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.

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