Flinders Ranges Road Trip Pt 1 - Melbourne to Arkaroola

Welcome back! Apologies for the delay, I lost my voice, yey childcare illnesses & winter... This week we head off on an amazing road trip to the Flinders Ranges and Arkaroola in South Australia, with our 200 Series Landcruiser and a hired Jayco Crosstrak. In this one we stop at:
- Beaufort Lake caravan park
- Bordertown 
- Clare Valley
- Hawker
- Arkaroola - we check out Bolla Bollana Springs, the Pinnacles, the incredible night sky and Echo Camp backtrack. 
I tell you some handy tips on where to find fuel and water while in this remote area. 
You can find us on instagram at shire.travels and Youtube search Shire Travels.

Transcript

Welcome back to Shire Travels. Apologies for the sporadic nature of these podcasts. I unfortunately lost my voice for a couple of weeks. However, I am back, and this is part one of our art. Arkaroola and Flinders Ranges epic road trip. In this one, we drive from Melbourne all the way up to Arkaroola in South Australia and then to the Flinders Ranges. Ararula is around about three hours north of the Flinders Ranges National Park. Now, this trip was a little bit different. We took our their new 200 Series Land Cruiser and a small caravan that we hired from Camplify, which was a Jayco cross track. This trip had been on our radar for quite a while, and we were thinking ahead to when we would potentially do the big lap. There's every chance that we would end up missing the Flinders Ranges because it would be the wrong time of year. Potentially we be driving through in the height of summer where it's just far too hot to be there. We were also interested in buying a caravan, and so we thought this trip would be a good opportunity to do a test round, a bit of a try before you buy, see what we like, don't like, maybe a caravan life it wouldn't be for us. The caravan we hired was a Jayco crosstrak 13.9, has a double bed up the front, which is north-south facing, a small seating area, some storage, and then an outdoor shower hatch. The best bit, though, was the outdoor hatch kitchen. We absolutely loved it. And when we came to buying a caravan, it heavily influenced our decision. While we didn't end up purchasing a cross track, we did, however, purchase a caravan that had a similar kitchen layout, but the Jayco crosstrak was perfect. for this trip. We did consider staying in Airbnbs, motels, or cabins and caravan parks. However, some of the resorts up there in the Flinges charge an absurd amount of money. So while we had to pay for the hire of the caravan, which was over $2,000, it did actually work out cheaper by camping. Now, this caravan, the Jayco Crosstrak, was very light as far as caravans go. I think the empty weight or tare weight was about 1.3 ton. Towing it was absolutely fine, though. This is our first time towing a caravan and it was great. We didn't have any issues at all. The only thing we did before we went on the trip was we got a GVM upgrade, a gross vehicle mass upgrade just so we could make sure that we could have all our accessories, fridge, etc., in the car, as well as have the ball weight of the caravan included as well and not be over our weight. The other option that we considered was camping in a tent. However, at the time we went, I was 20 weeks pregnant and the idea of setting up, packing down a tent, Sleep on the mattress on the floor, etc, just wasn't going to work. Also having a little one with us who was about two and a half. It was all just going to be a bit too much. I was also with that really great time in pregnancy when you get horrendous hip pain, pretty much waking up crying every day. And so the idea of sleeping on the floor just wasn't going to be a good one. So having the caravan was amazing. It was like luxury. We did this trip in October 2023, and it was right at the end of the season for that area. Any later in the year, it would probably be far too hot. A lot of the resort shut road shut attractions and tours don't run. As it just gets far too hot. If you're looking to head there, April to October is the best time to go. Now, we did this trip over three weeks and our priority was just getting to Arkaroola and the Flinders and then heading back. So on the way there and back, we had two nights stopped on the way up and then three nights stopped on the way back. And then in between that, a whole lot of driving. This allowed us to have three nights at Arkaroola and then seven nights in the Flinders Rangers. Right, let's hit the road. We didn't leave Melbourne until the afternoon because we had to go and pick up the caravan. Now, while we could have hired it the day before and then woke up early in the morning and packed it, it would have been paying an extra night's hire and it was not cheap. It was maybe about $160 a night, including all the insurance. That's one thing I actually don't like about Campplify. This is the one and only time we've hired from them. And you look at the price, you think, oh, that's not too bad. When you add on all the insurances and extra costs, it actually ends up costing quite a lot. Now, for us, like I said before, this is a bit of a try before you buy to see if we wanted to get a caravan. And so we didn't mind forking out