Flinders Ranges - Arkaroola to Leigh Creek - Part 5

We were up earlyish this morning and went for a walk around the village, before heading to breakfast.  We climbed the hill behind our accommodation, there's an old observatory up there, but hasn't been used for many years. I think they have moved to a new observatory on a hilltop on the other side of the village.

All was quiet in Arkaroola this morning, and probably every morning to be honest.

Arkaroola Village

Looking down over the caravan park, it was almost empty. Adam the GS rider was camping down by the creek on the right.

With breakfast dispatched Dave said we will be riding out an extremely remote road today through the Gammon Ranges National Park that will take us to Leigh Creek. He'd seen a gpx track on Brett Pearsons youtube channel for this road, link to the video where he rides some of the bit we did. He said "Brett rode it alone so can't be hard". My reply, "yeah and Brett rides a 701 Enduro bike that weighs 145kg, not a fat porker 250kg adv bike. Big difference."

The road went west out of Arkaroola, starting out, the road was fairly easy going as we were heading toward Bolla Bollana Smelter ruins. We have 75km of extremely remote terrain before coming back onto the Gammon Ranges Road to Leigh Creek.

After about 12km we turned off the main road onto 4 Mile Track, the road got narrower and rougher and much more rocky and even more remote. We soon arrived at Bolla Bollana Smelter Ruins.

There's a large dome shaped kiln at the entrance to the site, now empty. The smelter started operation in 1873 and had ore transported in from nearby mines where they melted down copper.

There's not much left now, you can still see the flue with collapsed roof running up the hill, the chimney has fallen down long ago and can't be seen.

We continued along 4 Mile Track with the landscape changing the further we went, the tree's got fewer and the hills became bigger, the road got more rocky. Its definitely 4wd territory out here. There were a few steep climbs and one very steep descent. So steep we couldn't ride down it, due to the rocks and ruts. 

I was concerned if there was a hill like this one going back up we might get stuck at the bottom unable to get out. I got Dave to ride out and check before I came down it, but all good. It took me 10 minutes to get down that hill clutching it and rolling. 

We had a few more steep rocky climbs before we got to the last one pictured below. They are not any steeper than any of the other climbs I've done, its more the fact they are very rocky and lose makes it more difficult than it looks.

I watched Dave navigate his way up from the other hill, I could see him bounce off a few of the rocks and ledges as he went up. I went carefully down and then went full send on the way up, madly clutching it, bouncing off shit all the way up. There were some big rocks on that hill.

We stopped for a break at the top, and had a muesli bar snack and drink whilst taking in the views from up here. Lucky it wasn't hot out today, every day was a perfect 20°C. That last hill was pretty lose and rocky and it wasn't pretty, but here we are, just getting it done. 

We were only 20kms into the ride and it had taken us 1.5hrs. It was a little technical, line choice became a big part of getting up some of the hills safely.

We dropped off the hill and from that point on the road opened up into a flowing trail, it was 15kms before we came to a gate that lead to another road which headed south towards the main road. We went past a house, first one we had seen for over 50kms, we stopped for a brief photo near Mt Serle before coming to Gammon Ranges Road. We turned right and headed into Copley then onto Leigh Creek.

Leigh Creek is a pretty small town, but bigger than most around the Flinders. The town was founded on mining so its larger than most other towns in the Flinders. We stopped at the pub for some lunch.

We ordered the lunch special hamburger,  but were going to split it as we weren't overly hungry. It was the biggest hamburger I've ever seen. Half of it filled us up it was that big.

Fuelling up we bumped into the same Adv guys we stay next to last night. Back to Gammon Ranges Road, the information sign just out of Copley wasn't very informative. The roads have been deserted today, besides Leigh Creek, we haven't seen a single car on the road all day.

The main road was a gravel super highway and was flowing through amazing scenery. We rode through  Italowie Gorge, more emu's running through the creek bed like mad berserkers.

We got back just after 4pm, much faster via the main road than the adv route this morning. Rather than go straight to the bar we went for a walk around to have a better look at the place. 

At least the Arkaroola road information sign is up to date. 

As we turned to head back into Arkaroola, we were treated to a breath taking sunset.

We had a few well earned beers back at the bar before diner, the chef had the day off and the entire bar staff cook up an amazing BBQ banquet out in the pool area. We again met Adam from Tassie and had dinner and a few glasses of red with him. Such a nice guy and we chatted about riding Tassie and other parts of Australia for a few hours.  We had an early night as it tomorrow we head back to Broken Hill.

Arkaroola to Leigh Creek - Return

Flinders Ranges - Blinman to Arkaroola - Part 4

Another early start for us, as we had to pack all our gear today as we would be travelling to Arkaroola. Breakfast dispatched we loaded the bikes and took the Parachilna Gorge Rd, we would be riding the full road this morning but we had to stop for fuel first at Angorichina Village. There's not much there just fuel and a store from what I could see. A group of 6 adventure bikes pulled in just behind us. We would bump into these guys a couple more times.

