Flinders Ranges - Broken Hill to Melrose and Blinman - Part 2

We were up reasonably early to pack up and load the bikes, which was done fairly quickly. Dave paired our Cardo's comms so we could chat on the way. I'd come to realise later how good this would be.

Packing done we hooked into a healthy breakfast, as I'd been actively tracking my fitness the last 4 months, I didn't want to pile on 4 or 5kg by eating pies and bacon & egg breakfasts everyday. 

Before heading out of town we got fuel and air in the tyre's before pointing our bikes out the Barrier Hwy towards Yunta and then beyond to the Southern Flinders ranges. 

Broken Hill to Melrose

Riding towards the border there were plenty of goats roaming along the roadside all the way to Yunta infact, but before we reached there we got to the border town of Cockburn where NSW meets South Australia. So we stopped for the obligatory photos at the border. 

The border gate cafe was closed and looked like it has been for some time. Would have been nice for a coffee stop, but we continued to Yunta as there's very little here.

We continued riding until Yunta, where we got fuel and had our morning coffee here before we headed for Peterborough. Yunta is a small place but had plenty of traffic passing through.

From Yunta to Peterborough the landscape gradually changes from unfenced scrub land to farming land. 

We arrived in Peterborough just before lunch. We weren't really hungry, but did stop by the pub which was strangely closed at 5 to 12.

Peterborough was an old rail town back in the late 1880's. Ore was carried from Broken Hill through Peterborough to Port Pirie and by the early 1900's had over 100 trains per day coming through the town. That's why there is a massive rail museum in town. We didn't have time for that but there was a large steam loco in the middle of town.

RM Williams is a famous Australian brand of boots and clothing, I was surprised to see the road was called RM Williams Way. Just after the photo below a rabbit took off running along the fence line in the paddock opposite. Dave said speed up and see how fast he's going, the little fella got up to 55kmh.

We stopped in for a look in Jamestown, but ended up riding through to Gladstone. There was an old gaol on the outskirts of town, but had been closed for many years. Dave said lets stop for lunch.

So we found a pub, and had a liquid lunch. Well we are on holidays after all. There sure are a lot of little pubs around in these country towns in SA, we saw many abandoned pubs too.

We pressed on towards Port Pirie, chatting over the comms I suggested continuing to Port Germaine instead. As we rode along, the majestic hills of the Flinders Ranges rose to our right, while the vast expanse of Spencer Gulf stretched out to our left.  Some of the tracks up those hills looked pretty steep.

Port Germaine, a quaint town perched on the shores of the Spencer Gulf, once boasted the longest jetty in the Southern Hemisphere back in the 1800s. Even today, it stretches over 1,500 meters into the water. Tempting as it was, I wasn't about to trek its length in riding boots.

Dave said we were about to get our first real taste of riding in the Flinders, starting with the Bridle Track just a few kilometers out of town. From there, we’d tackle some solid climbs leading to breath-taking lookouts over the Gulf.

"All right, let's go!" I said, excitement kicking in now that the moment had arrived. We pulled up at the west gate of the Bridle Track and plunged right in—traction control off, of course

Dave launched his drone to capture some footage of the area while I snapped a few photos, letting him play flyboy for a bit. He then set it to follow us up the next climb, but somewhere along the way, it lost its bearings and came to a stop, so we stopped to recover it.

We let a couple of 4wds go past whilst recovering the drone. I looked ahead and saw a fairly step climb up the next ridge. It was a little rough and rocky on the way up but made it without issues.

The views from the top of the hill were simply spectacular whichever direction you looked. We had to stop here and take a few more photos, and put the drone up again. 

The photo below is looking back down the road we just climbed up to this lookout some 450m above the plains below.

It was time to head down to our accommodation in Melrose as it was getting late in the afternoon now. We had a few more gates to go through on the way down until we were out at the east gate and then it was a short few kilometres into Melrose where we stayed at the Mt Remarkable Hotel.

It was very quiet in Melrose, school holidays was finishing up and the long weekend was over so all the tourists had vanished leaving the pub almost to us until diner when it got busy again. It was so nice sitting in the afternoon sun looking over Mt Remarkable having a beer with my bro.

The rooms at the Mt Remarkable Hotel were in the process of being upgraded, we had to wait for the tradies to finish up our rooms before we could check-in. So we sat and had beers. We did wander up to the other pub and had a beer there to spread the love, then came back for diner. The meals were very good. We retired earlyish to the room.

Being Sunday night we put MotoGP on the big screen again and I provided the snacks.........

Needless to say Davey got a bit enthusiastic with the pouring sizes but a great night was had. 

Southern Flinders Ranges Map - Yunta to Melrose

Broken Hill to Yunta - 200km

Yunta - Melrose - 247km

Melrose to Blinman

Another earlyish start today, I wasn't feeling too bad this morning all things considered. I was greeted by Dave who was packing his bike. He said "Ya F*cking Bastard" to which I just laughed and said "You were the idiot pouring the drinks......."

There wasn't much options for breakfast in Melrose and Dave said we will get breakfast at the next town.

Before heading out of town, we took a moment to visit the monument overlooking the town—it was the local War Memorial. From the carpark, we also noticed a network of mountain bike trailheads sprawled across the hillside. Melrose is a major hub for MTB enthusiasts, and it was easy to see why.

We rode to Wilmington, there wasn't much there so we kept on riding. Dave said we will ride Horrock's Pass then head on into Port Augusta for breakfast, sounds good to me.

Horrock's Pass was great surprise that I wasn't expecting. Talk about fun, it's a great bit of twisty tarmac through a scenic gorge, with barely a soul on the road.

We got to the other end and I said we need to turn around and go back to the top where the monument was, and do it again it was that good. I stopped part way down the pass to photo Dave enjoying the twisty tarmac.

