Flinders Ranges - Rawnsley Park

On a weekend in December 2009, some mates and I set out from Adelaide on an easy two day trip to the Flinders Ranges. The Adelaide crew, Fish, Tully, Jock and myself met up at a service station on the northern outskirts of Adelaide and headed north up the A1 Port Wakefield Road. We planned on meeting Cozzie who has a Suzuki 109 Boulevard at Port Pirie which is about 220 km from Adelaide’s northern outskirts.

Fish and Tully had traveled with me on my “Half Way ‘Round” trip in early 2009, and I was looking forward to being on the road again with them. Since that memorable trip, each of us has changed bikes. We were going to field test the CB radios that we had each removed from the old and fitted to our new bikes. However, we each had various technical problems, and so headed off with no coms.

It was an uneventful ride up the two lane highway to Port Wakefield, where we stopped at Pop Kiplings Bakery for a coffee and bun. In my opinion they have the best pepper pies and fruit buns in SA and it’s worth the ride, just to get a feed.

We rolled into Port Pirie mid morning and headed for Cozzie’s house. It was about 250 km from Jock’s place in Adelaide’s southern suburbs to Port Pirie. Jock now knows that the absolute range of his Yamaha is 248 km, because he ran out of fuel just a couple of kilometers short of the servo. It’s unlikely that we will let him forget. We phoned Cozzie, who delivered some fuel, and we were soon on our way again.

We rode north to Port Germain , which has the longest Jetty in SA, and then turned east on the road across the Southern Flinders Ranges through the Germain Gorge. While this is a sealed and nicely twisty road, the surface is bumpy, and we encountered plenty of gravel and other debris on many corners. It a road to be ridden with great caution, but the scenery is spectacular. We rejoined the Main North Road at Murray Town. At Wilmington we turned west and rode back across the range through the spectacular Horrock’s Pass. This is a twisting road with good surface and no tricky corners, which cries out to be ridden with enthusiasm. It emerges with a view over the coastal plains and the top of Spencer Gulf, with the city of Port Augusta and its power station in the background.

We turned north off the highway again, just before Port Augusta and headed through the picturesque Pitchi Ritchi Pass. This magnificent route through the ranges follows the historic Pitchi Ritchi Railway to it’s beginning at the equally historic Flinders Ranges town of Quorn.

Hawker, the gateway to the Flinders Ranges, is just 70 km further north. We topped up with fuel and rode the last 30 km to the Rawnsley Park Caravan Park, where we had booked a cabin here for the night. Rawnsley Park Station, on the southern face of the famous Wilpena Pound, was settled as part of Arkaba Station in 1851, and while it still runs a few sheep, has tourism as it’s main focus.

I’ve stayed here on several occasions. There is a variety of accommodation, from unpowered bush camping sites, powered vans sites, cabins and luxury Eco-Villas. There’s the Woolshed Restaurant for an up-market meal, but we chose to cook out own in the well appointed Camp Kitchen. We watched the sunset over Rawnsley Bluff, shared some good wine, good company and good food, while we shared our stories with other campers. Camp Kitchens are such a great place to exchange stories with other travelers, over a meal or a drink. I find that everyone has a story to tell, and they are keen to hear mine, and I will use Camp Kitchens as often as possible.

We woke the next morning, having all slept oblivious of the snoring which would have been rattling the walls. Sunrise over Rawnsely Bluff is truly magnificent.

After a stop at the Arkaba Lookout for some photos. Our ride home the following day took us back through Hawker, Quorn, and just to try a different road, on the direct route to Wilmington, rather than through Pitchi Ritchi and Horrock’s Pass again. We stopped for lunch at the famous Stone Hut Bakery which boasts “The Best Pies in the Universe”, along with a range of other local produce. I must say that the pies were very good, but the prices were a little high.

The Clare Valley was looking quite lush for this time of year, and we had to stop at the Clare Bakery for afternoon tea. It’s a beautiful ride and much more scenic than the highway that we had taken the day before when heading north. South of Clare we struck seemingly endless road works, where scheduled repairs and the construction of the new northern expressway is taking place.

Our two day ride covered about 850 km in near perfect weather. Once home I unpacked, cleaned the bugs from the bike, fixed the problem with my CB Radio, and started planning my next trip.

.