Fuelled up, we then rode into Parachilna Gorge, it seems to be one of the shorter Gorge roads in the Flinders, it didn't take long to ride through.

We soon turned off this road and headed back up Glass Gorge Rd which we'd done yesterday. Dave said we would be turning off this road after a few kilometres and taking Moolooloo Rd.

Bulldust

Moolooloo Rd leads to Moolooloo Station, then the road continues as a Public Access Road(PAR4), not sure it has a name other than PAR4 but it follows Gap Creek. This bit was a bit more technical track through creek beds to Artimore Ruins then back to Blinman.

We stopped in one of the creek beds for a break and to have a muesli bar. We hadn't seen a vehicle on this road at all. It's fairly remote and a 4wd is recommended as clearance is required to get up/down some of the creeks beds and other bits of terrain.

We followed Gap Creek for quiet some time, Criss/crossing the creek multiple times. We had a herd of emu's running through at a couple of points. We didn't stop for many photo's along here. I think we both had photo fatigue and were just enjoying the ride instead.

We had been riding through forested hills for some time when it opened up to into a large clearing, this was the location of the Artimore Ruins. Built back in the 1800's, and abandoned in 1903.

Dave said we will follow the ridge line along for a while before we come back out onto the Northern Flinders Way, where we will head back into Blinman for lunch at the bakery. I can say the pie's at the bakery were exceptional.

After lunch we headed back out onto the Northern Flinders Way on our way to Arkaroola where we are going to stay for the next two nights.

This road was a gravel, super highway with a bit of everything thrown in, there was a section that they were grading for about 20kms which was a bit lose, but for the most part it was nice gravel, loose gravel, rocky sections, dry creek crossings, and one particularly nasty creek crossing that had some deep sand. I managed my best shithouse adv riding and stalled it in the sand, 2 gears too high with too little momentum. Well least I didn't crash it.

Arriving early around 3pm at Arkaroola we filled up, petrol isn't exactly cheap out here - $2.63 per litre, lucky we can fill up with 91, even that was expensive at $53 for both bikes. Its currently around $1.59 per litre in Sydney.

We checked into our room and unloaded our gear. The guys we met at Angorichina on the Adventure bikes were staying here tonight too.

We took a little  time to have a walk around and take a look at the place, Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary is nestled in a natural basin of ranges, surrounded on each side by colourful rock formations. It is super spectacular and dusk and dawn with all the different colours gleaming off the rock faces.

Arkaroola boasts a reception/accommodation, Bar & Restaurant, Shop & Service station, caravan park & bush camping. There are various hiking trails, and self drive tours and guided 4wd tours. Arkaroola is only the second certified International Dark Sky Sanctuary in Australia. They have an observatory on the hill overlooking the locality that do tours.

It would have been cool to do a tour but we weren't here for that, Dave rushed the bar, which was staffed by a bunch of young ladies from Europe, out here working and seeing some of Australia.

We happened to meet Adam, a GS1200 rider from Tasmania, we got chatting to him he has retired and just riding around Australia as you do. Apparently he was waiting on a new helmet to arrive from Adelaide as the day before he trowelled his bike in some sand in a creek crossing at 80kmh. Yeah the same one I stalled in. 

He was on his way up the Oodnadatta track. We notice he had road tyres on, not 50/50 or dirt tyres. A brave man. We were chatting over a couple beers, watching Adam Riemann videos in the bar on the big TV. Funny enough I'd texted him a coupe of days later and he sent me this picture of himself.

Adam Riemann & Adam

Adam Riemann was riding through Oodnadatta on his way home during his KLR650 video which you can see here. Its a small world.

Were retired to the restaurant with a bottle of wine and two of the best steaks we've had in years. It was so good we just had to order a desert, which I don't normally do. The food in Arkaroola is exception at reasonable prices too.

Magnific!

Blinman to Arkaroola via Artimore Ruins

Flinders Ranges - Blinman to Parachilna via the Gorges - Part 3

Blinman via Bunyeroo/Brachina/Parachilna Gorges - Blinman

Today Dave had planned out some nice scenic riding through some of the Flinders most spectacular and iconic Gorges. We had an early breakfast and hit the road by 8am heading back south the way we came yesterday. We saw quite a few Skippy's out this morning too. 

We turned off onto Brachina Gorge road, which was nicely graded main gravel road. These gravel roads in the Flinders are superbly maintained and such a joy to ride. Not to mention the beautiful scenery which is  quite unlike anything I've ever seen anywhere else in Australia, it's unique. This road is also known as the Corridor through time Geological Trail, you can see why in some of these photos.

