Flinders Ranges

The Mawson Trail is a dirt touring delight with everything from fire trails and farm tracks, dry and wet creek crossings, gravel, sand and corrugations. The final part is also a scenic ride through the Flinders Ranges designed especially for cyclists, writes Sue Webber.

The Mawson Trail stretches 880km from Adelaide to Blinman, an old copper mining town in the Flinders Ranges. However, there’s no need to cycle from one end to the other in one go. It’s easy to pick up the trail for an hour or two, a day or a week.

We decided to start by catching the train and took The Ghan from Adelaide to Port Augusta and cycled to Quorn to join the Mawson Trail. Catching The Ghan was a great way to start the trip, bikes are taken as wheel-on wheel-off luggage on the train and we didn’t even have to remove our panniers.

Quorn is home to the Pichi Richi railway. Rather less luxurious than The Ghan, perhaps, but with plenty of history for the rail buff. The Pichi Richi railway is a narrow gauge tourist steam train that provides an unusual background sound over breakfast as it builds up steam for the morning run down towards the coast. We waved the steam train off and cycled north out of town, following the Mawson Trail up and over the steep climb of Yarrah Vale Gorge. This proved to be the hardest climb of the trip with gentle gradients the rule elsewhere. Warren Gorge provided a shady lunch spot and the first sightings of the rare yellow-footed rock-wallabies that live among the rocky gorges of this region. We camped overnight at Buckaringa Gorge amid a great sheet of Salvation Jane that seemed to flow down the hillside like a wave of purple.

From Buckaringa Gorge, the next section of the Trail passes through flat country that was expected to provide a boom in the 1850s. Overstocking and drought devastated both the land and the farmers but good rainfall brought the settlers back again to repeat the mistakes. Simmonston, surveyed in 1872, was on one of six proposed routes for the railway north of Quorn. Building work on an hotel and a general store started in 1880 but before they were completed the route for the railway was announced and it was going elsewhere. Simmonston died and became known as “the town that never was”. Now there’re hardly enough ruins left to provide shade for a rest stop.

The Mawson Trail joins the sealed road north at Gordon, another set of ruins, and we decided to take the road to Hawker rather than the Trail. The Trail is about 10km longer and we rode it on the way back. If you have the time and energy it’s well worth cycling the extra distance with good riding along quiet dirt tracks through properties rather than on the busy road.

Hawker is a travellers’ oasis with a great supermarket, two caravan parks and a restaurant in the old railway station. It’s also a good place to pick up maps and information.

From Hawker we pushed into the wind along the road to Rawnsley Park, deciding to cycle the Mawson Trail on the return journey.

Rawnsley Park is a property just outside Wilpena Pound. It has the deserved reputation as a quieter place to stay than the Pound’s camping area. The bush camping section at Rawnsley Park amid native pine trees has views across to the outside of the Pound. There are also some good walks in the area and we took a day off to walk up to the lookout into Wilpena Pound and up to Rawnsley Bluff.

The Mawson Trail between Rawnsley Park and Wilpena provided some of the best riding of the whole trip. We followed marked tracks across the property through the Salavation Jane and Onion Weed flowers with the walls of Wilpena Pound rising up behind us. The Trail rejoins the road for a while and then follows a Telstra service track around the outside of the Pound, a quiet trail away from the traffic on the road.

This would make a great day ride from either Wilpena Pound or Rawnsley Park.

Wilpena was as busy as might be expected during school holidays and we took to our feet again for some walks around the Pound. Rejoining the Mawson Trail and cycling north we had another excellent section along a fire trail and well away from any roads. These quiet trails allowed us to see the native animals, including father emus and their chicks, kangaroos and shingleback lizards. It is a wonderful place for cycling.

The Trail joins a dirt road at Bunyeroo Gorge and we soon discovered what we’d been missing as waves of 4WDs swept past covering us with dust as we climbed some steep exposed hills. Fortunately this was a short section and we were soon back to quiet fire trails. We camped near Brachina Gorge for a couple of days and rode up the Aroona Valley to explore on foot.

North of Brachina Gorge, the Mawson Trail follows a fire trail to the edge of the Flinders Ranges National Park and joins the dirt road for the final section to Blinman and the end of the Mawson Trail.

Blinman is a great spot to celebrate with an excellent hotel and accommodation. The food in the restaurant and tea room provided a welcome change from camp cooking and after our night of luxury we were ready to turn around and ride back to Port Augusta picking up sections of the Mawson Trail we’d missed on our way north.

Mawson Trail

Maps available from: South Australian Office for Recreation and Sport, 08 8416 6705. PO Box 219, Brooklyn Park, SA 5032.

Web site: www.recsport.sa.gov/trails/mawson.htm

Hema map: The Flinders Ranges is very good for an overview but does not show the Mawson Trail.

When to go

Fire bans operate between 1 November to 30 April and this would be an extremely hot time to ride the Trail. We rode in September and had some 30C plus days but it was a good time to see the wildflowers in bloom. May is also a popular time.

Getting There

If you have time you can join the Trail in Adelaide and ride all the way to Blinman. To reach the Flinders Ranges section take the bus or The Ghan from Adelaide to Port Augusta and ride to join the Trail at Quorn. There is also a bus service from Wilpena to Port Augusta. For more information about The Ghan contact Great Southern Railway www.gsr.com.au or phone 132147.

Thanks to South Australian tourism for travel on The Ghan and bus from Port Augusta to Adelaide.

Copyright Sue Webber 2007

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