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.