Not far after the lookout we turned into Bunyeroo Gorge Road and headed south through dense forested hills. Stunning scenery and more awesome riding.

Bunyeroo Gorge is only about 20 minutes riding from the turn off, but its through some very special scenery. We came into the Gorge, the colours of the rock faces are stunning at this time of morning. Pity my phone camera couldn't match the colours we saw.  Stopped for the photo below, we saw some small rock wallaby's licking water from the rocks. They were so hard to spot you could only see them when they moved.

Riding through the gorge, we are riding along a river bed that has been compacted by many cars/4wds so is fairly easy riding, unless you happen to stray near the side in the soft bits.

The road started to climb out of the Gorge again heading north until we came upon one of the most stunning lookouts I think I've seen in many years, maybe the best one ever. The iconic Razorback lookout, and it delivered in spades.

Looking to the North from Razorback lookout, superb riding

Dave got his drone out to film some of the magic scenery. Whilst he was doing droney type stuff I got out my camera. I'm sure some of that footage will be awesome, if he can pull his finger out of his backside to do anything with it. Yeah, yeah tell your excuses walking pal.

After Dave finished faffing around with the drone I got some nice shots of him riding the Desert X with that background. I didn't have to ask him twice to do a couple of ride pasts, he was roosting like a cut snake.

From here we rode north and out to the main road. Dave said we will top up with fuel in Wilpena again, get a coffee and morning tea. 

I took a quick pic of the map at Wilpena. I still didn't know where we were going, but I didn't care it was great any direction we headed in, some of the most scenic riding I've done in a few years.

From Wilpena we headed back north towards Bunyeroo Rd again stopping by the Ikara-Flinders sign just for this pic.

I was really upset that we had to ride back through Bunyeroo Gorge again, and via Razorback lookout. There were 4 or 5 cars parked there when we came back, I'm glad we were here early before the masses came to visit. Riding back through the forested hills was sublime.

We got back to the intersection of Brachina Gorge road and we turned left and actually went through Brachina Gorge. These roads are some of those must ride roads in the Flinders, spectacular scenery everywhere you looked. All of the gorges we are riding through are Stoney river beds, soft and dangerous when off the beaten path, but the main road is easy going.

We continued further along into the Gorge and the scenery just kept getting better and better, the riding was so much fun.

Starting to get photo fatigued stopping to photo all these beautiful rock gorges. So we pack up and ride on for 3 or 4 more corners and then we have to pull over again to take some more pics. Yeah it was slow going, but spectacular.

The river bed in the above photo we had just ridden through to this lookout point.

And then a couple of kilometres later we were out of the gorge and riding on a dead straight flat road for about 10kms until we hit a main sealed road, where we turned north until we got to the town of Parachilna. Dave said we will stop for lunch here.

 

For such a small place I wasn't expecting much, but to my surprise we stepped into a pretty swanky looking pub, the Praire Hotel. Don't let the plain outside looks fool you. They've spent a bomb on doing up the inside of this place which included a brewery. It was called the Parachilna Brewery Project. Well, well, well just up my alley.......

A tasting platter and schooner later, we decided to get a take away six pack the beer was that good. A quick look around and the old train station is now abandoned but has a history of the area, the Ghan used to travel through here, but long time ago.

After the tasty beers, we headed down Parachilna Gorge Road, just as we started entering the gorge Dave had us turn up Glass Gorge Road instead. He said this was a great way back into Blinman and there's a cool lookout we need to stop at.

It turned into a twisty little road until we climbed a steep hill to the lookout, which had stunning views over the surrounding ranges. Dave pulled the drone out again to get some more footage that'll never see the light of day cause he's to lazy to edit it.

Such a spectacular view of the surrounding hills. We had to have a beer at the Hilltop Hotel. Adventure riding at its best. Missed out Geoffrey. 😝

We headed back to Blinman via Glass Gorge Road, which was superb adventure riding.

Glass Gorge came and went that quickly I didn't realise we went past, no signs. So here's a photo of the Gorge from the Gopro.

Just after the Gorge we came upon George Glass House Ruins. It long been abandoned, interesting to see a gravestone down in the creek, strange place to bury someone.

It was time to get back to Blinman for beers at the pub. It was late afternoon and I wanted to get off the bike and relax with a few beers at the pub before we encountered any Skippy's. We hit the road again for the last short stint.

We made it back to Blinman Hotel just before 5pm, which suited me as I didn't want to meet any more Skippy's. The pub was quite busy when we got there with a lot of people out enjoying the afternoon sun in the beer garden, so we joined them. What a absolute blast we had in the Flinders today, and we only did 205km for the whole day.

Blinman Loop through the Gorges