Flies, Flies, Flies!!!
Thursday, November 23rd, 2006View pictures HERE
So, with the desert behind us after Coober Pedy, we looked to the Flinders Ranges National Park as a place of refuge from the monotonous flatness, fierce flies and flaming heat of the outback.
Let me just say right up front that the flies were over the edge ridiculous and the heat was turned down barely a notch to the mid to high 30’s. Regardless, we were after the sighting of the rarely encountered Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby which are no longer found anywhere else in Oz except Flinders “Range”. I use that word loosely as the word “Range” itself conjures up visions of high, craggy, snowcapped mountain peaks. At 1500ft elevation, they are not what I expected. They are merely highlands – but in retrospect the word ‘Ranges’ does have several meanings (for example: there are mountain ranges, shooting ranges, ranges you cook stuff on, not to mention home, home on the range(s)) in our glorious english language and the aussies will most definitely make use of the alternative definitions. At any rate, I’m not sure what range they had in mind, but in relation to the vast tracts of the world’s flattest continent, maybe they actually did mean mountains!? Who knows.
We wended our way to the visitor center which is a novelty in an Oz National Park and enquired about the usual; where to camp, where to spot wildlife and the condition of the roads. The friendly ranger behind the desk told us we couldn’t go wrong camping in a remote area of the park to get a good chance at spotting the yellow foots. She also assured us that all the roads in the park are 2WD roads, unless otherwise posted which kept our minds at ease.
So, it was decided we’d venture into the park to the remote campsite, but first we’d camp locally and have a shower, relax, take in a sunset at a local lookout and hike in the morning before heading out.
We picked out a spot amongst the gum trees and both took showers, had some dinner and sampled some of my bargain wine – $9.00 Australian for 4L! It was 6:30pm, so I was in a hurry to take in the sunset so we made haste to the local lookout. The only problem with that was – due to the southern latitude – the sun didn’t set until 8:30pm or so. We killed time wandering around the prickley spinifex, looking at the kangaroos, sunning ourselves until the sunset occurred, very unexceptionally I might add. No harm done, as we didn’t have anything else to do anyway.
Once we arrived back at our campsite I was alarmed to see my bargain wine had been mauled, chewed and sampled by some party-roos! No worries, I salvaged what was left and put it into whatever containers we had and I’m still here days later, so there was no transmisson of ‘kangaroo-fever’ – at least that I’m aware of.
In the morning we made a hike up to the Wilpena Pound – Flinders geological highlight. I guess we’ve been spoiled iwth geological splendour and were in less awe once we set eyes on the Flinders attraction. Oh well, it was a good hike and thankfully we did it early as things were starting to heat up!
We broke camp yet again, and began our drive to the northern reaches of Flinders Range. Let me say; if an aussie tells you the road is a 2WD road, it doesn’t much mean the same thing in Canadian! If hte road was any worse we never would have made it. You would have had to see it to believe it!
We made it to our campsite – barely – and as soon as we exited the comfort of our vehicle’s airconditioning we realized the Flinders Ranges were well below the requisite altitude to reduce the temperature significantly – actually at all! It was blazing outside and the flies were over the top!
A word on the outback flies – every fly one encounters will make at least 10 attempts to land on your face, particularly targeting your ears, nostrils, eyeballs and mouth. It truly is enough to drive you bonkers. As a matter of fact, even though it was a bit hotter than a Finnish wood fire sauna outside, we set up our tent on a dried up creekbed – which are not in short supply – in the little shade we could find and sat in it to escape the bombardment of flies! No worries, as the flies would settle down at dark 4 1/2 hours away. The good news at this point is we got our first fleeting glimpse of the yellow foots!
After an hour or so, we realized that we couldn’t bare 3 1/2 more hours in the tent baking, so we braved a short hike to attempt to find some shade, solace from the flies and some rock wallaby habitat. Before exiting the tent, Kristin devised a mask using her bandana which made her look like a terrorist but she assured me it was working against the flies!
We found some shade and a slight respite from fly activity. Whilst sitting in the shade doing basically nothing other than waiting for night and ultimately morning so we could get the heck out of there, we were approached by 15 feral goats! Funny thing is we had just read a sign that said this area of the park was closed the previous weekend – to shoot feral goats! Guess they missed these guys…..
That evening we were fortunate enough to encounter and photograph some yellow foots and as a wildlife bonus, encountered a red backed spider in the mens outhouse. So, all in all it was a successful adventure and one that we will not forget anytime soon. We will not miss the dry, hot, fly ridden Flinders anytime soon either.
Kristin