Pichi Richi Railroad

We headed south a while ago to Port Augusta and then into the Flinders Mountain Range.
The southern part of the Flinders Range is wine country. We attempted to go to a vineyard, but by the time we got there they were already closed. It was a gorgeous location, though.

The next morning, we went to the town of Quorn. It is one of the first stops along the original Ghan Railroad that ran from Port Augusta on the south coast of Australia to Darwin on the north coast.
Referring to the map below, stolen from wikipedia:
The yellow line is the Old Ghan started in Adelaide in 1878 and reaching Alice Springs in 1929. Its track was narrow gauge.

This first section of track was built in 1879. The following several hundred kilometers of track were laid down in the next couple decades. Alice Springs was connected in 1929. The final segment was not completed until 2004!

In 1980, the Old Ghan line was closed and replaced by the standard gauge line through Tarcoola. A small segment of the Old Ghan line remains starting at Port Augusta and extending to Quorn. It is largely supported by volunteers and runs several steam trains a week for tourists. We caught the train in Quorn and travelled about 16km towards Port Augusta, stopping in Woolshed Flats. After a 45 minute break, the train returned to Quorn.

The Quorn railroad station:

The train was staffed by volunteers (in our case two boys about 13 years old):

The train. We got this shot after our ride. On the drive back to Port Augusta, we stopped at a bridge and watched the train come through on its next trip.

View from the train.

Inside the train.

We got to go up into the engine before the return trip. The engineer said they burned about a ton of coal for our entire trip.

Inside the locomotive.

Launch Site 6A

We got to take a tour today of Launch site 6A. This was a rocket launch pad about 50km from Woomera Village where we are staying. It is in a part of the range we had never been to before and we needed to get special permission to visit this area.

In the late 1950s, England was looking to develop an ICBM called the Blue Streak. They built two launch pads (6A and 6B) at Woomera on the northern shores of Lake Hart. Previous rockets that launched from Woomera had used cooling water to protect the infrastructure from the rocket exhaust. In the middle of this arid area, supplying this water turned out to be quite expensive. For the Blue Streak, a location was chosen over a gully that would allow the exhaust from the rocket to go down and be reflected sideways into the gully. No cooling water was needed.

The Blue Streak program ended a couple years later due to technical, political and financial issues. The Blue Streak rocket was then modified to became the first stage of the ELDO (European Launcher Development Organization) rocket (later named Europa) which was jointly developed by a number of European nations. This was intended to be a commercial rocket for launching satellites, but it too met an early end after several test launches. The program lasted from 1962 to 1971 and had an impact on Woomera Village. In fact, the main hotel/restaurant was built for this project and is named the Eldo.

Entering a new part of the range!

Some of the geeksgentlemen I work with.

A picture I found online of launch pad 6A in use. The only remaining parts are the concrete. The metal has all been recycled. The tower in the back rolled on tracks away from the rocket before launch. Today, the part where the rails cross over the road has also been removed. The exhaust from the rocket would be channeled out the opening in the front.

This is from the opposite direction as the previous picture. The rails would have continued from where I am standing, across the posts, and to the tower. 

Looking down the gully where the exhaust was directed. Lake Hart (the salt lake in one of my earliest posts) is in the background.

Christa in front of the small thermal exhaust port.

I heard that this place is used for special forces training. It certainly could be true. We found spent shells (50 cal machine gun, an unidentified machine gun, and RPG) laying around. Some of the walls have taken a lot of bullet hits.

Down on the lake, we found a target that had taken hits from practice RPGs and bullets.

We were a bit nervous finding these RPG shells that had obviously not exploded. A little research on the internet, though, revealed that they are practice rounds that only act as tracers.

A view back towards the launch pad.

Aussie Birds

We have spotted some interesting birds recently. This time of year, there are lots of baby emu around. We see mom (or dad?) walking around the bush followed by several young emus. Normally emus run away from us when we approach. Protecting their young ones, they can only lead them away at a walking pace. When I came up on one group quickly on my bike, the parent placed herself between me and the chicks while they continued to escape.

