencing, by the early settlers,” says Damon.
Inspecting a peppercorn tree, we spot a critter who commands respect. “That’s a yellow-faced whipsnake,” says Damon. The mildly venomous non-aggressive serpent stares fixedly as we stealthily pass.
Breezes come and go. Gum boughs bow. Boots occasionally skid on rubble. But we tread steadily across geological layers of time. One raised section of the creek’s increasingly rocky terraces becomes so uniformly tessellated, it’s as though a landscape gardener had paved it. Challenging boulder-scrambling then leads to vertical gorge-like walls so quintessential in the Flinders Ranges wilderness.
We reach the first of Blinman’s two spring-fed pools (sans seasonal waterfall in this semi-arid zone), where we decant and devour our packed lunch. The orange-hued amphitheatre echoes with the cries of Australian ravens as feral goats fearlessly perform parkour on the precipitous rockface.
Meet the locals
On return to base, near the old copper-mining town of Blinman, we meet a local legend. From a raspberry and vanilla-coloured tin shed, Adnyamathanha man Kristian Coulthard and his wife Gaby appear.
Wadna Gallery brims with authentic Mulka Yata artworks created by the Adnyamathanha community, alongside paintings by the renowned Coulthard family. Kristian’s wife, Gaby, makes the hand-sewn bags and bead jewellery.
Throughout childhood, Kristian carved with his grandfather, Clem Coulthard. In fact, his great-grandparents were the first Aboriginal people to sell souvenir artefacts to passing travellers. Decades-old crafts have even been brought in by strangers wondering if they were carved by Kristian’s grandfather. Some were.
“I found this one in a bucket in an antique shop,” says Kristian, pointing to a wadna (boomerang) in a cabinet. “So, I bought it back.”
The Coulthard family also developed the Adnyamathanha Flag. The privilege to stand here is profound.
Rawnsley Bluff
Day two has us neck-craned beneath thermal-surfing whistling kites. Ascending the steep outer foothills of Ikara (the Adnyamathanha name for Wilpena Pound), stands of red mallee dance daintily in the breeze while grass trees stand stalwart.
When our knees begin to swear at us, we take a breather at Lone Pine Lookout. The vista captures 519m high Twidale Top. The remnant mesa helps contextualise how millennia-old erosion has sculpted the Flinders Ranges.
Wrinkled and crumpled by anticlines and synclines, this hardy country began forming some 800 million years ago. Ikara was hewn not by volcanic activity, but the rising, compression and erosion of its sandstone and quartzite. It was once a mountain six kilometres tall, designating it a place of geological significance on the South Australian Heritage Register.
The climb eases as we scale the ridgeline where sun-basking skinks and sand dragons roam. Spade-shaped diggings mean echidnas are active here. Alas, we don’t spot the snouted monotreme.
The leaves of dusty miller sport slick greens on one side and flour-like fur on the other. And, unlike its name, rough grevillea flaunts seductive tongue-like red and yellow flowers. I’m not sure whether to stroke them or lick them (I do neither).
Parting foliage along the escarpment’s Red Terraces unveils the expanse of Rawnsley Park’s 29,000-acre working sheep station and eco-certified accommodations. Most visitors choose the campsite, but we’re in the holiday units (luxury eco-villas are available as an upgrade).
Reaching the sun-flooded summit of rock-strewn Rawnsley Bluff, we picnic alongside handsome tawny dragons with stripy orange necks. Vast panoramas stretch to the south towards Chace Range and the saltpan of Lake Torrens glittering in the distant west.
Back at the station after a succulent lamb platter, we tumble into the cold outdoor pool. It faces directly onto regal Rawnsley Bluff. And although our exhausted joints thrum from the ascent, our sense of achievement strums louder.
Balconies of Wangara
It’s an easy breezy day three on this tranquil walk in Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park. Following Wilpena Creek into Ikara (Wilpena Pound), colossal river red gums and white gums trill with Australian ringnecks. The smell of native curry bush increases as we approach historic Hills Homestead.
