Flinders Ranges

We spent a week exploring the Flinders Ranges, the mountains, and the cute, old towns that populate this area.

Quorn

We based ourselves in the town of Quorn. This is a town that was built up around the steam train. It was a stopover point for trains going up from Adelaide to Alice Springs on the old Ghan train line. The town had its heyday around 1900, but after they moved the train line further west, it started to go into decline. However, the town is now a tourist resort where you can take the tourist Pichi Richi train and is a good base to explore the lower Flinders Ranges.

Every evening around sunset, the town shows a series of short films on the town’s silo. The films explain the history of the town, the train, the aboriginal history, bush food, etc.

Wilpena

We took a drive up to Wilpena in the centre of the Flinders Ranges National Park. The landscape was created many millions of years ago with a variety of earthquakes, uplifts and erosion creating mountain ranges, several gorges and a natural amphitheatre called ‘Wilpena Pound’.

It was raining the whole week that we were in the area, and it was cold (around 5-9 C). So, we didn’t do any walks in the park, but we did go for a couple of four-wheel drives.

Jamestown

After Quorn, we drove to the Jamestown in the lower Flinders Ranges for a long weekend where we explored the Clare valley and surrounding towns (see next blog).

Peterborough

This is another town near the Clare valley that based around the railroad. Initially, it was populated by Prussian sheep farmers, but the train needed a place to stop and intersect with other trains going north to Alice Springs and also east / west from the mines in Broken Hill to the port at Port Pirie and Adelaide. So, a few farms were purchased and this large town sprung up.

Burra

This was a really cute little town (sorry, I forgot to take photos but you can see some on their website.) and was one of the first copper mining towns in the area.

Magnetic Hill

We went to a fun optical illusion in which it seems like your car is rolling uphill. Check out the video below.