that money, but I definitely would't be looking to do this every weekend. Anyway, so we picked up the caravan on the day we left. I packed everything into the van while Tom entertained our little one. Because we knew we'd be leaving late, we didn't end up travelling too far. We went from at Melbourne up to the town of Beaufort and this was probably about two and a half hours. This was our first time towing and staying in a caravan. We wanted to make sure that we could get there in the daylight just to make sure that we could set up properly because we were absolute rookies. We had no idea how anything really worked. We stayed at the Beaufort Lake Caravan park on an ens suite site, which was opposite the lake. It was $30 a night. It was a really nice spot, very quiet. There were a few walks that you could do around the lake and there's also a small jetty there. So we just hung out, enjoyed watching the sunset and then went to sleep, had our first night in the caravan, which was absolutely fine. And when we woke up the next day, it was raining and this is where being in a caravan really paid off. We could just sit inside, have our breakfast while it poured with raining outside. Yes, we did have to hop outside to get all the breakfast stuff. However, having the hatch kitchen with the roof that swings up and also having the awning out, we were absolutely fine. The little seating area inside the caravan was perfect. We could pretty much fit me, the little one, and then Tom would just put it on the bed. We then packed up and didn't drive too far. We went just over the border to South Australia and we stayed at the borderown caravan park. Now here's a hot tip for you. Don't bother taking any fresh produce over the border. I still maintain to this day that I genuinely did not see any signs. Thomas says that he did see them but didn't care. We got pulled over by the quarantine people. I think it was like shooting fish in a barrel, seeing those vic plates come over and a caravan on the back. The guy asked us if we had anything, I said, yes, we have four bananas. Tom then got taken away and questioned and they filled out this big form. They said, yeah, you might get a fine. Anyway, a good four to six months later, we got a $400 fine in the post. $100 per banana, lesson learnt. Don't bother taking anything fresh over the border. Just buy it when you get there. Quite interesting, though when you're going the other way, so from South Australia into Victoria, we apparently just don't care, bring whatever you want him. We parked up at the caravan park and then we decided to go to the bordertown Wildlife Park. Now, they say Wildlife Park just, I think, lower your expectations there. It's basically just a fenced off paddock where they have albino wallabies and peacocks. It's free. It's very interesting. You just drive up and park at the fence and you can see them all hopping around in there. It's not every day you get to see albino wallabies, so it's quite interesting to see. We also had a look at some of the huge grain silos that they have in town, and then we decided to call it a night. Borderown Caravan Park was $33 for a powered drive-through site. It was really clean and quiet. It's just off the highway, but we weren't bothered by any kind of road noise during the night. It's somewhere where we'd probably stay again. It's a really convenient spot being just over the border. The next day we drove to Adelaide, which was about three hours away and we caught it with some family for a bit of morning tea at a playground, which was really nice. We then headed to the Clare Valley. We stayed at the Discovery Park's Claire and it was absolutely packed because opposite the park is the showgrounds and it was the Claire show that weekend. Now, we had no idea and it's a shame because it wasn't advertised or mentioned when we booked. It kind of would have been good to know so that we could have a allowed a little bit of time and maybe go and have a look around there for one of the show days. Instead, we got there late afternoon, parked up, went into Claire and had some dinner. Now, I was quite sad because I couldn't drink wine in Clare Valley. It was quite famous for its wineries. Tom sampled a nice wine with dinner. We had some lovely pizza and then we just headed back to the caravan. Once we were back at the van, I put the little one to bed and Tom decided to go to the supermarket, a bit of divide and conquer. This was going to be our last woolworths/coles for the next 10 days. So we wanted to make sure that we were really well stocked up. We knew that wilpena pound had a small IGA, but we didn't know exactly what they would have and how expensive it would be. So we decided to stock up on anything that we could possibly think that we would need and a little bit more. Once again, we left very early the next day, so we really didn't see much of the Discovery Park in Claire at all. It was $51 for a drive-throughpowered site As I said, though, from what we saw, which was pretty much just the amenity block and where we were parked, we really didn't see much of it. However, it was probably somewhere that we would go back to and spend a bit more time exploring the area. Now, we left as early as we