Hike Through Hanging Rock State

I just stopped for a moment the rocks scattered B of Ten Mile Creek to tie my shoelaces, and when I look, my friends are dead. It took me 30 seconds or less, but they are gone - burned four sturdy hiking in the desert swallows the Red Rock so drastically as a young man was flounced Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Very few walkers along the way are remote Wilkawillina walk on the east coast of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia and the road is just a scratch between the mulga. I lost the thread and before long, I'm stumbling over rocks and debris trapped in the black tea trees by flooding.

Not a problem. Bracketed by steep walls of the gorge Wilkawillina on both sides, the path passes through streams. It can not be more than 25 feet above me, but point taken. If you're going to walk in remote areas, Flinders Ranges, better to go with someone who knows the way.

The Flinders Ranges is one of the most sensational national parks inland. Surrounded by barren desert of Salinas Grandes, a former seabed was sculpted by millions of years of rain and sun in a fractured landscape, crisscrossed by deep valleys covered with oaks and cypress pines desert that fall into streams of River Red Gum filled. If you want a taste of the interior in all its fried, ripping the heart Majesty, Flinders are in a class by itself.

Most visitors to the region face a self-training circuit and time behind the wheel of a car with four wheels is a great way to go. However, the Flinders Ranges save the best for those who are willing to absorb through their soles.

I'm with a group organized by the Australian tours Walking Tours. This is a preview of three days' journey Fabulous Flinders AWT, a six-day odyssey, escorted small group that begins and ends in Adelaide and the assembly of the best hiking trails in the central Flinders Ranges.

The most striking feature of these beaches is Wilpena Pound, the destination for the progress of our first day.

And 'in the morning when you turn off the street hawker, southern gateway to the Central Flinders, and on top of the Scenic Drive Moralana. After 10 minutes in shock, we can in the parking lot in the Black Gap, fill our water bottles and went along the Dry Creek Bed. This is a point to point, walk, do not repeat the song.

Many of the most beautiful walks in the Flinders are point to point, and unless you have a car parked at both ends of the track, or you're on a guided tour with a dedicated driver to drop off and pick-up, you will Some of them not.

When we walk, Ben Griffiths, our guide, takes his way unerringly through the vegetation low, he said, "Grandpa" callitris pine trees, which form the core of the new trees. It 'been a wet winter. A half-dozen trips to the Flinders, I have never seen these hills so lush.

The trees end up with new growth and western gray kangaroos that roam the hillsides. Once spent less than 25 meters from a small family of kangaroos sunbathing in a clear and barely move. The heavy winter rains bring the promise of a brilliant season of wildflowers in September, where the Australian Tours Launches Program Flinders Road entering into high gear.

Although July and the depths of winter, the weather is sunny and quiet. It is ideal for walking, with only a light pole needed to mitigate the cool breeze. The conditions are perfect for walkers until around October, when daytime temperatures begin to rise. At the height of summer, the heat is radiating from blistering rock and even sunshine snakes.

The trail climbs steadily towards the edge of Wilpena Pound, but the ankle-twisting stones crumbling sandstone hills, require constant attention. It takes more than an hour a hill crest factor Bridle Gap, where to look at the Wilpena Pound, a bowl, oval, surrounded by peaks Sharp quartzite, which slope upwards inside and outside the drop in tone.

Once in the lip and on the other hand, walking becomes increasingly easier until, finally, the flat bottom of a pound of sand gives wings to our feet. It only takes 90 minutes to travel the seven miles of Homestead Hills, once owned by the family of pioneers who fought for the grazing of sheep within the book. At this point we have not seen another hiker.

The next day boarded Wilkawillina throat. The ride is very different, with the dry bed of Ten Mile Creek for the most part and steep-walled gorges itself, followed by a breathless rise to a saddle in the bunkers of range and down through a steep hill. It is a day of reflecting pools throats red walls and hills wrinkled cane that have been raised in the air and split open, a day when the remarkable geology of the Flinders Ranges hits us like a slap in the face.

