SA continued

Set off for the Flinders, stopped in at Beltana roadhouse for a coffee and a chat with locals about the old copper mines in the area.  I had read about them in an old book on the history of the Flinders and was keen to get a sample (not more rocks says Kevy).  The owner of the road house directed us to an area that was being used to top the dirt roads in the area and it proved very lucrative with some "nice rocks".

My brother had told us about the hotel at Parachilna and the road kill menu, so we keen to see what it was like.  Others had mentioned about the Prairie hotel and all had rated it. 

From the outside it looks great, however inside the atmosphere and interaction of the staff was very "goochie".  It set up to serve those from Adeleaide who want to experience the "outback" complete with staff dressed in RM Williams gear.  Not much character inside with space devoted to selling everything from T shirts to dips and the like.  While the food was fine and the menu worked as a "Feral theme" (someone needs to explain to them that neither Kangaroo or Emu is feral, they are native) the roo burger was tasty.  Kevy was not impressed either when he was charged $18 for two stubbies, while they were their local brew Fargo lager, it was a bit steep.  We finished a feed and a couple of normal beers and went for a drive through some gorges in the southern Flinders.

Camped at Wilpena Pound, there was a bar there as part of the resort, but given our experiences so far with resort style bars, we gave it a miss.  This trip is about exploring bush pubs!

Early start as we head into the northern Flinders, very good country and picturesque, my camera does not do it justice and I am sure you can see pictures on the net.  We followed a track into the Gammon ranges and finished up on an old property called Arkaroola.  It was one of the last of the pioneer pastoral properties in the roughest country.  It is now a wilderness sanctuary and the centre of a major dispute this year on anti mining.  The SA govt. ended up revoking the mining lease of the area (high uranium and lots of other stuff) and paid the company $15 million to cover expenses, funny thing is , they could have bought the property for that I reckon, instead the private property is a resort. 

We entered the info centre building which has a bar and lounge.  Great display of minerals and lots of paraphernalia about "No Mine".  I went up to the bar and stood inline to order. Was surprised to hear one female patron concerned that decaf was not available and then a male patron ordering lunch enquired if his "bagel could be toasted".  It was all I could do to keep a straight face I ordered 2 beers and a bowl of wedges. We had a couple of rounds and ate lunch, great history on show in photo's on the walls. 

We decided to head back north and Maree.    On the way we saw a car on the side of the road and being a remote area stopped to see if they were right.  Two women on there way to collect their husbands who were sitting in Lynhurst pub after breaking down, had hit an Emu and wrote their front end off.  The accident had occurred at 10.30am and 5 hour later they were still waiting for the tow truck.  It was still hot and they were out of water, so we gave them a couple of bottles and a few bickies just as the tow truck arrived.  We called in at Lynhurst and checked out "Talc ALF" who turned out to have an affinity with Kevy, but I will leave that for another time.  We got Maree around 5.00pm and saw the weather coming in.  The forecast was for rain south of Maree, so we decided to go north and get north of the rain and headed up the Birdsville track to Cooper creek.