Wide open spaces

Mount Little station has been our favourite place to stay so far on the trip (probably why we stayed there for 6 nights!). It is a cattle station about 15 minutes north of Hawker, in the southern Flinders Ranges. The campsite on their station was simple but very spacious, with amenities and a camp kitchen. Chris and Kate, the owners, were lovely. They had loads of local information to offer, and nothing was too much trouble. Chris drove up on the first day with a ute full of firewood, which we worked through over the next week enjoying fires morning and night and testing out the camp kitchen the Grays had lent us for the trip.

We spent a couple of days driving through the national park, exploring the stunning view of the ranges and gorges. The Moralana Scenic drive, the Brachina Gorge Geological trail and the Bunyaroo Gorge trails were full of amazing vistas at every turn. The sharp angles of the rock formations show just how much upheaval of the terrain has occurred throughout the last 500-600 million years which was the age of the rocks in these gorges we were driving through.

Although the national park was great, we all actually had more fun exploring a few places on the station during our stay. On the first day we drove up to the national park, we went via the Mawson trail on the station. It wound along the foot of the Elder Ranges with stunning view along the way. We saw heaps of kangaroos, emus and cattle along the trail which the kids loved, and the morning light revealed the colours the Flinders are so famous for.

Another great spot was Harvey’s Rocks. A short drive from our campsite took us to this amazing place where the ground had been folded into mountains and all the rocks had sheared off in rectangular layers, creating an amazing rock formation that we all had a great time climbing up and over, and the kids did their best to wear out the bottoms of their pants by sliding down the smooth slopes of the rock. The view from the top across the plains was equally spectacular.

Mayo Gorge was another great place for the kids to explore. We drove along the rough track for as long as we could and then found a wide but mostly dry creek bed with jagged sides they could climb and explore – they both found their little caves, and as they pointed out to us they each had their own hat hook (a very important feature of any cave I believe). We also watched a wedge tailed eagle fly down to his perch up on the rocks and sit there like a sentinel, watching for intruders to his gorge.

On the last afternoon we drove up to the top of Mount Little, a small looking hill that we had watched the sun go down over each night. It was pretty easy going for most of the drive up but the last section got nice and steep and required low range. The size of Mount Little was deceptive, with the views from the top being much more amazing that we had expected on the drive up. We spent a good half hour up there just taking it all in, while the kids played hide and seek with Hop and Flop (their little Easter bunny presents from Nanny).

While we had regular fires we decided to try and cook a few things in the camp oven. Kat thought she would start easy by trying her hand at baking some Nanny slice, a muesli slice recipe we got from Stu’s mum (hence the name). Having no idea of the temperature of the so called ‘oven’, it did get a little overcooked but was still great. We also enjoyed a delicious beef stew another night, accompanied by some herb bread cooked in the coals. We decided we could get used to this campfire cooking. The kids also got to go up to the homestead a couple of times to feed the chooks and collect their eggs (which were delicious), and to watch the orphaned calves that they were hand rearing being fed. There were also plenty of rocks around for the kids to smash with Oli’s pick axe which provided hours of entertainment for them and allowed us to relax and enjoy the views and spectacular sunsets that we got most afternoons.

We could happily have stayed there for a few more weeks, just enjoying the slow pace of life on the station, but the road was calling and we were keen to see what other adventures lay around the next bend so it was time to pack up and say goodbye to Mount Little (until next time maybe)…