Flashback Fridays: Flinders Ranges, South Australia

This one's going back a fair way. All the way back to 2003...

Back then Kim and I were living in Adelaide in South Australia. Adelaide is our home city but over the past 14 years we've moved backwards and forwards quite a bit: Adelaide, Zurich, Sydney, Adelaide, Sydney, Adelaide (again!) and now the San Francisco Bay Area. Plus multiple moves within each city. Whew, that's a lot of moving!

After living in Sydney (the first time) with all the hustle and bustle of a big city we were keen to get out and see as much of the countryside as possible while back in Adelaide. Being Australian, and therefore used to incredibly long drives to get anywhere, we found ourselves taking quite a few long distance day trips on weekends. After an impromptu drive five hours north to the southern Flinders Ranges (and back again) one Saturday we decided that a proper visit was in order. So a few weeks later we headed to Wilpena Pound in the spectacular Flinders Ranges for a weekend away.

The scenery in the Flinder's Ranges is pretty spectacular. After a long drive of just nothing after nothing after nothing we were met with views of Wilpena Pound, a natural ampitheatre, and our destination for the weekend. 

We hit the hay early on our first night at Wilpena Pound Resort as we had an early start planned for the next morning with a day of hiking the pound.

The following day we took in the views of Wilpena Pound from a different vantage point, high about the rocky formation in a small plane.

After our scenic flight we checked out a dry riverbed on foot before hopping back in the car to head towards home. Speaking of the car, check out the tiny little Ford we used to have! That little thing took us to so many places off the beaten track. It's amazing just how many bumpy dirt roads we drove it down in the time that we owned it - always to the amusement of the 4WD drivers we shared the road with. We never once got stuck though and being so much smaller than all of the 4WDs our little car fit between their tire tracks where the road was much smoother and we could usually drive much faster without the bumps.

We took a little detour on our drive home and visited the tiny "town" of Parachilna where we stopped for lunch at the Prairie Hotel. The Prairie Hotel is known for it's interesting menu filled with local wildlife. We ate emu burgers for lunch and took home camel mettwurst (a dry German salami popular in South Australia).

There was plenty of other "wildlife" buzzing around bothering us in Parachilna as you'll see below! Our girls are not going to cope when we visit Australia next, especially Lola who is absolutely terrified of flies. Maybe she's seen this particular photo before!

On our drive back home we were treated to some more spectacular scenery before hours of nothing after nothing after nothing...

The Flinders Ranges really is a wonderful place to visit. Such a harsh and beautiful landscape. Most international visitors don't make it to South Australia when they visit Australia. If you are visiting Australia and you have the time I'd really recommend a visit to the Flinders Ranges for a taste of the outback. Just don't go there in Summer!