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