Nucaleena Copper Mine ruins.

The highlight is the Nucaleena Copper mine. As there has been no public access until recently the ruins is in quite good nick. The stone work is to be admired with the huge chimney the best. The detail they put into this would not look out of place on a stately home. Be careful where you walk though as there are shafts still open in the area around it. There is a website on all PAR's on the three we did just here and far more totalling 19 free and 18 pay for 4wd tracks. The site was not ready at the time of typing this but maybe when you are looking? http://www.flindersoutback.com/

Big Moro Gorge in 1995 about 4 meters deep and now in 2005 only 40 cm deep!

We were really looking forward to going to Big Moro Gorge after all these years. It was a great place back in '95 with a spring fed deep pool about 4 meters deep. You could jump off the surrounding ledges into it and was the perfect place to beat the heat for a few days. Not long after we were there the place was closed to public access but just before leaving on this trip we heard it had been opened again if your bought a permit from the Aborigines who run the property. So we got the required permit from Nepabunna Aboriginal Community along with a map of how to get there from the north through their land. The track was interesting as was not used very much at all and they could not even tell us the last time it was used all the way there. But after quite a few hours of driving down station tracks and washed out river beds we got there fine. They started making a camp site at the northern end of the gorge but there is no shelter there and the ground is rocky and not very level. There were some pit toilets installed though. We camped right at the spring itself nicely in the shade. It is just such a shame that the pool has filled itself with rock and gravel so is only around 40 cm deep and that was after heavy rains a few weeks before. I think this is the normal level though now kept up by the spring.

Bearded Dragon posing with the plate and the old Ghan.

We resupplied in Leigh Creek ( nothing open on Sundays there! ) and got fuel cheaper at Copley 5 km up the road before heading north through Lyndhurst on the Oodnadatta track. We were hoping to use a rough 4wd track to the opal fields of Andamooka through Mulgaria station on their private track but unfortunately they were not on the property at the time so couldn't get the permit. It is a much shorter route ( 172 verses 278 km ) but takes an hour longer to travel but that was part of the appeal. Maybe next time? They had painted up two of the three abandoned locomotives left over from the old Ghan railway in Marree which was good to see. This a very typical Outback town with a couple of pubs and servos and a few dusty houses and that's all.

The emptiness of the Oodnadatta track and a set of Kombi gates!

The track is wide and well maintained but has a great feeling about it as there is just nothing in every direction. I just love that sparseness where you feel you could be on another planet. Then out of the blue you come across a very strange sight indeed. It is a sculpture park where the gates to it are a Kombi VW cut in half!

Some strange things happen out here! Plane henge and a massive dog looking over a homestead.

The park features 'Plane Henge' which are a couple of planes sitting on their tails among giant flowers made from steel and other things. The dingo is a great one which over looks Alberrie station nearby and is made from one of the old water towers used when the Ghan ran steam trains. Just check out the scale of it as the homestead is in front of it!

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