We had the best day. ?
Woke around 5am after an early night, was 4C, much warmer than the night before. ?? I got up and put on the aircon and got back into bed until 6am. Just before 7am we headed down to the shop and waited for our guide to arrive. For the morning bushwalk and breakfast tour.
Rick, our guide for the morning, was right on time, and we are the only ones on the tour. ? Rick is the manager of the eco villas, he only noticed our booking at 10pm last night. Today is his day off. We were lucky to get him. He was a wealth of information, we learnt a lot.
He has worked here for 2 1/2yrs, before that he and his wife managed the Hackney caravan park. He was telling us that all the telecommunication black holes in the flinders have been fixed by Optus. The Govt put it out for tender. Since Easter there has been better reception. But most people up here have Telstra phones! ?
Rawnsley Park Station is 30,000 acres, so very small. There are 1000 sheep on the station down from 3000 because of lack of rain. They have been feeding them hay but there have been August rains so now there is enough feed for them. But the ground is still dry underneath. ? Not many lambs were born this year, about one for every 5 ewes. Normally most would have a lamb. (We also saw a few lambs with tails)
This morning we did part of the Bluff walk, about 4-5km loop, just over 1 1/2hrs. We had a great view out to the Elder Range which was lit up by the sun. Great views. Was great to have our hiking boots on, has been a while.
The Flinders Ranges are over 600 million years old. Makes us quite insignificant really, a tiny speck on the timeline. They are twice as old at the mountains in Europe, which is why the Flinders are smaller. 300 million years of weathering will do that! ?
Was an interesting walk and the scenery was ruggedly beautiful. We saw 200 year old River red gums as we walked back down along a river bed. There was a sandalwood tree and a Wild peach tree (quandong) which needs a host tree to get started. We also saw some Euro Wallabies, there were only a few birds, which was disappointing.
After we got back Rick cooked us breakfast and we sat on tree trunks and ate it on sandstone rock tables. Was delicious.
Great start to the day. Highly recommend the tour.
We got back to the van around 10am and relaxed for a few hours.
Around 1.30pm we headed off for a 1 1/2km walk to have a look at the eco villas they have nearby. At about the 400 metre point we took the right hand track instead of the left one. ? Our walk ended up being over 6km instead. Not what I had in mind, but it was beautiful. At one point we even headed off track, after about 500m we decided to turn around. That was a good choice, we eventually found our way, that was a relief. ? We had no water or hats as we were only having a short stroll! Eventually we arrived at the other end of the Eco Villas and headed back to the van along the track we should have taken in the beginning.
Was a lovely walk, glad it ended without incident.
Around 5pm we headed out with a cheese platter and bottle of red, to go and watch the sunset. We asked Rick this morning where the best place was to go and watch the sunset. He told us about Pugilist Hill look out 8-9km away by Chace range.
Or station look out which is near our van. The sun sets behind Elder range and lights up Chace range in the evening. We decided to go to Station Hill lookout. It was a good choice. A dirt road took us to the lookout and to our delight there was a bench table there waiting for us. A quick wipe down and we were all set up. We were the only ones there and what a view, we were looking directly at Chace range. As the sun slowly set the range lit up. Was a stunning spot for our cheese platter. Doesn’t get much better than that. By 6pm the show was over and we headed back to the van.
Will be another early night for us. Was a lovely day.
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