possibly could the next day. This was going to be our biggest day of driving, as we needed to head all the way up to Arkaroola. All up, this was about an eight-hour drive. We managed to make it all the way to Hawker without having to stop, which was great. In Hawker, which is just south of the Flinders Ranges. We stopped at the playground there, which has also got a water point and a dump point. Now now because we've been connected to water at all the other places, we'd been staying, we'd had the water tanks pretty much empty to save on a bit of weight, but we knew that Hawker would be the absolute last place that we would be able to fill up water tanks before before we headed to the Flinders or Arkaroola, there is nowhere north of that that you are able to fill tanks. So Leigh Creek, Arkaroola itself wilpena pound. They do not have water. This is a place you need to get it if you are camping. The place where we stopped, though, in Hawker, it's really well set up. There's heaps of spots for lots of different caravans. As I mentioned, there's also a playground there, which had a nice big shade sail over it. It's close to the visitor information spot and they also had toilets there. It was really well equipped for travellers heading through, either to the Flinders or coming back down. We then drove about an hour up the road to Leigh Creek. Now on the drive up, we had a very close call with a couple of emus that were just off the road and just made a beeline for us. We were the absolute heaviest that were going to be the entire trip with the caravan and the car were absolutely loaded to the till and these emus just ran straight for us. Now Tom said, I can't swerve. I'm not going to slam on the brakes. We sewed down as much as we safely could and they somehow missed running into the side of the caravan. It was so, so close. They are very flighty and very dumb. So just watch out for them if you're driving in that area. Once we got to Leigh Creek, we went to the playground again as we knew it was going to be our last one for a couple of weeks. They also had a general store there too, if you need any last-minute suppliers. We decided to get fuel there. Now, fuel is far more abundant in these areas than water. There's lots of different places that you can fill up. There's Leigh Creek, there's Wilpena Pound, Arkaroola, Angorachina Village. There's lots of different places that you can get fuel. It's water that you need to watch out for. We try to top up on fuel whenever we could. This is because our car is a petrol V8 and it is very heavy and it does not have good fuel efficiency at all. So we topped up whenever we could. One thing I do to try and help us plan out our fuel stops and things like that is I create an Excel spreadsheet just showinging where we're starting, where we're going each day and how far it is in between. I plan this all out for this trip, every single place that we were stopping, every drive that I wanted to do and all the distances. I think gave it to Tom and he sat down and worked out roughly how far we'd be able to drive each day on the fuel that we had and worked out exactly where we would need to stop and get fuel. So that was really handy. After leaving Leigh Creek, we drove out to Arkaroola. Now, this was two and a half hours on an unsealed road. It was absolutely fine for towing. We didn't find there were too many corrugations. In fact, we were really impressed at just how well maintained all the gravel roads were. It's also not in the national park either, so you can fly drone around if you want to. And after a couple of hours, we made it to Arkaroola. Now, Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary is a really great spot, has a campground, accommodation, tools, four drive tracks, amazing views, a bar, restaurant, and a pool. We arrived late in the afternoon, and we were booked a powered site, which was $35 a night. Because we were there at the end of the season, and it was fairly quiet, they said we could pick whichever site we wanted. As we didn't have a toilet on board and me having full-bown pregnancy batter, we parked up opposite the amenities block. One thing that was a little bit confusing is that the sites that we stayed in were almost designed for two caravans to be in them. They had a power junction on each side of the, but I have absolutely no idea how you would fit two caravans in there unless you both agreed to not put your awning out. Now, the powered section for camping was a bit of a dust bowl. There were a few little trees and shrubs around, but not not much privacy between each site. They do have unpowered camping there as well, but I'm not too sure what that was like. One thing to know as well is that the main accommodation area and restaurant is powered by generators and you can hear a little hum of this when you are camping in the powered section. One of the reasons we wanted to be in the powered section is we weren't too sure what the weather was going to be like. There was every chance that it could be 30 plus degrees every day and we wanted to be able to run the air conditioner that was in the caravan. The weather ended up not being too bad at all. It was mid to high at 20s. One thing to note, though, is that