I took a scenic flight over the Anna Creek Painted Desert (aka Painted Hills) during my Adelaide to Darwin Trans-Australia Road Trip through the arid desert which dominates central Australia near Lake Eyre

These spectacular painted hills are located within the confines of the Woomera rocket range within an hours flight from William Creek (population 10) a former stop on the since-relocated Ghan railway line which is the smallest town in South Australia, situated between Marree and Oodnadatta on the historic Oodnadatta Track.

Photos & Videos Slideshow

You can view a selection of photos and videos I took during the flight:

Anna Creek Painted Hills Scenic Flight Review

Geologists call the region breakaway country – arid plateaus in the South Australian desert where 50 million years of climate change have laid bare the desert’s oxidised rock strata revealing pedestal rocks and sandstone hills of vividly coloured ochre yellow oxide, red and deep brown with contrasting crisp whites and jet blacks.

The whole area is encompassed by Anna Creek station, the largest cattle station in the world leased from the Crown by S. Kidman & Co. and at 24,000 square kilometres in size, bigger than Belgium, a statement that really annoyed a Belgian girl in my backpacking tour group

The operators of the one hour “Anna Creek Secret painted Hills” flight, Wrights Air, have special permission from them to run scenic flights as Anna Creek station doesn’t allow land access to the lunar like landscape covering 20 x 18 kilometres because of fears it would cause irreparable damage

The station management hope that allowing aerial access will raise awareness of their fragility and protect them from intruders on the ground because “It’s a very soft alluvial ground and if there’s a tyre track in there it will stay there for years.”

Cost

The quoted price for normal tourists is $180/person with a minimum of 4 passengers for flights to take place.

Backpackers through Groovy Grape tours get to do it for $120 but we managed to haggle down to $100/person (which is a real bargain) because I passed through William Creek during mid-Winter when Wrights Air must been suffering from very low customer numbers.

If you have a quality SLR or Ultrazoom camera I would suggest taking your own photos (see my slideshow above).

If you have a basic point and shoot camera or weren’t able to take photos yourself than at the end of the flight you can buy a Photo CD for $10. I thought most of the photos on the CD were average, the resolution wasn’t very high and to top it off my CD wasn’t burnt properly so I couldn’t view all of them anyway.

They also sell postcards and these are good quality, well worth it for a few dollars each or cheaper if you buy a pack of them all together.

Lake Eyre Flights

Lake Eyre is the largest lake in Australia but its usually just a giant salt pan. In fact its filled with water to capacity just three times in 160 years.

Lake Eyre dry saltpan
photo credit: Jussarian

When heavy rains from its feeder rivers in Queensland start to fill it such as in mid-2009 Wrights Air organises aerial overflights of Lake Eyre so visitors can see this rare spectacle from the air as the classic outback colours of red, white and brown mix to form stunning patterns in the water and the area suddenly becomes inundated by millions of birds including pelicans, terns, gulls and ducks arriving to feed on the proliferation of brine shrimp and raise their young on islands in the lake in an area free of predators.

Lake Eyre filling with water
photo credit: gsketch2000

An estimated six million birds make the pilgrimage to the lake when its full along with other wildlife, including camels and horses.

The inflow of water is great for the local human population as well because it provides an economic boom for companies that operate tourist activities and provide accomodation.

If you don’t have the time or off-road 4WD driving experience to travel as far North as William Creek from Adelaide to see Lake Eyre in flood consider Air Wilpena “Flood Flights” which depart from Wilpena Pound just over 400km from Adelaide.

One of my friends who has recently moved to Australia from Britain was wondering why I had a -10C° rated sleeping bag in Australia, she said there’s “something wrong with that picture…”

She had made a common mistake in not realising that in the desert, night time temperatures can be cold at any time of year. During the Australian winter months from late May through to early August, the evenings can be very cold (down to minus 5C° / 24F°) in the outback/desert areas.

