A couple of days soaking up the sights in Bathtub Gorge prompted the following idyll thoughts:
- Despite 30 years of waddling around the Flinders Ranges, the place continues to surprise and amaze.
- Even though we walked this gorge back in 1986 (I think) I don't remember much about that trip. (Which, I guess, might help to explain why the place continues to surprise.)
- As time goes by the significance of the geology here looms larger and larger - and it's all powerful when you're wedged in the gorge. (This, in turn, might explain why the amazement element is alive and well.)
- The Heysen Range is one of the most underrated walking areas in the Flinders. The Heysen Trail shoots north up Aroona Valley but the peaks and gorges it glides past offer some remarkable detours. And, as always, it's a jolt to be reminded that so much of the best of the Flinders - like Bathtub and the country to the north - is outside the national parks.
- The effects of 10 years of below average rainfall are very evident. Though the Heysens always get a bit of winter moisture, Bathtub did not seem to have had a major flow for some time. As with the gorges we visited near Moolooloo last year, it could do with a big storm to scour and clean up the pools.
- Even though it was school holidays, we saw no other walkers. There were however several car-based campers in the Aroona campground. In the carpark at the end of the walk we did meet a few daytrippers who asked quizzical questions. Bushwalking, it seems, is still a bit of a novelty.
1 comment:
Hi Quentin
I enjoy you blog and writings elsewhere. Your comment about the Heysen Range being a great walk venue and how the Trail walks by it rather than in/on it, also struck me. A Sydney group doing the Parachilna -Wilpena ridge-top traverse a decade ago wrote that that considered it one of the best such walks in Australia. (summit log book - Kankana,I think).
Re Bathtub Creek - Six years ago two of us walked into the Gorge to climb Kankana via Iralbo with the thought of simply following a prominent ridge up to Iralbo's southern summit. Of course it's not as simple as that but is instead rather a steep and bewildering place for route choice. By sheer luck we climbed Iralbo by what I think must be one of the Flinder's most exciting and aesthetically pleasing walks. This included including 2 rock bands (about same height and ease of climbing as the climb up to Rover Rock Hole) separated in part by a clean slab of rock to walk up and hand by hand along sharp knife-blade ridge - any sharper you'd need gloves! - that gradually lead up to the southern end of Iralbo. The walk started not far upstream of the Tub but I went back in Oct 07 but couldn't find it though I didn't look for long. The drought was full on at the time and the day very hot and over 30 goats had come down off the range to the Tub, possibly the only water in the range apart from Brachina Gorge, and it was filthy. I intend going back in June to pinpoint the start and redo the route. Once on the walkl , you can't go sideways, just up (or down)! It's a classic!
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