Catchya at Copley!*

We leaped from the car and hit the ground running as a convoy of 4WDs pulled into the car park behind us. Car doors slammed. They were gaining on us, but we were still a few vital seconds ahead as we slid through the door and reached the counter first.

And that’s exactly where I needed to be to score one of the Quandong Café’s legendary quandong pies this late in the day.

Play fair? No way! Because if I missed out, things would’ve gotten UGLY. So as the wave of humanity washed up around me, I deployed my secret weapon.

That’s what ‘elbows’ are for, right?’

540 km (336 miles) north of Adelaide and deep in the South Australian Outback isn’t where you’d normally expect to find an oasis of civilisation.  After all, it’s the driest place in the driest state of the driest continent on earth

But the small town of Copley is no ordinary place. The Copley Caravan Park managers (and café owners!) made it easy to base ourselves there for a few days to discover its hidden secrets.  Like us, you might just find that the longer you stay, the longer you WANT to stay!

Not just to sample those fine quandong pies again. Or check out the array of Outback Scenic Loos!

Here’s a few of my favourite Copley things to do in a handy 4-9 Day itinerary.  Look out for the *STAY Another Day! signs for optional extra days if you’d like to extend your stay!

You’re welcome!!

Day 1: Explore Copley

Aroona Dam Sanctuary

I never saw the ‘before’ picture.

Back in the 1990’s, a 200+ person community project turned 44 km² of once-degraded bushland around the 5000 megalitre Aroona Dam into a Sanctuary. So now all you’ll see is the ‘after’ picture – the stunning scenery of the northern Flinders Ranges AND a scenic Aussie Loo!

All this makes the sanctuary a cool place to hang out, have a picnic, take a walk and spot the wildflowers. If you get lucky, you could also spot one of the yellow-footed rock wallabies reintroduced into the area.

The Retention Dam

It’s a tough choice between fishing and bird-watching so at the Retention Dam just out of town heading north.  So it’s just as well you can do BOTH.

Or neither!

Climb Flat Top

It’s big. It’s RED. It’s just out of town – and visible from pretty much everywhere in Copley. And if you can’t work out what the locals call a small mountain with its top sliced off, you’re just not trying.

Welcome to Flat Top (see photo above). There’s no marked walking track, but don’t let that stop you – the views from the top are sensational! Not that energetic? Walk around below it. Not THAT energetic? Sit out the front of the cafe and watch everyone else walking up or around it!!

Find the Head

To really experience the environment in which towns like this survive, drive up into the ranges west of Copley.

Better still, stop the car and take a walk along these remote country roads.

Expect a surprising array of wildflowers (in season), a starkly beautiful Outback landscape full of amazing colour, and a different perspective of Copley from the lookout point high above.

And the HEAD. But only if you get REALLY lucky

Day 2: THREE Iconic Aussie Tracks in ONE DAY!

Yes, you CAN drive the Strzelecki, Birdsville and Oodnadatta tracks in a day. And you don’t need a special rig, or even a 4WD to do it!

No, REALLY – as long as you don’t expect to actually drive the full length of each track, that is! But you can visit each starting point, and you can easily do it in one day from Copley.

AND see a lot of other great Outback attractions along the way.

Lyndhurst

Just 33 km north of Copley, you’ll find a bush philosopher’s gallery, an unexpected lake and famous bushranger Captain Starlight’s legacy.  They’re all wrapped up in the tiny town of Lyndhurst.

Drive out onto the Strzelecki Track’s tyre-shredding rock and stone ‘road’.  You’re now on the original route Harry Readford – aka Captain Starlight – used to drive 1000 stolen cattle from Queensland to Lyndhurst.

MORE about Lyndhurst and the Ochre Pits HERE

PS Don’t miss the scenic public loo!

Ochre Pits

Want a great sunset shot?

Then leave the Ochre Pits a few kilometres north of Lyndhurst for the return trip to Copley. The late afternoon sun makes the amazing colours of this Indigenous heritage site glow.  Like this.

Farina – The Back-of-Beyond Bakery

I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw the ‘Bakery Now Baking’ sign on the side of the dusty road just 24 km north of Lyndhurst. It HAD to be an antique. Didn’t it?

Actually, no. You CAN combine outback travel with FAAAAABULOUS food!

How? Because in an astonishingly civilised move by the Farina Restoration Society, Farina’s derelict Bakery was the first building in this historic ghost town to be reconstructed. Now it operates for around 8 weeks a year raising funds to restore more of the Farina historic site.

