Arkaba Station 4-Wheel Tour

Out here the vastness of the Flinders Ranges can make you feel pretty small. This is home to Dean Rasheed, a name that's well know in these parts, his brother Keith runs the Wilpena Pound Resort just 30kms up the road. Dean took over Arkaba Station in 1984 and immediately began grading an extensive network of roads.

"We put this track in initially with the aim of eradicating rabbits and feral goats back at the base of the Elder Range and we quickly realised that it offers potential to being tours through here".

Now this red road highway features as one of the great four wheel dirve journeys of the Flinders Ranges. And as you begin to climb towards the spectacular Elder Range, glimpses of the unique pastoral history of this region come into view. Down there is the old woolshed. Arkaba is still a sheep-station with about eight thousand merinos, and come August they'll be herded into this forty stand shed which was built in 1856. The station was established five years earlier, after the legendary explorer John McDouall Stuart first surveyed this area.

"Yes, he did quite a bit of surveying in this area including this property, the boundaries of Arkaba and Wilpena and Aroona next door".
"So he probably picked up a bit of his bushcraft while working here?"
"I suspect so. I guess he gained a lot of his knowledge of the bush which eventually enabled him to cross from south to north of this continent and return".

But as you look towards the peaks of the rugged Elder Range, and the tracks made by feral goats, it's not hard to imagine that there's still plenty to be discovered in these ancient ravines. Earlier this year, Postcards featured these magnificent rock paintings of the Adnyamathanha people found at Arkaroo Rock, not far from Dean Rasheed's property. And he says goat hunters recently found something similar in these ridges of the Elder Range.

"We're still discovering quite fascinating bits and pieces in the Elder Range including some caves with very clear Aboriginal paintings in them. Also there's quite rate vegetation that we're discovering up there as well because of the higher rainfall".
"Pretty hard to get at though?"
"It's difficult to get at and involves a bit or rock climbing where the caves are for instance".

With a permanent water supply in the nearby Arkaba Creek, it's not surprising that this part of the Flinders has long been popular with the Adnyamathanha people and pastoralists. But in recent years these rock formations which snake their way across the landscape, have lured a succession of geologits. Well over five hundre million years ago, much of this was the bed and inland sea which may have stretched as far as Lake Eyre. Layers of sediment built up over the ages, and were eventually pushed skyward by incredible tectonic forces, creating what was once a massive mountain range.

"The sedimentary layers were pushed up from the floor of the ocean there".
"And you talk about this dome, in effect I understand it was about the bulk of the Himalayas currently?"
"Maybe not the height, but the bulk - not the height I suspect, but certainly the mass would have been the equivalent of that, so all we're left with now is the quartzite sandstone formations which really gives us the lovely shapes which form the Flinders as we see them today".

And deep within the stumps of what was once a magnificent mountain range, fossils which have caused geologists to rethink their notions of time.

"Embedded in the rocks are these very special fossils that were seabed creatures and as I said, they're some of the earliest forms of life that existed on the planet. So I think it'll be announced probably next year that there's a new time scale in the geological calendar called the ediacron timescale".
"And that's as a result of what geologists have found here?"
"Yes the significance of these fossils has created this".

You can take an escorted four wheel drive trip back in time with Dean rasheed for $30 per person for a three hour trip. The station also has cottage accommodation for two people for $110.00/night.

For details contact Dean on 08 8648-4217 or you can email: info@postcards-sa.com.au