This is all accessible in a 1-hour flight or five hour’s drive from Adelaide. It makes the most of world-class wine country down the road with packages including lunch and wine tasting at one of many Clare Valley gems on the way.
There’s a bewildering amount of history between the layers of the Flinders Ranges. To think that approximately 800 million years ago, they were sitting on the eastern seaboard of Gondwana and have moved from a tropical environment to ice age and are now classified as semi desert. The scale is hard to comprehend. Strata reveals the evidence of the earliest life forms known on earth. The fact that as humans we are a mere dot on the very recent tip of the earth’s historical timeline is both humbling and enlightening. You’re treading land where Adnyamathanha people, the first Australians of the Flinders Ranges, have walked for tens of thousands of years. A place where sandstone bluffs mingle with ancient creek beds dotted with monumental River Red Gums watching your every move. Arkaba played host to famous explorers, including John McDouall Stuart, the Burke and Wills search party and you traverse country immortalised in Hans Heysen’s art. The Flinders Ranges is in a class of its own and is one of those secret spots in Australia that has escaped mainstream tourism. For us that gives it a particular charm.