Wander the open air museum, strolling the walking tracks or visiting the campground’s scenic loo combined with awesome goods baked on the premises.  That’s a killer way to make history fun.

And it’s all the better for knowing my significant personal contribution to the bakery fundraiser will account for a LOT more upgrades!!

MORE about Farina Bakery HERE

*STAY Another Day – Day #5! Return to Farina and book the 3-4 hour Farina Springs tour.  Travel in the Farina Station 4WD or Tag-along – the bakery will still be there when you get back!

Marree and the Postal Delivery Route from Hell

If you can tear yourself away from the fleshpots of Farina and drive another 45 km up the road, you’ll find remote outback town Marree.  It’s at the end of the Old Ghan railway line and start of the legendary Birdsville and Oodnadatta tracks.

Actually, ‘legend’ is a word that’s used a lot around Marree.

Especially about Tom Kruse, the (legendary) outback mailman.  His (legendary) adventures delivering mail along the 517 km of rocks, sand dunes and gibbers that make up the (legendary) Birdsville track in his (legendary) Leyland Badger Truck were immortalised in a (legendary) movie “The Back of Beyond”.

Experience the legend yourself, at least for a few minutes. Drive a short way along the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks which, together with Lyndhurst’s Strzelecki, mean you’ve travelled on three legendary Aussie roads.

In ONE DAY!

MORE about Marree HERE

Now all you have to do is drive back to Copley. The setting sun should be lighting up the Ochre Pits right around now

*STAY Another Day – Day #6! Drive back to Marree, then have a longer experience on the Birdsville Track and drive about 50 km to Clayton Station.

*STAY Another Day – Day #7! Alternatively, take a drive on Witchellina Nature Reserve. Three 4WD nature drives show you the rugged outback at its best.

Day 3: Wilderness Adventure

Saying Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary is an eco-adventure wonderland is a bit like saying Uluru is quite a big rock.

There are the painted hills surrounding the tourist village and stunningly scenic hikes through amazing gorges and chasms.  Super-challenging 4WD tracks through wild mountain ranges and historic sites and astronomical marvels courtesy of unpolluted skies.  Arkaroola is a total outdoor adventure package surrounded by the best collection of geological marvels in Australia.

Yes, it’d take more than just a day trip to see all THAT!

But if you want to see the very BEST of Arkaroola and you’ve only got a day to spare, then book in to the AMAZING Ridge-top Tour.  It’s a 4.5 hour drive to Sillers Lookout through rugged ranges on rough tracks in a purpose built 4WD tour vehicle. Be warned though – to do this in a day, you’ll have to leave early to get there in time! But it’s SO worth it!

MORE about Arkaroola’s Ridge-top Tour HERE!

Luckily, Arkaroola has its own campground with powered and unpowered sites. But if your rig’s not up to the 130 km all-weather dirt road east of Copley, leave it at the Copley Caravan Park and stay in one of the lodges or cabins. And if your vehicle isn’t up to it, leave that at Copley as well and hire a 4WD!

MORE about Arkaroola HERE

*STAY Another Day – Day 8! The road to Arkaroola can be an interesting day trip in itself.  There are Indigenous Cultural tours run by the local Adnyamathanha people at Iga Warta, Italowie Gorge walking trail and picnic area, views over Lake Frome and Grindells Hut in the Gammon Ranges.

Day 4: History and Heritage

As we sped, bouncing and bumping over a stretch of road so rocky I was practically levitating, I felt grateful for just one thing.

Praise be we weren’t travelling in OUR car!

But our travelling companion’s 4WD managed the drive south of Copley without mishap. As we drove a network of dirt tracks through the stunning northern Flinders Ranges, we explored some significant sites in South Australia’s colonial history.

Puttapa Gap

You won’t see anything much just driving through the gap where the old Transcontinental Railway line once ran through the ranges en route to Beltana.

Stop the car and discover some of the old structures around the rock cutting and the classic outback country through which it once ran.

Beltana

Shifting the railway line a few kilometres away was the end of the viability of State Heritage Area town Beltana, built in 1870. The town is still inhabited, but an interpretive trail leads past some of the remaining building ruins.  These include the old Dunesk Mission building with links to the Rev. John Flynn, instrumental in founding the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Sliding Rock

22 km further on along that rocky stretch of road above is the ruins of a copper ore mine at Sliding Rock.  It’s got the only combination loo/visitor information depot I’ve EVER seen in OZ!