On a collection of panels, two contrasting stories of the harsh life out here are poignantly told by Adnyamathanha woman Eileen Coulthard, and a daughter of the homestead’s pastoralist family, Jessie Hill. The pound may have had protective ramparts, but it didn’t escape nature’s elements.
During boom-and-bust farming, stock drowned in flood and starved during drought until pioneering wealth eventually ran as dry as the parched ground itself. To view the cradled basin of the pound, we climb to Wangara Lookout. Guided by fragrant acacias, its two lofty balconies showcase the unique cake-tin of a landscape home to hope and loss.
The Adnyamathanha people believe that Ikara was formed by two Dreaming serpents, with the female head of one creating the highest point: Ngarri Mudlanha (St Mary Peak).
If we were here at night, we might have a chance of sighting the western quoll. Extinct in the Flinders Ranges for 150 years, the ongoing Bounceback reintroduction program is enabling the small spotted marsupial (as well as the brush-tailed possum) to re-establish itself and independently sustain its own population. Both creatures are Aboriginal totems.
Swags and stars
Dizzy with excitement, we meet pilot Johnny for our heli-camping experience. Outback time begins when he choppers above the wedge-tailed eagles that skirt Ikara’s ramparts to our right. To our left, red-brown Bonney Sandstone and burnished-orange Rawnsley Quartzite timelessly striate the Elder Range into a puckered accordion.
A giant H on a timber platform guides us into the green forest atop Chace Range. Shedding our backpacks, we rock-perch as sunset flame-grills the ranges into an incandescent orange. It complements the flicker of the campfire. Damon is already sizzling lamb chops, steak, sweetcorn and potatoes.
Bottles of wine pop and cans of gin clink as we sink into camping chairs. When songs and cheers fade to snores, we burrow into our two-person swags. I’m travelling solo, so I starfish like no-one’s watching – because they aren’t. Once zipped in, it’s just me and a sky polka dotted in stars.
Slopes and saddles
Campfire-cooked sausages, bacon and mushrooms pull us from our pillows. Mugs of tea later, we pack up and farewell the bushflies (it’s Australia!). It’s an easy descent at first, until steep scree-like Chace Track oils the ankles and teases the balance. The bulldozed trail was carved out in 1963 by Arkapena Station owners, the Gregory brothers, to transport their sheep across the range. Damon is a professional and reminds us to go slowly.
Reaching Rawnsley Park’s flat plains where Dohne/Merino sheep graze, we find a solitary quandong tree bearing just one unripe native peach. Carpets of sea lavender brush pale blues across the bold orange dirt until a male emu parades his chicks across it.
After lunch, we climb to Alison Saddle, named after the mother of Tony Smith, Rawnsley Park Station’s owner. A loop around Kangaroo Gap Lookout takes in Rawnsley’s dam. Cleverly, its gravity-fed waters are absorbed through the gap’s sandstone strata, replenishing the property’s triple-bore aquifer.
On the other side of the saddle, tiny red-capped robins appear and disappear in the dense pine forest. Passing Pines Cave, hollowed into the sandstone, the scent of purple vanilla lily is deliciously intoxicating.
Cultural landmarks
Our final walk to a culturally significant site is also a botanist’s dream. Pea-like pods on silver senna hang elegantly. Tufts of aromatic common fringe myrtle rise prettily. Lobe-leaf hopbush with its red flowers and fragile three-winged fruit pods dominates the trail. And the spontaneous Riverdance-like leaps from all of us (okay, me) mean we deftly dodge the trail of frenzied bull ant nests.
The gradual climb leads to the protected Aboriginal art site of Akurra Adnya (Arkaroo Rock). Behind a cage, beautifully integrating two Akurra (Dreaming serpents), the overhang shelters vivid charcoal and ochre artwork. Excavations have revealed that Aboriginal people camped here some 6,000 years ago.
A sign asks visitors to refrain from re-telling the stories on the information boards. So, if you would like to learn about Aboriginal culture in this area, please visit the Adnyamathanha people. Every rock, tree, bird and waterhole in this sublime land has a sacred story to tell. And like Kristian Coulthard, they’d love to share it with you in person.
Click here for more information.
Words and photos_Marie Barbieri