the flies were really bad at that time of year. We had fans going and fly nets to try and help, but they were pretty relentless until the sun went down. The amenities block was fine, but one thing to be aware is that the water has a kind of swampy slashpond smell to it. I guess it's because where it gets pumped from, obviously, they're not on main water there. Now, it didn't bother us too much. Water is so scarce in those parts that being able to have a shower was great. And it's nothing to worry about. You're not going to get ill or anything. It just has a little bit of a smell. In saying that, though, you are not going to Akarula for the amenities block. You are going there for the amazing drives and scenery and it will not disappoint. Once we had set up, our little one went to bed and we sat outside and just looked at the stars. Now, Arkaroola is in a designated dark dark sky sanctuary, and that means that even with a little bit of light from the campground, the sky just lights up. There is absolutely no light pollution in the surrounding areas, and so the night sky just looks incredible. They actually have a few observatories there as well, and I'll tell you about them a little bit later. The next day we did a drive out to Bolla Bollana Spring and Nooldooldoona water hole. Wow, I'm glad I managed to say that. We drove to Bolla Bollana  Smelter first to have a look, and it was quite interesting. It was just a small stone building out in the middle of nowhere where they used to have a smelter operating. And I just can't believe that people used to live and work out there in those conditions so remote many years ago just kind of blows my mind. We then drove out to the Nun Nooldooldoona water hole. The drive out there was absolutely incredible. We really felt like we were the only people on earth, that we were a million miles from civivilization. It was so quiet. I don't think we saw another car the entire day. I got the drone up and flew it around. Check out our, YouTube and Instagram if you want to see some footage of it. The Red Ranges and just the remoteness and the dusty orange landscape, it looked absolutely incredible. Now, the water hole only had a small amount of water in it and it was full of frogs. They do say, make sure that you don't drink or swim in the water. The walk from the car park to the water hole was probably only a couple hundred metres, but you do have to cross over, I guess an old river bed and it is a little bit rocky. After that, we made the drive out to Bolla Bollana Spring. And one thing that we found with Arkaroola was there were so many extra drives and tracks that you could do there. We really only saw, I reckon about half of them, there's heaps of places to see and do and most of the drives there are free. So we got out to the spring. There was again, only a small amount of water in it. But because of that, it did attract a lot of wildlife. There were lots of small birds flying down and scooping up water. And then a couple of emus came down for a drink as well, which was really cool. We were there in about the middle of the day, I think, and it did get really hot, so just be aware of that. You're walking through a dry river bed and there is not much shade at all. On our way back to camp, we decided to stop off at the Pinnacles Lookout, and this was absolutely incredible. A really high up viewing area with a almost slightly pyramid like rock in the middle of it, which I flew the drone around. It was amazing. Again, we were the only people there and it felt incredibly special. Back camp, we decided to go for a swim in the resort pool, and we thought it'd be warm being in the desert. Maybe they'd have solar heating, and it was flipping freezing. We couldn't believe how cold it was. And this was a common theme with places that we went swimming in the Flinders ranges and Arcarula. I couldn't believe just how cold it was. Then we relaxed back at camp, battled the flies, had some dinner, and then Tom did an observatory tour. As I mentioned before, Arcarula is in a dark sky sanctuary. Tom did an astronomy tour with a group of other people. They went inside the observatory and they had big screens showing you all the different telescopes could look at. And then there's a guy there who talked you through everything. It wasn't too tancy. Tom said it was brilliantant and would highly recommend it. I think he said there were some older kids in there, but I wouldn't recommend taking young kids do it. You do have to kind of sit and concentrate for quite a while. The next day, we did the Echo camp backtrack forward drivetrack, which is classified as an extreme forward drivet track. Now, Tom has sent a lot of forward driving, and he said in his professional opinion that he wouldn't class it as extreme. However, in saying that the were a couple of technical sections went by ourselves, which was absolutely fine. You don't need to worry about having another car with you. The track is rocky and in some sections very steep, but there wasn't any boggy mud or sand. There aren't any water crossings. You don't need to worry about having a snorkel or anything like that. I think they said to allow about six hours to do the track. And I think we did it in four. That