This remote State Heritage listed site with its duelling chimneys – one round (Cornish) and one square (Welsh) – hunks of copper ore and picturesque setting is a great place to explore.

*STAY Another Day – Day 9! Return to Sliding Rock and keep going to the privately owned Warraweena Conservation Park with its own campground and series of self-drive 4WD tracks.

SO … with its amazing array natural attractions, small towns, historic sites, hikes, self-drive tours, wildflowers, scenic loos AND the opportunity for Bakery mega-overload, Copley just might be the ultimate accessible Outback destination!

FAST FACTS

• Where:  Copley is 540 km (336 miles) north of Adelaide in the Northern Flinders Ranges
• Stay:  Copley Caravan Park, or nearby Leigh Creek Caravan Park.  Other campgrounds are at Lyndhurst, Farina, Marree, Arkaroola, Warraweena
• When:  The best time to travel is from May to October when temperatures are cooler and more attractions are open
• How to get there:  Self Drive is the best option.

Want MORE?

• Copley Caravan Park
• South Australia’s Outback
• MORE Copley Photos on Flickr

*The phrase “Catchya at Copley” is from the excellent tourist brochure produced by the Copley Caravan Park.

The post Catchya at Copley! Things to Do and See in Outback South Australia appeared first on Australia by Red Nomad OZ.

Hi there!

Tiny town Marree South Australia is the first major sign of civilisation in over 500 km (~310 miles) for travellers heading south down the iconic Oodnadatta or Birdsville tracks – both LOOOOONG stretches of dirt, rocks, gravel and bulldust. But we approached it over several days from the other direction – a straight run from Adelaide of nearly 700 km – or 7.5 hours on the road, thanks to the bitumen – further north!

In THIS region, a sealed road is noteworthy!

At the crossroads linking some of Australia’s most isolated areas Marree is remote by anyone’s standards. BUT … it’s an inland transport hub with credentials including Afghan cameleers, one-time rail head for the Ghan railway line from Alice Springs, legendary outback mailman Tom Kruse AND the Lake Eyre yacht club!

The irony of being simultaneously within cooee of Australia’s lowest rainfall area AND its largest lake (Lake Eyre) was almost as thrilling as being so close to the Marree Man Mystery.

Referenced by a statue at Marree’s southern entrance, it’s unknown how the REAL Marree Man, a 4.2 km (2+ miles) long outline of an Aboriginal man on a plateau discovered in 1998 got there. Or why! Or by whom!!

Tragically, Marree Man is on the verge of disappearing back into the desert, BUT … at 60 km (37 miles) out of town along those deadly tyre-shredding roads, a Marree Man sighting wasn’t going to happen for us on this trip.

Especially when the FAAAABULOUS Farina Bakery, conveniently on the way back to our campsite at Copley was calling our names!!  But that’s another story …

See ya later!

Want MORE?

• Marree, South Australia
• Tom Kruse, Outback Mailman
• Birdsville Track
• Oodnadatta Track
• Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park 
• Marree Man
• Farina Bakery

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The post Postcard from … Marree South Australia appeared first on Australia by Red Nomad OZ.

The FAAAAAABULOUS colours of OZ make the life of a downunder blogging, photographing, writing traveller with a penchant for bakeries REALLY easy …

Getting a good pic from right in front of a spectacularly AWESOME panorama, a weird and wacky BIG Thing or a KILLER sunset is what’s called, in the technical photographic terminology used by us amateurs, a SURE THING.

It’s SO easy, in fact, that worrying about my eventual exposure as a photographic fraud just makes me break out in capitals all over!

So when the wonderful Linda of Journey Jottings tagged me to enter this year’s Capture the Colour competition sponsored by TravelSupermarket, my heart sank momentarily. Because not only am I a loud & proud photographic AMATEUR, the impact of my photos very much relies on the stories I tell about them.

Just FIVE photos? In Red, Blue, Yellow, Green and White?? That STAND ALONE???

Yeah … I can do that! Kind of!! Let me show you my FIVE colours of OZ as captured in FIVE very different Australian towns!!! Towns I haven’t before shown you!!

BUT … because I struggle with brevity AND I’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of winning anyway, I’ve backed up each town with another photo to help show its true colours!

RED … Marree, South Australia

These days, thanks to roads now mostly sealed in recent times, this little outpost on the edge of the remote South Australian Outback is less than a day’s drive – 685 km – from Adelaide.

