Flinders Ranges Trip (Marree and Farina)

The first town we came to was Marree (C on the previous map). The train line arrived at this town in 1883. From this time, it became a major hub for shipping cattle south. Later (1957) a new standard gauge track was built from Marree to Port Augusta to ship coal from the new Leigh Creek coal beds (D). Marree was the point where the transition was made between the new standard gauge line and the narrow gauge Old Ghan line. In 1980, the Old Ghan line was closed, the section of standard gauge from Marree to Leigh Creek was dismantled and Marree was forced to "downsize". Today it has a population of less than 100 people.
Remnants of Old Ghan line entering Marree.

In the center of the town, they have preserved the old station and some items related to the town's heritage. The old station buildings are on the left.

The general store and gas station in Marree.

Here is the town park/playground. A lot of the parks in this region of the country have absolutely no shade. With weather often above the mid 80s in the spring, we have never seen a soul using any of them. Perhaps they get used in the cooler months of the year. We have also seen facilities for grilling (barbecuing), in similar locations. Scorcia!

In the town center they also had an old mail truck used by the likes of Tom Kruse to deliver mail to Birdsville. This involved a two week, 600 mile round trip through some of the most inhospitable desert terrain in central Australia. He regularly had to deal with break downs, getting stuck in the sand and occasional floods.

Continuing the drive south, we were happy to find a paved road again after having been on dirt roads for about 3 hours. 

The next town we came to was Farina, named for the wheat that was going to be grown there. Due to a couple years of plentiful rain in the 1880s, the climate was judged by some to be good for growing grain. Most years, though, there was not nearly enough rain to grow wheat and the farming of it came to an end. The town also was supported by gold/silver mining and railroad activities. The closing of the mines in the 1920s brought on a gradual decline of the town. The town was finally abandoned in the 1980s after the rail line running through it was closed. 

Today, the only things remaining are the ruins of a couple dozen buildings.

Egads! For the first time all day, we spotted other tourists in the bush. This one even got into my photo.

The last stop of the day was an Aborigine ochre mine. This shot of the parking lot is a more typical shot of the tourist crowd scene we had to deal with:

The colors at the end of the day were quite pretty. I believe the red (and maybe yellow also) is the ochre.