Even if you drive more than 400 miles from Flinders areas are mountainous molehills. They Crest to a maximum height of 1168 meters, but these are not normal hills. Pushed skyward by the collision of tectonic plates, most of the mountains are closed book. Rising, falling, the end of the story. Lovely view, perhaps, but as the Rosebud tightly closed, keep secrets from them.

But the Flinders Ranges as a whole rose. These are the mountains, which are literally peeled open, split time, sun, ice and water to reveal their contents to the world. Layer by layer, are an open book and all pages of the book tells an amazing story that goes back more than 1000000000 years and record the dawn of life on Earth.

What remains on the hills and gorges of the Flinders cross section of the last billion years of Earth history. This stone, you can clearly see the ripples on the left when most of Australia was covered by shallow sea. Continued evidence of glaciation that covered much of Australia 75 million years ago.

Deep in the Ten Mile Creek, just before leaving for out of all, remember Griffiths fossils embedded in limestone coral or sponge Boulder archaeocyatha first multi-cell animals, about 500 million years ago.

The discovery turned out to be a game-changer in the world when it was revealed paleontology near here in 1940. I am small and weak, and spend a few minutes before the first place, but when our eyes are on the ground, we quickly find another and another until the entire galaxy of these little animals appear, the oldest evidence of a great leap forward in the path of evolution.

"And now," Griffiths said: "We can not go, and a cold beer", and all agreed it was strange that evolution has brought us such wonders.

The author was a visiting professor in Australia Walking Tours.

Posted unmatched

In the dry plains that surround the western edge of the Flinders Ranges, the Prairie Hotel Parachilna is a piece of mythology Australia directly from inside. While the hotel is reminiscent of stone and corrugated iron and the surrounding area has become a favorite of filmmakers looking to add a touch of realism to your inner work.

As a basis for the Flinders areas, nothing better. In the heart of the historic hotel, recently renovated rooms Heritage are clean, spacious and equipped with private bathroom. Modern hotel wing behind the larger rooms of luxury, the country sank waist exploit the natural insulation.

The specialty of the Hotel des Prairies is the staple food of the bush type on all fours. The menu lists such exotic possibilities camel fillet and emu egg and vegetable frittata, or mixed signature grilled wild fillet dish Roo, cut goat, camel, emu sausages and Pattie.

The interior is very individual. On the walls are a selection of works by painter Peter Coad. One, a red sticker "sold", bringing the price $ 18,000, which says a lot about the customers Prairie.

Prairie Nights is never boring. Guests are invited to mingle and you're never quite sure if the person is the next bar stool could be a mining magnate, the director, scouting locations, a painter of landscapes or made a ringtone from local stations. President of the lovable and eccentric Prairie Cast and crew are Jane and Ross Fargher, legends in these parts, which are injected hotel style, personality and free-flowing spirit of the party.

In October of this year, the hotel hosted the Rock and Fossil, the highlight of the campaign to raise funds for the proposed interpretive center presents the Ediacaran fossils. The event star Leo Sayer, and among the guests is Sir David Attenborough, who was shot here in the first Ediacaran fossil life in the BBC television series, which screened on ABC earlier this year.

(08) 8648 4844, prairiehotel.com.au.

Five must-do in Flinders

1 flight over Wilpena Pound. Air, the patterns of landscape and the hills of chiseled rock strata pushed upward assume a new meaning. Better is a little after sunrise.

2 Bedrooms Gorge. Soon the sun blistered hands, a rock in this beautiful canyon carved with the most impressive fleet of Aboriginal rock art.

3 yellow-legged wallabies. These small agile wallabies with their striped bushy tail is one of the most attractive of all marsupial species. Often seen in Brachina Gorge when they come to drink just before sunset.

4 Moralana Scenic Drive. Walk through a beautiful landscape of the gum of the Red River in the foothills of the southern wall of Wilpena Pound. Ride with the sun behind you, either early morning or afternoon.

5 Sunset Great Wall of China. The stone ramparts that the top of a hill south of Blinman harsh light of the sun.