The photo below shows me getting into a swag to sleep at night in the Central Australian desert area in the middle of winter. I was wearing at least 6 layers of clothes + beanie on my head and gloves on my hands. On top of that I was inside my -10C rated sleeping bag inside a canvas swag. But I was still cold – really cold – cold enough that it was almost painful.

The very dry air of the desert holds little moisture and thus holds little heat so as soon as the sun sets, the desert cools considerably. Clear, cloudless skies also help to quickly release heat at night. Most deserts have very low temperatures at night

Sand (of which deserts have plenty) has low specific heat capacity and it is easy for sand to change its temperature – desert sand warms quickly in the morning sun and cools quickly at night.

It is best to dress in layers, adding as the temperature drops during the evening. Sleeping in jeans is a bad idea as they don’t retain heat, fleecy pants are much warmer.

28 km north of Lyndhurst is the ghost town of Farina, now nothing more than a fascinating collection of ruins with the surrounding countryside littered with old drays, wheels and rusting pieces of equipment.

It is strange, while wandering around the ruins, to think that people once made their homes here and hoped to grow wheat in the parched surrounding landscape.

The area was originally proclaimed a town on 21/03/1878 and called “Government Gums” because of the mature River Red Gums in the creek to the north of the town.

Later it’s name was changed to “Farina” (Latin for wheat or flour) by farmers who optimistically hoped to turn the vast flat lands here into fields of grain.

For a few years the rains were unusually good, and the farms and town flourished, reaching a population of about 600 before the copper and silver mine closed in 1927.

At its peak the town had a bakery, grain store, two breweries, two hotels, a general store, post office, Anglican church, five blacksmiths and a school.

Then the normal climate returned … bringing years of drought and dust storms which eventually forcing the abandonment of the town.

Farina was the railhead from Port Augusta from 22/5/1882 until 1884 when the line was extended first to Marree and then Alice Springs. The line closed in the 1980’s and was removed in 1993.

Railway buildings included platforms, goods shed, sheep and cattle yards, station masters residence, workman’s cottage and a 5m gallon reservoir.

One of the more unusual cargoes embarked at Farina railway station was South Australia’s biggest meteorite. The 1.2 ton Murnpeowie iron Meteorite was dragged out of the desert north-east of here about a century ago; and can be seen today at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.

Afghan camel drivers lived on Afghan hill, on the eastern side of the town. They brought in wool from the stations and delivered supplies to them. Chinese came to Farina as construction workers on the railway and some stayed on as gardeners.

The Farina cometary was last used in 1960 and the town was finally abandoned in the 1980’s.

Photos – Adelaide to Alice Springs Road Trip

Tourist Information

A bush camp ground with facilities has been established adjacent to Farina creek by the owners of Farina station.

Lyndhurst is located 606 km north of Adelaide at the crossroads of the Strzelecki and Oodnadatta Tracks. For more information contact the South Australian Visitor & Travel Centre

Talc Alf – Lyndhurst – Talc carvings

Driving north from the Flinders Ranges towards Coober Pedy on the Oodnadatta Track you’ll come across the small town of Lyndhurst at the crossroads of the Strzelecki Track and see a sign directing you to “Talc Alf” located a few kilometres out of Lyndhurst on the Innaminka Road.

Talc Alf (real name Cornelius Alferink) is an eccentric character of Dutch origin turned sculptor, artist, poet, bush philosopher and supporter of a new flag for Australia where the red, black and gold Aboriginal flag replaces the Union Jack in the top left quarter of the flag.

One of the features that makes Talc Alf an eccentric is his curious theory of the origin of the English written language alphabet through alleged links to carvings done in the distant past by our ancestors:

“Now take capital A for example. It’s pointed at the top and sticks straight up so it obviously stands for the erect male penis and “A” for Adam and Adult.

Now if you get capital B and turn it on its side it looks like a pair of breasts hanging down so where you get the words, Breasts, Bosom, Beautiful.

