Copley and Arkaroola wilderness sanctuary.

Copley -in 1891 came to life as a railway station for the old Leigh Creek.
Leigh Creek—6km down the road has a population of 600 and is a mining town. Coal was discovered here 1888 but large scale mining did not happen until 1948.
You can not live here unless you or your partner have at least 20 hours work in the town. Once you retire you have to move on.

We leave the caravan at the Copley caravan park and head into the very north of the Flinders ranges to Arkaroola Wilderness sanctuary.
It is a dirt road for 130 km and the caravan would be fine on this trip unless it rains, this is forecast, so the best decision is leave it at Copley. We are only going for 2 nights and have to travel back the same way anyway.

The road is not bad we just take our time to see the scenery.
This place was bought in 1967 as sheep station and transformed into the wilderness sanctuary with Ecco accreditation.



Before we set up the roof top tent we have lunch then attack the Acacia Ridge top walk. This walk is 5.6 km in length, altitude starting from 270mt going to 566mt. You can get a lift out to the start 4 km back along the track into Arkaroola, or walk both ways. Yea right me walk this track twice, it took us 3 ½ hours one way.
The plants are mostly acacias hence the name , the ridge is made of blue mine conglomerate. It has clear crystals of quartz in granite. This makes them shine in the sunlight.
This time of the year is too late to be doing these walks out in the 40 deg never ending bright sunshine. We are covered in hat, sunscreen, sun glasses, shirts and carry a couple of litres of water.




We get back to the reception / cabin area and collapse in the green, in need of a clean closed swimming pool. We are told if we want we can swim, pool is deep and cold and wet. Another older couple arrive after a shorter walk and join us.
We then muster enough energy to set up the tent and have dinner , shower and go to bed , it is still hot.

The next day we pack tent and every thing away and drive , not walk, to Nooldoonooldoona waterhole about 13km out. We pass The Pinnacles, massive granite hills that are the solidified remains of 460 million year old parts to explosive volcanos.
Next is Bolla Bollana Springs with yellow footed rock wallabies.The Springs are dry and we come across a couple of rock wallabies and some birds trying to get an early morning drink from a leak in a connection in the water pipe from the bore.



Next is Bolla Bollana Smelter site. Over a hundred years ago Cornish miners set up a copper smelter here . The ore was brought in by bullock wagon.

Then we pass deposits of tremelite, haematite, and crystal barites. We pass were a gold mine claim was. We are asked not to go fossicking or collect samples while we are at Arkaroola.
When we get to the Nooldoonooldoona waterhole there is only a little mud, things are looking pretty bleak for this area for summer. The story is Aboriginal Dreaming ancestors rolled the great boulders in to the waterhole in an attempt to block the serpent Arkaroo's passage. 

 

We head back to camp and a bit of shade for lunch. We then head the other direction to Barrann Gorge past different rock formations and a old mine. We park in the gorge carpack which is the start of another walk , this one is in a loop that takes you into the Gorge and the permanent waterhole.
We are not walking the 6km loop just to the waterhole, which you are asked not to swim in. After 1km the track gets harder climbing across big boulders so I give up and return to the car, Larry goes the next 800mt to find only a small green pool. Because it is mostly dry, it allows you to see how the water has carved holes in the rock floor, which would be whirlpools when full of water. So it is still quite interesting.
We head back to the main track to Arkaroola and then take another track called the ' Station back track' to get back to camp. This is a one way 4WD track with high clearance only. I would give it a miss but Larry wants to go this way back to camp. 11Km of just wide enough for us, loose dirt and rocks, a couple very steep uphill climbs with massive ruts. The first up hill we only made halfway and have to go back, change to low 2 and try again . With foot down we make it and at the top you can not see the track ,just sky in front of you, then a sharp turn and down and up again. I did not run the video as usual as I was holding on, and was too busy watching the track for rocks and wildlife. The track is quite tame by the time it gets to the camp area.
We are hot so in the pool we go again before setting up for the night.
We meet the couple next door , who we have passed hellos with the night before. They are here to work for 3 weeks and she wants to quit after one day as it too hot, I don't blame her . It gets very windy during the night but no rain. 



We return to Copley the next morning and by night time the clouds roll in and it is raining.

Parachilna Gorge
 
 
 
We pick up the van at Copley and head to Parachilna gorge. After the turn off we have 10 km of dirt road which runs east of the little town of the same name. We find a camp spot beside the little bit of water left in the Parachilna creek. We have to have a walk along the creek bed and around its smaller tributaries. You can see why this is a popular place to camp when there is water in the creek which would be winter here.
 
   We find fairy wrens, a kestrel and some beautiful scenery. We go back have lunch and Larry goes off on a walk and I walk and sit around water taking photos.
I sit on a big boulder along water side taking photos of what comes to have a drink or feed in the water,like the black tailed native hen, when another kestrel swooped down on the opposite bank grabbed something and flew away. While I was trying to get focus for a photo I had this feeling of something beside me . I looked down at my feet and froze as a brown snake was having a drink. It was 1 ½ to 2 meters in length and fat.I did not want to move incase I startled it and it bit me, but I managed a photo . It finished its drink , sort of looked like it looked at me flicked its tongue and then moved off. I had a feeling it new I was there, and it was not there when I sat down, so how close to me had it come.

 
 
After dinner we took a quick walk outside to the waters edge and surprised a little eagle with its dinner, it flew up into a tree and waited to return to dinner. While it was up there a couple of magpie larks swooped it , trying to get it to move on. Its dinner was not a magpie lark but a corela.


Hooking Creek near Wonoka ruins was our next night stop before heading towards
  Hawker.
We took photos of the area from Camels hump lookout at Hawker.
 
 
We are in the last of the flinders ranges and heading to Petersborough before going into NSW and Broken Hill.
Hawker established in 1880 population about 490.
This little town is clean and tidy and friendly.
 A few kilometres outside town is Yourambulla caves. This is an Aboriginal rock shelter with paintings and etchings.
We had to climb up after parking the car it took a couple of hours. At the first site there is a scaffolding and ladders to get close without doing any damage to the paintings. I climbed up to see them and took photos.



Orroroo
This little town has a swimming pool [ only open some times ], golf club ,bowls club and is a beautiful little town. 

 It is the site of a gum tree of around 500 years old. It has a circumference of up to 10 meters before it forks in the trunk. It still looks very much alive and is listed as one of SA's significant historic trees.


Also the home of Magnetic Hill.
You drive down the hill put your car in neutral, brakes off, the car rolls forward if it is made of mostly plastic and aluminium and back up the hill if your car is made of steel. Not many of those around any more. We had the caravan in tow and rolled forward. The part you stop at is flat, and we did move but I do not know why. It could not be magnetic or other things would go up hill, tourist thing, but fun.



Our few days in this area have been good but time to head for Peterborough.