DAY 93 - RAWNSLEY PARK STATION SA

RAWNSLEY PARK STATION SA

DAY 93


The Flinders are basically in 3 sections.

Southern Flinders run between Crystal Brook in the south and Quorn in the north.

Central Flinders covers all of the area I am currently in and will pass through all of this week.

Northern Flinders are another level up again, including the towns of Leigh Creek and Copley.

Arkaroola Station is the main visitor drawcard along this route and involves a return 400 kilometre gravel bash from most directions.

The highly regarded Iga Warta cultural centre also must be included on this agenda.

As tempting and adventurous an Arkaroola mission may be, my interest really only extends to bumming a ride with somebody who might be travelling in this direction.

Disinterest isn’t motivating me here – it’s just that getting there by bike really is the business and I am thinking this increasingly unlikely.

Therefore, I feel as though my Flinders route will take care of itself from here.

Wilpena, Blinman, Parachilna and Hawker will complete the circuit and probably by weeks’ end.

Today amounted to a day off and I put the rest time to good toil by climbing nearby Rawnsley Bluff to the very top.

It was a 12 kilometre, 5-hour return hike and quite a steep haul in sections – the main disappointment once again was a cold and ugly wind – the further the climb unfortunately, the stronger the wind.

It just wasn’t tenable to hang about at the top for long, despite the dramatic panorama.

Worse still was another camera failure, which strategically timed itself until I reached the very summit of the Bluff.

The usual round of blasphemy wasn’t about to change anything and I must accept these problems are stemming from a battery charger now past its use-by.

It has taken around 2 months to narrow it down, but at least have eliminated the camera and the batteries themselves as culprits.

I found out the hard way today so I probably must limp through to Adelaide now and summon as much quality time between 8 batteries as possible.

I leave for the town of Wilpena tomorrow.