Flinders Ranges 2022: Exploring in Manual Mode

Monday 25 July 2022

I was up early to finish packing and do a Covid test before booking a taxi, arriving at the meeting point in the northern suburbs around 7:30am. There are eleven of us on this tour, including John our tour leader and bus driver, and Chris the co-pilot. Our photography team are: Christine, David, Xiu Hong and Jian Ming (David’s parents), Don, Joy, Caroline, Kylie and Kat.

We load our stuff, take our seats, and start the journey north with the rain falling on and off.

A brief stop at Burra for coffee before getting back on the road and stopping a few kilometres up the road at the Old Cobb & Co Coach House on Barrier Highway. The house is on the cover of Diesel and Dust, the Midnight Oil album from 1987. Although Ken Duncan, the Australian landscape photographer, made it a known landmark prior to this, it has become known as the ‘Midnight Oil house’.

This was the first moment when I realised I was not prepared for the tour. I got off the bus and having to think quickly about settings for the camera, my mind went blank and I settled for the simple solution of selecting auto before taking a couple of photos. It wasn’t until later when I saw a photo Don took here that I realised I hadn’t seen a perspective that he did. His photo is stunning.

I’m not sure what I expected from this tour but by the end of it I was incredibly frustrated by my camera and that I just didn’t get the vantage points that the others saw. I’ve decided to write a separate blog on the lessons gained during this week.

We all return to the bus and continue on our way, stopping at Orroroo for lunch before back on the road. We arrived at Hawker, the town on the southern end of the Flinders Ranges for another photo op at Wonoka Creek, just outside town.

After spreading out and taking photos, we continued our journey to Merna Mora Station, our homebase for the next two nights. This is a working station that has accommodation for people interested in staying somewhere that has a genuine outback feel.

We unloaded the bus trailer of our bags and food items, John parked the trailer, we all grabbed our cameras, tripods and warm clothing and headed out to take sunset photos.

There is a field on Moralana Gorge Road that has a perfect view of the western side of the Flinders Ranges to watch the change of colour as the sun sets. The windmill adds some dimension and movement, with the odd sheep wandering through.

We headed back to the accommodation after sunset for dinner before sitting around the fire chatting. It was sometime later when someone looked up into the night sky and realised the cloud cover had gone and the milky way was above us. Everyone scrambled to get cameras and tripods and spread out to get our photos.

After about an hour, I headed back to my room, downloaded the files and tried to track what had happened for the day, eventually getting too sleepy and heading off to bed. Although we had been on the bus most of the day, I managed to walk around 6km or just over 9,000 steps; I was tired.

Tuesday 26 July 2022

I woke early, had a quick shower, breakfast and then we all head out to catch the sunrise. We drive past the sunset location from the day before, setting up to see what the rising sun would bring. We started around 7am, then once the sun was on the range, heading down into the dry creek bed to explore different vantage points.

By 8:30am we climb aboard the bus, only to stop about 100m further along the road to pile out and take more photos; back on the bus to go another 100m for another stop. We could have walked the 100m but didn’t know that view was there. The first stop was the sun coming over the hills, giving them a layering of light, the second was a creek washout.

We return to Merna Mora Station at 9:30am for some free time. First, I download the most recent photos and try to work out a system to organise them, then late morning head out for a walk around the property, this time only taking my point-and-shoot Olympus Tough. I wandered around the creek bed and then up around the sheep yards.

In the afternoon we headed out to Brachina Gorge Road, first stopping at the lookout before exploring further. In my notes I’ve written: emu, goats – from the bus – dry creek & wallaby sighting, rock wall, more wallabies, creek bed with water for reflection photos, rock cliff/wall and finally sunset near Brachina Gorge lookout.

The walk up along the ridge to take the photos was extremely rocky. We split up into two groups, with one moving further along the ridge. I walked with them before deciding that I’d prefer to set up with the other group. My reasoning was that by the time we were to walk back to the bus, after sundown, I’d prefer to have less rocky ground to traverse.

Turns out this may have been a wise move on my part as John managed to roll his ankle on the walk back to the bus. Back at our camp David and his father, Ming, strapped John’s ankle (they are doctors) so John was set up with his leg elevated while the team set about getting our dinner ready. We sat around the fire after dinner; I headed off to bed by 9:30pm. I was struggling to write up my notes of the day as I was falling asleep.

For those keeping track, today I covered 7.6km – 11,363 steps.

