Today’s start point for our walk is near Woolshed Flat, a whistle stop on the Pichi Richi rail line, halfway along the pass between Quorn and Port Augusta. A road, now badged the southern section of the Flinders Ranges Way, shares the pass with the rail line and crosses it at several points. Whether you drive, or take the tourist train on its infrequent runs between Quorn and Port Augusta, it’s a picturesque trip between massive north-south rocky ridges of the South Flinders Ranges. But for us, neither road nor rail beckons: we park the car and it’s walking time. The route is not along the pass but up to the top of the western ridge before we head north towards Quorn.
What perverse folks the designers of the Heysen Trail have been. It seems that wherever the option of a gently undulating path appears, the trail markers point away to a challenging climb, because that’s the nature of bushwalking. It’s not the destination but the journey: the rugged climbs and descents, ankle-wrenching rock-hopping and prickly bushes—these mark our progress.
We clamber up the steep side of the ridge, trying to keep a trail marker in view and watching where our feet land. It’s a bit early in the season for snakes but we keep an eye out. The only significant wild-life we disturb on the steep section are ants, big and angry. An ill-advised rest stop by one of our companions on top of an unseen ants’ nest results in an anguished dance to shake them out of his pants. Too late—they’re at groin level! We leave him and his wife to strip off and deal with the biting insects.
We work our way further up towards the top of the ridge, marvelling at the view of the verdant pass that opens below us, the wattles and wild flowers just come into blossom and the grass trees with their seed shafts reaching for the sky. Then the way markers become less frequent—‘walkers follow ridge’ offers general guidance only and it’s up to you to make your own trail through the jumble of rocks and undergrowth. If you find yourself heading downhill, you’re off the ridge, so back up.
It’s a glorious spring day, big-sky country with scattered cloud; we exult in the freedom and the challenge of a world open only to walkers. Now the trail markers change to arrows, indicating it’s time to head down from this ridge. Be careful—long, wet grass conceals jagged rocks and abandoned lengths of fencing wire left by pioneering pastoralists who once tried to tame this land. The railway line appears and it’s time for lunch.
Then, a less pleasant walk along the line. Choose whether you want to match your stride to the sleeper spacing or keep to the rough ballast. The haul back to the outskirts of Quorn where we left the other car is less satisfying: ‘walkers follow ridge’ has marked the highlights of our day. Those supposedly perverse Heysen Trail designers knew their business.
Burnside Writers Group 