Brachina Gorge road
I’d asked at the information desk if it would be ok to take our motorhome across the Brachina Gorge Road. “Yes, it’s wide enough,” was the response of the attendant. She failed to mention how rough it was! It is passable by a two wheel drive vehicle, but I’d sure hate to take a car on the road. Our motorhome shook and rocked all the way, and we drove most of it in first or second gear. From about the mid-point of the roughly 20 km long trail is really just a single lane very stony track which crosses over the creekbed several times. There was water running at most of the creek crossings, but very little, probably never more than six inches, and the roadbed was solid so there was no problem with getting stuck. However, the motorhome really shook on the rough road. At lunchtime we put things back in place on the shelves. The teapot had even turned right upside down!
First though we stopped to video some of the red kangaroos around the site of the Old Wilpena Station. I had Enid walk towards the kangaroos to get them to bound away. They are so tame that they don’t move very far so she herded them like cattle to move for filming. A static kangaroo looks just like a big mouse watching you with its large erect ears (remember the Sylvester cartoons). Later on we saw a couple of emu right by the side of the road; however, they moved away while I was getting the video camera ready. I did film them, but by then they were away in the distance, along with some more kangaroos.
Brachina Gorge
The road, rough though it was, was an interesting trip. It is marked with all the geological features as you cross over the vastly eroded remains of the Flinders Ranges. There are many very pretty outcroppings of red rock along the way. I also saw a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby (but Enid missed it), though not at the spot where the park attendant had told me to look for them. When we left the park there was still about 10 km of road left until we reached the highway. Though this road was wider, not like the narrow rocky track where we passed through the gorge, it was no faster. It is severe washboard (or to use the proper Aussie term, it is corrugated). The irony is that just before you reach the highway there is a large red “Reduce Speed” sign. As we were travelling in first gear at maybe 10 kph it is hard to imagine how much slower we could have gone!
It was very hot when we stopped for lunch, I’d estimate about 40 °C. It was also quite windy. It did cool off as we approached Port Augusta. We stocked up with groceries for the next few days, bought diesel (the price is 10 cents per litre more than when we left here on Tuesday as it’s now $1.36 per litre), checked in to the caravan park, and did our laundry. It dried on the line in just about an hour as it was so warm and windy. We’re very glad we got our air conditioner fixed here on Monday before we headed to the Flinders Ranges. Now we are going down to the Eyre Peninsula, and it should be much cooler.