Friday, 31 July 2026
Aaargh! This morning we woke to a net bank notification, and an email, advising that one of our credit cards has been compromised. Bernie had to spend an age on the phone sorting that out. Finally he spoke to a real person and, although it will be a couple of weeks before our physical cards are replaced, the bank was able to replace our electronic cards straight away. Not like the old days when you had to be without your card until the new one arrived in the mail. Fortunately that little hassle occurred on the last morning that we could afford to have a slow start to our day.
Banking admin done, we had a leisurely breakfast, read the newspaper, completed the puzzles, washed up and re-packed to be checking out at 9.30am. For a moment we thought we were going to get caught up talking to a bloke who came out of one of the other rooms to ask where we off to with all the gear tied to our roof rack. Fortunately he was happy with the short answer – the Simpson Desert!
We drove around to the IGA to stock up on water and orange juice, managing to wedge 30 litres of water in behind my seat and under my bag, With the truck filled to bursting, we pointed the bonnet north and headed out of town on Flinders Ranges Way. We made a quick stop at Kanyaka Waterhole and Death Rock. Kanyaka means ‘a piece of rock’ and it is significant to the original inhabitants because it marks the site of a permanent water source.
Only a few kilometres further north, we pulled in to the ruins of Kanyaka Homestead. Taking its name from the nearby waterhole, the homestead was established in 1851, eventually reaching the size of a small village by 1862. In its heyday, Kanyaka Station was one of the largest pastoral runs of the Flinders Ranges. Unfortunately, Kanyaka did not survive the severe drought in the mid-1860s and fell into decline.
Just before we reached Hawker, we turned off onto the Jarvis Hill Road to drive out to the Jarvis Hill Lookout. Hmmn, we thought we could drive all the way to the lookout, but this was not to be. Reaching the car park, part way up the hill, we were confronted with a short hike to reach the viewpoint. The first sign told us it would take us an hour and we were uncertain if we had enough time to spare. We set out anyway, figuring we could turn back if it was taking too long. The next sign – only metres away at the turnstile entrance – estimated only three quarters of an hour return.
After a short but steep hike, we reached the viewpoint much more quickly than we expected to. The views over the South Flinders Ranges and Hawker were spectacular on a clear day. The weather today is much sunnier than it has been since we left home. It’s still cold but lovely to have the sun shining after some grey and cloudy days.
As we reached the bottom of the climb, another couple arrived to tackle the walk up to the viewpoint. We chatted to them for a while, learning that they moved to Adelaide from the South Island of NZ six weeks ago and they are keen to start exploring their new home. They drove up to Craddock yesterday after work to spend the weekend in the Flinders Ranges. My goodness, it took us over 60 years to get to the Flinders Ranges last July!
We drove into Hawker, where we made a comfort stop, before turning onto The Outback Highway with the SatNav set for Leigh Creek. When we were in the Flinders Ranges last year, we didn’t drive this section of road between Hawker and the turn off to Merna Mora Station, so we had a few kilometres where we weren’t driving back over a road we had driven before. After that we were re-tracing our route from 2025 through Parachilna, Beltana and Leigh Creek.
We pulled in at Leigh Creek, where we went to the Pawuse Tea Room for lunch. We ordered toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches … with tomato chutney if you please. And, if we were the types to have tea with our lunch, it would have been in a fancy china pot. There was another couple in the tea room enjoying a pot of tea in pretty china tea cups. Pretty posh for the outback!
After pulling back onto the highway, we motored past Copley, which placed us further north on The Outback Highway than we have been before. The weather was continuing fine, but the wind was stirring up willy willies in the red dirt beside the road. At Lyndhurst we made a fuel stop at Perrys because Petrol Spy had revealed their diesel price ($2.66/litre) was cheaper than Hawker and Marree. It’s a 24/7 pre-pay sort of a place, so Bernie purchased the maximum $99.00 worth of fuel that he could purchase in one transaction. That left the truck about six litres short of a full tank so it really wasn’t worth making another transaction to fill it.
Our next stop was at the ruins of Farina. The Latin word for flour, Farina was established in 1878 to be the granary of the North. Unfortunately, wheat did not grow very well in this area due to unreliable winter rains and the settlement was gradually abandoned. In more recent years the Farina Restoration Project Group has been working to preserve the lovely old stone buildings for the future.
While we were exploring Farina, five 4x4s arrived in a group. Ha, the lead vehicle had Dingo Trax livery and John, our tag along tour leader, was at the wheel. We had been set to meet up with the tag along group sometime this afternoon in Marree, but we had crossed paths with them earlier. So, when everyone had finished sightseeing in Farina, we tagged along into Marree, arriving just before 4.00pm.
With some people camping and others booked in cabins, we all went our separate ways to check-in, with instructions from John to meet in the camp kitchen at the Marree Oasis Caravan Park & Motel at 4.30pm. While we were over at the Marree Outback Roadhouse collecting our key, Bernie topped off the tank so that we will be ready to go with a full tank of diesel in the morning.
We wandered along to the caravan park at the appointed time to find John had been called away to assist some people who needed a man with a spanner. His partner, Helene, and colleagues, Ross and Magda, got us started with introductions. Finally we know how many other vehicles and people will be in our tag along group. The group is a bit larger than we anticipated, but John has had to do a lot of juggling with his tours this season, due to the weather and problems with accessing the tracks in the Simpson Desert. There are probably others who, like us, were supposed to do this trip in April. We’re just grateful that our trip was only postponed not cancelled.
John arrived back from rendering assistance and gave us a briefing on what we will be doing for the next few days. He laid some ground rules for travelling as a group and offered a few hints and tips for optimizing our vehicles for the conditions. Next on the agenda was a Welcome Dinner over at the roadhouse. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that this evening’s three course meal was included in our tour. The roadhouse had prepared a spread that included a pumpkin soup starter, roast meats and vegetables for main and quandong tarts with ice-cream for desert. There was even complimentary wine for those wanting a glass (or two) of vino. I, on the other hand, secured the last bottle of soda water in the fridge … and had to pay for it.
Tomorrow, the adventure begins in earnest!
Steps: 8,191 (5.34kms)