Coming out at the end of the pass, the Ranges give way to flat plains down to the Spencer Gulf. There were dozens of wind farms scattered across the plains. We stopped at the lookout to take in the views, we could see Port Augusta in the distance.

Finding somewhere for breakfast was more difficult than expected in Port Augusta. We rode around for about 15-20 minutes trying to find somewhere before we rode over the bridge and found one on the other side of town. There were lots of dodgy looking characters with an ill favoured look standing around in the main street with no close parking to keep an eye on the bikes. No chance of parking anywhere there. 

Bacon & Egg breakfast dispatched, yeah I know I cracked after 3 days and went unhealthy but man it was good. It was time to head north towards Quorn. Scenery starting changing again from flat plains, now rising up and down over low hills with the mountain ranges about us. The road wound its way for some time through beautiful gorges.

The road into the Flinders is tarred all the way to Blinman which I wasn't expecting, I was also not expecting how good this piece of road actually is. Its very wide, super smooth with virtually no potholes and it is flowing in sections with lots of elevation changes. I love these types of roads, fast and flowing. 

In no time we were in Quorn, it's a small town but we didn't stop here and kept riding through. They do have cool looking town name signs in the Flinders I must say.

Riding from Quorn to Hawker is fairly flat and straight and only about 40minutes, with the ranges looming in the distance on either side. We topped up with fuel here as there are not a lot of places to fuel up in the Flinders Ranges and need to be careful.

We had a quick look around town, before finding a really nice place for a relaxing ale. The Hawker Hotel is the only pub in town and has a connecting motel. It would be a good place to stay as a base to do day loop rides from.

I could have sat here all afternoon drinking cold beer in this peaceful location. But those bikes aren't going to ride themselves so we pressed on. 

We took to the  gravel via the Moralana Gorge road, a couple of kamikaze emu's darted out in front of us from the scrub. We took a dead end road into a river bed with very large rocks and very soft ground. We turned around and came back out to the main road again as this road was going the wrong direction for us. 

Next we stopped at Rawnsley lookout, it has 360° views over the surrounding mountain ranges at the southern end of Wilpena. Would love to be here early morning or late afternoon, not in the middle of the day as the strong mid-day sun washes out the colour in the rock faces. Wilpena is a part of the Ikara Flinders Rangers National Park and is a huge amphitheatre style mountain range. Would be good to come back and spend some time here exploring. The landscape was now getting heavily wooded and we started to see kangaroos by the roadside.

The lookout has a carpark and walk ways to the top viewpoint, but we rode our bikes up to the lookout and parked up. We were the only people around today anyway.

Leaving the lookout we took the turn off for Wilpena, where Dave pulled over for a photo and some roosting.......

Yeah bra

Our resident hoon said "lets go into Wilpena Pound and top up our fuel and have a look around". As we crested the hill we saw dozens of Roo's hanging around the roadside. I was surprised at the amount considering it was mid afternoon.

Wilpena Pound is probably one of the most touristy places in the Flinders, with a visitor centre, accommodation, camp grounds and cabins available. They have fuel and a convenience store that has pretty much everything you want. As we didn't have any lunch Dave said lets get a couple small bottles of wine and some cheese & crackers to have on the mountain top just out of town. I wasn't going to argue with that.

We set off again heading north towards Blinman. Not far from Wilpena Pound was  Hucks lookout with stunning views south to Wilpena. This would be great during golden hour, a little over an hour away. Dave put the drone up and grabbed some shots and then we continued on to the other lookout for our afternoon snacks.  

We stopped at the bottom of the hill and Dave says "better turn your traction control off". I took another look at the hill and said "nah it looks easy, it's not that steep". Half way up it got rocky  and a little rough, the traction control started kicking in, slowing momentum. Quickly dropped it back into 1st and gas it up, after a little sphincter puckering on what should have been an easy hill. Dave was laughing at me at the top, "told you idiot, nah it'll be easy". Needless to say this was the last time I left traction control on.....

Looking down, we could see the road into Willow Springs(Skytrek) which is an working station/adventure park. You have to pay to get in as its private property. The road continues north, over those hills the open plains turn into forested sections all the way to Blinman. 

Flyboy cracked out the drone again, whilst I cracked out the cheese/crackers and wines. What a top spot for it, does it get any better than this?

I think old mate here has had too much wine, he's walking like an Egyptian and talking shite......

After our afternoon snacks we continued north along the Flinders Way, we were seeing quite a lot of skippys out now. Dave said lets take a quick look at this Great Wall of China before we head into Blinman. Ok it was only a short ride off the highway and it was coming into golden hour as well.

As we went to ride back out onto the road a car went past heading same direction as us. I said "Lets follow behind this car and use it as a shield from the Skippy's". "Yep good idea" came the reply. Literally about 5 corners later a kangaroo dived under the front of the car and tumbled out the back, we both slowed a bit, the car didn't stop and kept going. Not wanting to lose our shield we kept following. A few kilometres later he pulled over into a parking area. So we had the last  10km or so into Blinman on high alert with Skippy's everywhere. We just arrived before sunset around 6pm.

We got our room sorted, it was a huge room, very clean with comfy beds. Changed and hit the bar for a few beers. I highly recommend the Blinman hotel, only issue was they closed the bar very early, it was a monday night after all so we had a few take aways and some left over fireball that needed some attention. The meals were also really good. We are staying 2 nights so we can leave our gear here and ride around without all the luggage, just tools and tubes.

Not much off road riding today only about 30kms, as there was quite a lot of tar to get here, but was only a little over 330km for the day. Tomorrow will be the start of the gravel riding.

Melrose to Blinman Map