Wednesday 27 July 2022

It was cold overnight, getting up at 6:30am to turn on the heater and electric blanket then climbing back into bed for a bit. Finally get up, shower and pack everything up. Around 7:30am I heard the bus start up and drive off, assuming John had gone to have his ankle checked. I caught up on my journal and noted any time I sat still long enough, I’d get sleepy. It was as if I had no bandwidth to think beyond basic necessities.

Headed to breakfast at 8:30am, then we all helped to pack up and store things in the trailer. John returned at 9:30am with a restrapped ankle and told to take it easy. At least it wasn’t broken*. We finally packed everything up and headed off, back down Moralana Gorge Road, this time continuing on through the Flinders Ranges.

We stopped for wedge tail eagle sightings where the bird watchers amongst us got out their big lenses and took photos. Someone driving the opposite direction stopped to point to a field of sheep further up the road, so we took a walk along to see.

We continue along the road, stopping whenever there was something interesting for us to pop off the bus and take photos of. Eventually we emerged onto a sealed road at Flinders Ranges Way, stopping at the Elder Range lookout for lunch. I didn’t realise until writing this that we were actually heading southeast, skirting along the southern edge of Wilpena Pound.

We haven’t had phone reception since leaving Hawker on Monday afternoon. Over the next couple of days, we only had wifi when we were at the restaurant at Wilpena Pound Resort. There was none where we were staying. This was great as there were less distractions, it also meant that I wasn’t following where we were on the map.

Not long after setting off after lunch, we came across a field with an abundance of yellow flower bushes. For some reason I loved taking photos here and was especially happy with the results.

We arrived at the Wilpena Pound Resort around 2:30pm, getting our tents for the next two nights. We had some free time to settle in. I headed off to the IGA as my water bottle had a split lid and was leaking. Back to the tent where I downloaded photos, recharge batteries and tried to clean the sensor in my camera – didn’t really work and I have had to retouch the spots out of most of my photos!

Heading out in the afternoon for sunset photos at the Cazneaux Tree. Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953) was an Australian photographer who photographed this tree in 1937. He called it ‘The Spirit of Endurance’.

It was a beautiful spot, and some of the photos taken by the others were spectacular. From memory Caroline and Joy got photos showing the tree at the perfect moment and Kylie had a fantastic photo looking directly into the sun. We had spent about an hour here, heading off after 6pm for our dinner. When we returned to our tents, I discovered why the previous occupant had the heater cranked to 30˚C. It was so cold. I sat under the wall mounted heater, with the vent pointing down on the bed, wrapped myself in the throw blanket and worked on downloading files.

Walking for the day: 6.2km (9,303 steps).

Thursday 28 July 2022

I made the mistake of turning the heater off when I went to bed, waking at 1:30am with a freezing face and unable to get back to sleep. I turned the heater back on, but it wasn’t until later that I realised that the vent had reset and through the early hours was blowing generally into the tent, not down on me. I did get some sleep, but it wasn’t good. I was awake at 5am but it was so cold I had no intention of having a shower before heading out for sunrise photos. We headed off around 6:30am to the Ridgeback Lookout on Bunyeroo Road. This is the place where the squiggly road is in most photos of the Flinders Ranges.

After taking what felt like a million photos, we head to a spot not far away for our breakfast. Back on the road, driving and stopping for photos of views, gum trees and creek beds, some of which has a trickle of water in them. It may be winter and there has been rain, but out in these areas it needs more rain for water to flow. Joy went back to the Flinders Ranges a couple of months later after decent rain, capturing photos of lush green fields and wildflowers.

We got back to accommodation for lunch and a little bit of free time, before most people moved to the bar to start editing photos. My laptop is old and needs to remain connected to power to work. I had a lot of photos to go through and was struggling with decision fatigue. We were to present our best or favourite photos after dinner that evening.

I hadn’t totally narrowed down my photos before we set out for our last sunset shoot. We went to Hucks Lookout, just past Upalinna Station off Flinders Ranges Way. The spot looks toward the ranges across a field of grass trees.

Mindful that previously I was not moving around enough when taking photos, this time I was looking for different views. This is the flower spike of the grass tree going to seed (taken with the Olympus Tough, not the DSLR)

We spent about an hour here before heading back to the accommodation for dinner. John took a few of us back to the tents as Don and David had bought wine and nibblies for our evening presentation. I took the opportunity to turn the heater on. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but it was so cold last night that a good night sleep was my priority.

We had a fun night. Everyone had beautiful photos to show, and this is where I realised how others had moved around a lot more and had fantastic vantage points for their photos.