Christa got some great pictures of the Wedge Tailed Eagle. We often see them eating carrion along the road. They are the largest bird of prey in Australia and can have a wingspan over 7ft. Road kill is a large part of their diets. They swoop in and steal it from the smaller birds like Australian Ravens that often get there first.

We have seen some colorful parrots. The first two are Australian Ringnecks. I am not sure about the third one. The closest thing we can find is an adolescent Adaleide Crimson Rosella...

Here in Woomera, there are several birds that congregate in the bushes outside my apartment. If I open the door carefully, I can get some good shots of them.

Little Corella (a member of the Cockatoo family)

Yellow Throated Miner. Tim had one of these outside his apartment that was protecting a nest. It would swoop down at everybody that approached his apartment. The first swoop was a bit scary since you never knew what direction it would come from.

A few months ago, we had tons of Galahs here in Woomera. I haven't seen them around here recently, but we still see them when we drive a couple hours south. This one had one of the pinker crests I have seen.

We have heard Kookaburras multiple times in the Flinders Ranges. They were very noisy one evening when we were outside eating dinner at Wilpena Pound. We got to see one when it landed in a tree close to us, but it was getting dark and neither of us had a camera so we have no proof...

Here's a YouTube video with a Kookaburra making its calls:

Kookaburra sound

Australian Ravens. On our hikes (or even around town), they screech warnings when we are walking through their territory. This seems to be one, though it could be some other corvid... The split-tail seems a bit odd...

Day of Deadly Desert Denizons

If you walk in the bush not wearing real shoes,

your dignity you will most certainly lose.

Your feet will quite soon get covered in ants,

and you will be forced to put on a nice dance.

So you set out on a bit of a hike

Cool and blue sky, what's not to like?

Then suddenly there in the grass by your side,

a deadly brown snake is trying to hide.

Less than a meter, you stare face to face.

You spring quickly back to give it some space.

It calmly and boldly slithers away,

while you are just lucky to live through the day.

Defeated and beaten you return to the car.

That four hour hike didn't get very far.

There's nothing else here that you want to see,

but before you can leave, you must take a quick wee.

So off to the loo you quickly repair

Surely there's nothing hiding in there.

But right in the corner, near the commode,

a deadly Redback has built his abode!

Flinders Range Trip (Leigh Creek)

We stayed one night in Leigh Creek (D). It reminded us a lot of Roxby Downs. It is another mining town that mainly owes its existence to the nearby coal mine. In 1980, the town was relocated about 10km south to its present location because the mine needed to expand into the original town's location. As we were approaching the town from the north, we could see some of the mine. There used to be a great lookout over the mine, but it got shut down after some tourist abused his priveleges and strayed from the allowed area while looking for fossils.
Leigh Creek Mine:

In the morning, I had the "Big Brekky" breakfast. Eggs, ham (aka "bacon"), Chef Boyardee and toast:

The following morning, we attempted a scenic hike that was supposed to have several beautiful overlooks of a reservoir. Try as we might, we were never able to locate the correct path (even using Google Earth afterwards). We ended up on 4x4 roads created by the local ranchers and eventually came to the conclusion that we were off track. (One of us wanted to stubbornly continue the hike, though...) We did walk through some farming territory and saw a variety of goats and sheep.
We never figured out where the desired trail went on the other side of this creek. The water was a bit yucky, but we had not seen a creek bed with water in it for about 2 months.

There were some cool rock formations. Here, the layers have been turned on their sides:

Central Australia doesn't seem like it could support much life, but there are a lot of sheep, cows and goats raised here. The density of animals is quite low, but there is a lot of land. After losing our way, we were probably trespassing on some farmer's land.
Suspicious goats:

Big puffy Merino sheep:

Hmmm... and perhaps I don't shower often enough?

At the end of the hike, we hiked up to the reservoir/dam right near the parking lot to get the view we had been expecting on the hike. The reservoir was the largest body of water we have seen in over two months.