Saturday, August 20, 2011

Arkaroola

Our last stop was Arkaroola, a wilderness sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges.  We landed at a private airstrip in Balcanoona and were picked up by staff from Arkaroola and taken to the sanctuary.  It is quite unlike anything I've ever visited and was just amazing.  The accommodation was fantastic - we stayed in the Mawson wing so Huffle is very impressed - and the food once again was tremendous.

Early the next morning we did their famous ridge top 4WD tour and there is a good reason it's famous in the region.  Wow. This is the view from the first look out post.

ArkaroolaPanorama

We saw a Wallaroo - which is a cross between a Wallaby and a Kangaroo.

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This is Sillers Lookout, which is the highest point the 4WD goes up. The view from up there was amazing. We had morning tea at the top, admiring the view.

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There are quite a lot of native plants to be seen - one of the most impressive is the Xantheria, or Black Boy.

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Our final stop on the tour was to see the dry waterfall, which would look positively wonderful with water. It's very picturesque when it's dry!

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After we got back to the lodge we drove back to the plane and began the long flight home. We stopped in Mildura for fuel and made it home just after 6pm on Friday.

We covered 3,049 kilometres on this trip and did the whole lot in three days. There is just no way you could cover that distance in that time in a car so flying was definitely the way to go. I do recommend it.

There are a few more pictures in my FlickR photostream, just click on any of the pictures above and you will be taken there.   I hope you enjoyed your outback Australian tour as much as I did!

2 comments:

Denise said...

Wow, amazing views, I enjoyed the tour very much! And the wallaroo, so sweet! The plant was also awesome, I never saw it before! Thanks for the nice pictures and explanations!

Kate said...

Um, yep AMAZING! Love it! I really have to go to your flickr page now!