Birthday trip of a lifetime
Seven decades is something to celebrate.
Various friends and relatives generously chipped in toward the cost of a fabulous two-day flight over the Flinders Ranges-Birdsville-Lake Eyre area. We made a meal of it, adding some excitement on the way there and back. The camper car was a star feature.
Getting There
The outward route took us via Cohuna (childhood stamping ground of she who cannot be named), various interesting points along the Murray Valley Highway including the most spectacular junction of the Wakool and Murray Rivers, Turrumbarry Weir, Mildura (including a most fabulous dinner at Stefano’s), a river lock near Wentworth, Peterborough (SA), and Hawker.
On the ground in Ikara-Flinders Ranges
We spent a few days in various parts of the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park and surrounds. A very very cold night in the camper car in Wilpena Pound, exploration of the gorges that cut across the range (Moralana Gorge, Brachina Gorge, Parachilna Gorge), we met up with my cousin Geraldine and her husband Frank for a couple of nights campling in Brachina Gorge and a night in the cabin accommodation at Rawnsley Park Station (including a wonderful dinner at the Woolshed restaurant).
The flight - a wonderful experience
The two-day flight started at the Hawker airfield. We flew north, did a loop over Wilpena Pound, then continued up the eastern side of the Flinders, over the Vulkathunha-Gammon Range to Arkaroola; further north over the Strzelecki desert, to Innamincka where we stopped for lunch (at the pub). The Cooper Creek was in flood and impassable. After lunch, a short flight out for a quick look at the Burke and Wills Dig Tree, then back aloft to Birdsville for an overnight stay (at the Birdsville Hotel, a wonderful place). Next morning, we flew across ‘Big Red’ (a huge sand dune in the Simpson desert), then followed the course of the Diamantina River south-east to where it fanned out into the Goyder Lagoon, then re-formed as the Warburton River en route to northern Lake Eyre. There was a lot of water around, from the rainfall back in February. More recent rains were also swelling the water courses, and we could see the front of the newer water. Quite spectacular, lots of birds. Then we were over Lake Eyre North, then the southern part, before stopping for lunch at Marree. Another interesting old pub. The flight home tooks us over Leigh Creek, and the western side of the Ikara-Flinders Range, another loop over the western end of the Pound, and returning to Hawker.
A quite amazing trip. Our pilot was the grandson of Reg Sprigg, a person of fame and interest - the geologist who understood and mapped the geology of the whole region, found the gas in South Australia’s Moomba Basin, he and his wife were the first white people to cross the Simpson Desert by car, he set up Arkaroola Village (as a kind of conservation zone), and he had been a student of Douglas Mawson at Adelaide University.
Homeward …
We had a second night in flasher accommodation at the Rawnsley Park Station, including another great meal at the Woolshed, then headed south. Lunch was at Skillogalee (Sevenhill in the Clare Valley), then south to Murray Bridge, for a night at the quite flash Bridgeport hotel. We stopped at Nhill (the Zero Motel!!), visited the Little Desert NP briefly, where I played saxophone to the thunderous applause of a herd of cows, then home.