I was last to show my photos as this was a struggle for me. There were too many photos to go through and make decisions on. I wasn’t really sorting photos as I went (which would have helped). Since I didn’t have editing software I didn’t pick any photos that required merging or colour correction, instead selecting photos I liked that didn’t need editing, which eliminated most of the grand views. I think John was confused on my selection. Before my turn I really thought my photos were rubbish, but the team were generous with their comments.

Chris has edited the drone footage he had been taking through the week. It was a lovely surprise to see us and our week. This was later edited a few more times before we were sent a link to the final film.

We headed back to the camp around 9:30pm. Having the heater on for the past couple of hours made a difference, although it may not be as cold as the night before. I did locate the temperatures for the week (for Hawker) and Thursday night was colder than Wednesday, so I have no idea!

I caught my journal up to date and was lights out by 10:45pm AND kept the heater on all night.

Pedometer count: 4.1km (6,699 steps)

Friday 29 July 2022

Success: I slept through the night, waking around 6:30am, hopping out of bed to turn the heater on in the bathroom, then hopping back into bed. Up, shower and pack my gear. By 8am I head out for a walk around the area, it would appear I’m the only one out and about. The others on the tour loved staying at the tents, even though they were cold. I quietly offered my opinion to John that I would have preferred to stay at the chalets close to the restaurant.

Now with the trip being 17 months ago I can see two perspectives:

Staying at the chalets:

Pro:
- Close to the restaurant and shop.
- We could walk around the area and explore.
- It would be easier to go from the rooms to the facilities, especially if you forget something.
- In previous trips people hadn’t complained about how cold it was at night.
- Wifi
Con:
- All the tourist busses are there with a lot of people around = noise.
- We may not be in our small community, maybe even spread out.
- Wifi – it depends on what your needs are.

Staying at the tents:

Pro:
- They are lovely and during the day they were wonderful.
- David has a photo of him, Christine, Kylie and John out by the fire with the milky way above. Out at these tents there is very little light pollution that astrophotography is possible.
- It was like being out in the bush more, and from memory someone took long exposure photos off their veranda.
Con:
- Bloody cold at night. It’s winter! I’m assuming these tents may be very hot in summer.
- There were no electric blankets on the bed (perhaps a fire hazards, but so is running the heater all night).
- It is quite a walk to get to the restaurant and shop. Aside from the one time I walked it, we usually were ferried back and forth on the bus, so best not to forget something.

Breakfast at 8:30am before setting off. We stopped at 11am at Kanyaka Station ruins. Back on the road, passing through Quorn then stopping at Wilmington for lunch. John dropped the trailer outside town to make the next excursion easier. We headed into Mount Remarkable National Park where most of us walked into Alligator Gorge, with John staying behind to do some work and sparing his twisted ankle. David’s parents also stayed behind.

We explored the walk into the gorge and along the bottom, walking for about 40 minutes. Taking some time at the furthest point our time would allow before making our way back to the bus. We had arvo tea, then back on the road. By 4:30pm we made our way to Augusta Highway to head home down the main road.

I got home after 9pm, put all my clothes into the washing machine (most smelled of smoke), had a bowl of cereal for supper and a cuppa. Downloaded the last of my photos, hung out the washing and headed off to bed around midnight.

Walking for the day: 7.6km (12,614 steps)

The trip was fantastic and the people lovely. John has added more destination locations for photography tours in the 17 months since I went on my adventure. I decided that I wouldn’t do any more photography trips, until I had cleared away all the photos I had, not just of this trip, but other photos I had taken in the past. Otherwise I’m just adding more inventory and not doing anything useful with it. As it is, it has taken 17 months to finish editing the photos and writing this blog.

I did start editing photos a couple of days after I got home. At the time I was swamped with a lot of other projects, and I needed to return to them. This project sat for a while before I edited a few photos mid-November 2022, then put it aside again. Part of the problem is working out where to start, what am I going to do with it; basically, having to make decisions.

I had a lot of photos on my phone (I do this so I can use geolocation on my phone to identify where the photo was taken) and the thought of sorting those out added to the 101 things that made doing something else more appealing.

Some final details:

Number of photos and video taken = 1185
- [I’m not sure if I’ll ever use the video for anything. It was more to keep me amused on the drive and to explore.]
Photos that survived:
- The first cut = 314
- Second cut = 202
- Third cut = 168 – these have been uploaded to Google photos if you want to look through the album.

If you are interested in going on a tour, check out Adventure Art Photography

* Upon returning home, John went to have his ankle checked. He had a hairline fracture and was in a moon boot for some time while it healed.