was stopping off with photos and having lunch, etcetera. Now, this is a pay drive. You do have to go up to the reception area, pay your money, which is at $45 and get a key. And there is a couple of gates that you have to unlock on the way. Now, it might seem like a lot of money to pay to drive around a Track. However, in the next episode, I'll tell you about Sky Trek, which is a very famous drive in the Flinders Ranges, which was almost twice as much. and to be honest, probably wasn't that great. Anyway, we set off and we stopped at a really popular photo spot high up on the red cliffs. There's a big red cliff in the background as well. It was absolutely stunning. We love the drive. The landscape out there is just something like we've never seen before, the red, earthy tones, just how remote it is, how you don't see anyone else. It just feels like a really special spot. Now, we decided to do the optional sidetrack out to Banarana Gorge, I think it's called. It's about a 15, 20 minute detour each way and there is a little bit of technical driving. There was one part where we had to go down a very steep bit and the car kind of slid down the whole way. wasn't too bad. We made it down to the gorge. The gorge itself was nice enough, but if you don't want to do the detour, don't worry. You're not really going to be missing out on too much. It was nice enough. We got a quick pick and then we headed back. The bit where the car had slid down, we then had to drive back out and it took three attempts. It was a little bit of a worry. We eventually made it out, though, and in the process, we sheared off the trailer brakes, but all good. Tom fixed them up later. There was only one other kind of eventful forward driving part on the drive again. It was going down a really steep rocky area that had a very sharp, right hand hand turn at the bottom and we were worried that the car was going to slip and we were going to do a panel on the rocks. Tom wound down the window and said, I'll just hop out and have a look. I said, absolutely no way. Are you climbing out the window? Leave me in this land cruiser on a really cheap angle. We just let the car roll down the hill and it was absolutely fine. We didn't end up slipping to the side. Outside of those couple little hairy four-wheel drive spots, the rest is drive was absolutely fine. So beautiful and scenic. We also saw heaps of emus as well. We then decided to stop and have lunch in an old river bed, which was next to it a beautiful, big cliff, was very lovely, but again, the flies were pretty thick, so just make sure you take your fly net with you. On the drive back, there was also an additional drive that you could add on, which I can't quite remember what's called, but it goes up to one of the sandal areas that overlooks Arcooa. I think it was going to add on about another hour or two and by that point we were a little bit over bouncing around in the car. And so we just decided to head back to camp. Now, that was our first experience ever doing a paid drive and we thought it was great. We were more than happy to pay it. It was quite adventurous and there were a few different sidetracks that you could add on if you wanted to and really make a day of it. Now, when we got back to the resort, we knew that we'd be pretty tired and over it from doing a full day in the car. So we decided to have dinner at the resort. Now, the food was absolutely fine. However, they were really short-sted. And so the service was very slow. They satis 30 minutes later than we had booked. It wasn't too bad, but we had a hangry toddler and a hangry pregnant lady with this. And, well, it wasn't ideal. In saying that, though, when they did see tests, when we did our food, it was absolutely fine, no problem at all. Really nice atmosphere. There were lots of other travellers there and the bar area was really nice as well. That marked our last night at Arkaroola, and overall we thought it was great. It is somewhere that I'd really like to get back to and do all the other drives. Now, if you don't have your own four-wheel drive or caravan, don't worry, they have a large accommodation there and they do plenty of tours as well. They take you out and there four-wel drives and take you up to some really special spots. If we were to go back to that area again, I'd also like to have a look at the Gammon Ranges, which are just to the south of Arkaroola. We didn't get a chance to explore them at all, but I think there's some pretty nice camps and drives around there too. There's also quite a few salt lakes around the area that you can drive out to plenty of other gorges and some free camping as well. If we head back, I'd probably spend maybe two or three weeks in that area. There's a lot to see, and I think it's it's one of those places that just flies under the radar compared to the Flinders. That's a wrap on part one in the next episode, we head into the Flinders Rangers National Park. We stop at Blinman, Moolooloo Station, Glass Gorge Lookout, Wilpena Pound, Brachina Gorge, and we drive Skytrek. If you'd like to see any footage of the places that I've mentioned, make sure you check us out on YouTube Shire Travels, and on Instagram, Shire.travels. See you in the next one.