But that wasn’t always the case. Once the rail head for the Ghan railway, then an important link on the now defunct rail route to Alice Springs, but only accessible over a LOT of gravel, like in this photo, Marree was once considered WAY beyond the Back of Beyond!

And that’s also the name of a documentary about Tom Kruse, legendary Outback mailman who for nearly 30 years battled extreme temperatures, dust storms, sand dunes, floods and breakdowns to deliver mail in this RED 1936 Leyland Badger mail truck along the 519 km of the notorious track from Birdsville to Marree.

The truck now rests at the old rail yards across from the Marree Hotel – which ironically offers scenic plane and helicopter flights!  And why not? You wouldn’t want to miss Lake Eyre and Marree Man now, would you?!

MORE about Tom Kruse and Marree

BLUE … Brunswick Heads, New South Wales

An ecstatically happy combination of beaches, river, cafés, historic buildings, markets, shops, restaurants and other good stuff, Brunswick Heads is often (unaccountably) bypassed in favour of its bigger and WAY more brash neighbour Byron Bay, just down the coast from the Queensland/New South Wales Border.

And did I mention the bakery?

A vibrant community set amidst some of the most beautiful scenery in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, whether you’re a surfie, fisherperson, yuppie, grey nomad, tourist, trendy, backpacker, retiree or hippy there’s always something interesting to do at Brunswick Heads! And I’m not just talking about the bakery … although that’s SO fine, it’s worthy of visiting in its own right!!

Surrounded by the sea (see 1st photo above), the Brunswick river, and the hinterland behind, it’s hard to imagine Brunswick Heads featuring any colour but BLUE!

Sigh … I’m going to stop writing about it RIGHT NOW, so I can save it ALL for myself …

MORE about Brunswick Heads

A thirsty traveller on the Windorah Sand Dunes (see below) … Outback Queensland

YELLOW … Windorah, Queensland

Actually, small town Windorah, a great base from which to explore the Barcoo shire, is better known for its RED! SO red they hurt the eyes (see above), the incredibly photogenic local sand dunes just west of the township within cooee of the well known Coopers Creek are a tourist attraction in their own right.

BUT despite that – or maybe because of it – I couldn’t help noticing this YELLOW Backhoe (? can anyone enlighten me??) just off the highway in a Windorah backyard.

Actually, the matching toy backhoe right next to it is really what caught my eye …

And while yellow is an aberration in this Outback Queensland town dominated by the strong reds, greens and blues that typify the region in a good year, it’s a story in the making!

I wonder what the toy-owner will become when she or he grows up?!

MORE about Windorah and Coopers Creek

GREEN … Shepparton, Victoria

Nothing says ‘Shepparton’ or ‘Goulburn Valley Food Bowl’ better than an individually decorated life-size fibreglass cow – part of the MOOOOVING Art project – right??

Well, this one DOES have a GREEN agricultural bent …

For several generations of Aussies raised on Goulburn Valley products, the large regional town of Shepparton is worth a visit. And not just for the factory outlets such as Campbells and SPC Ardmona either!

Check out its natural attractions, wineries and walking trails, restaurants and – yes – bakeries, including the award winning slices of Tatura! But for my money, a morning walk around Lake Victoria is hard to beat – and it’s also GREEN!

MORE about Shepparton

WHITE … Carnarvon, Western Australia

Carnarvon will always be remembered as the town where Pilchard & I first spotted Laughing Dove (Streptopelia senegalensis) – an interloper native to Sub-Saharan Africa, but on the official Australian Bird List nonetheless. We take our ‘Lifers’ where we find them …

And … celebrate with copious quantities of chocolate coated frozen banana and mango – just two of the fabulous treats on offer from this Western Australian food growing region on the banks of the Gascoyne, 900 km north of Perth. Just check out the plantation produce stalls and the Gascoyne Growers Market if you don’t believe me …

Then check out the Heritage Precinct with One Mile Jetty and the Tramway (check out that WHITE fence!) to really get a feel for this beautiful town! And, like me, plan a return trip to finish off the bits you missed …

MORE about Carnarvon

They’re MY true colours!  But there’s PLENTY more colour in Australia’s colourful country towns!  Check out my other TOP Aussie Towns HERE!  Or better still – visit some and see what I mean for yourself!!

The post Capture the Colours of OZ Country Towns! appeared first on Australia by Red Nomad OZ.