Six Ferries Ride

Click on the map to enlarge it

This is a one day ride that I have mapped out, which covers 430 kilometers, and crosses the lower SA section of the River Murray a total of six times by Ferry.

Today Fish, Jock and myself completed the “Six Ferries Ride”.

We left the Adelaide southern suburbs at 8.30 am and headed through the southern foothills in almost perfect weather. It was about 20 degrees when we left, which was a pleasant change after last week’s heat wave. Our chosen route wound our way south through some wonderful twisting Adelaide Hills roads from Mylor, to Hahndorf and on to Strathalbyn via Echunga and Meadows. This is all a fairly well established and popular motorcycling route, and there are many alternative roads to Strathalbyn, all of them great.. After a brief stop at the Strathalbyn Bakery for a coffee, we said goodbye to the “twisties” and continued through the Langhorne Creek wine region to Wellington. This was to be our first Ferry Crossing. This part of the ride is quite flat and straight, but picturesque nonetheless.

Wellington is an historic river town, situated just before the Murray empties into Lake Alexandrina. The pub has good meals, and there is a small community museum situated in the old courthouse.

Over the Ferry to the eastern side of the river, and just a short run up the road to Tailem Bend, and old railway town which is now a services centre for the local community. The ferry crossing there leads to the small town of Jervois on the western side floodplain, which is in the middle of a dairying area.

From Jervois it’s about 25 kilometers to major town of Murray Bridge where we kept to the western side of the river and headed for Mannum. Just ten kilometes out of Mannum we passed the Reedy Creek Waterfall Reserve. This is a relatively unknown hidden treasure, Here a permanent stream from the eastern side of the Adelaide Hills runs through a shallow gorge and over granite boulders forming a string a rock pools stretching for several hundred meters. It’s a pretty spot for a picnic and a scramble up the creek and over the rocks.

Mannum is another historic river town, and home to the paddle steamer “Marion”. We topped up with fuel, and stopped for morning tea down by the river, before crossing ferry number three which is right in the town, and beside the caravan park. There’s plenty of options for meals here, with a couple of pubs and a good bakery.

Once back on the eastern side of the river, we followed the scenic river road to Younghusband towards Bowhill. This road follows the main stream and the strings of now dried swamps which are testimony to the low river levels. This road has a couple of kilometers of hard packed dirt road, before it rejoins the bitumen. This is a beaut side road which showcases the nature of the river. We bypassed the shack city of Bowhill and continued the further 10 kilometers to Purnong Landing for the fourth ferry crossing. After crossing to the west side of the river again, we left the shacks at Purnong Landing and headed inland for 16 kilometers on the Mannum Road, and then cut back north east towards Walker Flat. This route kept us on the sealed roads. At Walker Flat there is a well stocked general store, with sells a range of takeaway food as well as both un leaded and premium petrol. We sat by the river to eat lunch while watching Ferry Number Five ply back and forth.

After lunch we crossed the penultimate ferry at Walker Flat and then headed north to Swan Reach. This road follows the cliff tops on the eastern side of the river. There are several lookouts which provide great views of the old river and the sad dried swamps.

The Swan Reach pub is a great venue for a meal, with the dining room overlooking the river. The general store also sells petrol.

We crossed the sixth and last ferry at Swan Reach, and headed west through mallee scrub and crop farms to the little town of Sedan. From there the Sedan to Mt Pleasant road concludes with a magnificent 18 kilometer stretch with open sweeping curves which wind up the eastern side of the range at Cooks Hill and then across the top through open grazing country to finish at aptly named rural town of Mount Pleasant. This is a spectacular piece of road, which cries out to be ridden with enthusiasm.

From Mount Pleasant we meandered through the hills passing through Birdwood, home of the National Motor Museum, and Woodside with its pubs and antique shops. We joined the freeway at Verdun, and headed home.

This ride has a magnificent variety of scenery and roads. We passed through twisties in the hills, wine regions, river towns, all manner of farm country, highways and straight roads through flat mallee country, and wonderful sweepers. If you want a one day sample of what SA has to offer, I can recommend the “Six Ferries Ride”.

More Adventures are Planned

It's 2010 already, and I have some more adventures planned. There's nothing planned which is quite as adventurous as my last trip (not yet anyway), but some adventures nevertheless. Keep watching, as I use this site to keep you up to date with my latest motorcycle journeys.