Now C is not quite a full circle so it’s half a circle. So you add A and B together you obviously get C and if a circle is a full person then C is a half person and that’s where you get the words Child and Children.

Now D, if you lay it on its back, is obviously the shape of a dead animal lying on its back after a week in the desert,with its bloated swollen putrescent belly sticking up, and that’s where you get the words Death, Doom and Destruction.

E has three equal strokes on it and that’s obviously where you get the words Equal and Equivalent. In the Letter F the top stroke is a bit further forward and that’s where you obviously get Fast and Faster“.
- Talc Alf talking to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki

Talc Alf’s Weathervane and Dog “Mr Bojangles”

You can view more photos that I took during my road trip travelling from Adelaide to Coober Pedy

Tourist Information

Lyndhurst is located 606 km north of Adelaide at the crossroads of the Strzelecki and Oodnadatta Tracks. For more information contact the South Australian Visitor & Travel Centre

Most tour buses will stop at Talc Alf’s so you can admire his collection of talc carvings. The carvings are for sale seven days a week during daylight hours.

Five kilometres north of Lyndhurst on the Oodnadatta Track in the South Australian Outback you’ll see a tyre beside the road with the words ‘Ochre Cliffs’ crudely written on it.

Follow the side-road for a few kilometres and you’ll suddenly see an open ochre quarry containing spectacular red, brown and white ochre cliffs (an exposure of saprolite) mined for thousands of years by the local Aboriginal people.

Ochre Quarry – 5km North of Lyndhurst

It is believed that ochre quarried here was judged to be such high quality that it was traded with other groups of Aborigines who lived hundreds and even thousands of kilometres away.

These quarries were of great importance to the aborigines as they provided a rich source of multi– coloured ochre used for ceremonial purposes. This quarry along with others was the focus of well defined trade routes extending north into the Northern Territory, Queensland and south to the coast.

No European mechanical mining has occurred in this quarry. It is listed on the register of the National Estate. The cliff faces display a spectacular range of colours ranging from reds through to browns, yellow to white. Visitors are requested to assist with the preservation of this unique natural attraction by not removing ochre from the area – ozoutbacktours

Ochre Quarry – 5km North of Lyndhurst

A low afternoon sun will produce an ever-changing play of light and colour upon the Cliffs and adjacent landscape. The entire Cliffs location is an important Aboriginal site and visitors should stay OFF the escarpment itself – Location Report for Lyndhurst

You can view more photos that I took during my road trip travelling from Adelaide to Coober Pedy

Tourist Information

Lyndhurst is located 606 km north of Adelaide at the crossroads of the Strzelecki and Oodnadatta Tracks. For more information contact Flinders Ranges & Outback Information on Freecall 1800 633 060

Download a free 1024×768 resolution desktop wallpaper photo of an Aerial view of the Oodnadatta Track

In mid-2007 I went on a holiday crossing Australia South to North from Adelaide to Darwin by road, along the way I did a Scenic Flight over the Anna Creek Painted Desert where I got this great photo of an Aerial view of the Oodnadatta Track

Download Instructions

1. Click on the preview photo
2. When the full size photo is displayed from the Picasa web album – click on Download Photo in the right-hand side menu and Save

Aerial view of the Oodnadatta Track

• Camera: Panasonic FZ30
• Wallpaper format: JPG 841 Kb in size
• Original Photo: JPG 2.46 Mb in size

• F stop: 5.6
• Exposure time: 1/200th second
• ISO: 100

• Metering & Focusing: Centre weighted
• Focal Length: 116mm
• Original Resolution: 7 Megapixels (3248px x 2160px)
• Optical Image Stabilisation: Turned On
• Tripod Used: No

Every month I’ll publish a new 1024×768 resolution Free Desktop Wallpaper for your computer from the archives of photos I’ve taken, subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you get the next one.

Other photos I’ve taken can be viewed at my Google Picasa Web Photo Album