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