Warraweena in the North Flinders: In the Flinders Ranges area of the Outback region of South Australia

A Private Conservation Park Helps Operation Bounceback

Ancient jagged rockfaces and ridges half as high again as the Mt Lofty Ranges present an awesome beauty rarely seen. Now, however, Warraweena Private Conservation Park in the North Flinders Ranges welcomes us into all 355 square kilometres of it. South-east of Leigh Creek, it is about seven hours drive from Adelaide.

A few years ago, it was still surviving as a working sheep station, but now the shearing shed is idle and the public are coming in, with friendly guidance that stresses the delicate nature of the ecology. Staying in the shearer’s quarters, you’ll very likely end up sitting under the stars round the campfire, enjoying the company of Waraweena Manager, Stony Steiner. He’s from the Swiss Alps, but he’s fallen in love with our high countryÉand helping 4WD visitors explore too.

“In the shearers’ quarters, we have fifteen beds. We also put people in the homestead with the same number of beds, plus we’ve got some old shepherd’s huts on the property and various camping grounds”.

Stony drove me out into the pretty country along the Black Range. To our South, a snaking and scenic track led to Dunbar’s Hut, while to the north there were more creekside campsites and some of the biggest and oldest river red gums in the Flinders. This is splendid isolation. The privately owned park is actively involved in improving the lot of nature here. It is a key partner in the State Government’s ‘Operation Bounceback’, a big picture, long term program to knock back the weed infestations and the invasions of goats, foxes, rabbits and other introduced pests. The threatened local species are also monitored and nurtured. Here, there is a focus on a special Flinders Ranges symbol.

“I guess in terms of the yellow footed rock wallaby, we are in the location. It is very important we have healthy colonies right in the middle, between the Gammon Ranges and Flinders Ranges National Parks”.

Mark Lethbridge (from Flinders University in Adelaide) enthused about his practical research as we joined him on his spectacular, high flying research. Monitoring their precipitous ridge-high haunts by helicopter, he has spent two years getting a handle on where these wallabies are surviving. They have established base-line monitoring data of Warraweena and nearby pastoral properties, and they’ll now start fox control. Gliding with the wedge tailed eagles, we get a feel for the enormity of the task.

“It’s the isolated populations that concern me most” he notes. “There’s no gene flow after many years of pastoral practice. To see them glide up and down these cliffs is amazing, though. They have very grippy feet, almost like tyre treads”.

Mark certainly gets close to this research subjects. With the help of Australian Conversation Volunteers (mostly nature lovers from overseas), he traps the small wallabies in soft-sided boxes to collect DNA samples before freeing them. It is dedicated and demanding work, involving long and difficult climbs up to the ridge top rock faces.

Flying south over a bumpy quilt of hills, we head for one of several high peaks in the park. Mt Stuart has only three or four yellow-footeds left on its steep summit, and as we try to spot them, Mark points to some movement.

“There! That’s a small herd of goats up high. So you can see, even though there’s good control here on Warraweena, these rogue colonies still come in”.

Stony Steiner reckons a group of properties here in the North Flinders Ranges got rid of about 2500 in one campaign last summer. Mind you, when some little kids are rounded up and are too young for sale, they make cuddly hand-raised pets for Stony’s two young daughters. And the young visitors here admit that they might just be the highlight of the trip.

For heritage lovers, there is a fascinating bonus for making the twenty kilometre drive in from the almost ghost-town, Beltana. Near the homestead, there’s a human saga etched in the ruins of the Sliding Rock copper mine. It all began with great promise, with a copper rich ore lode protruding to the surface. Within months, the round Welsh chimney that still stands was crafted, along with an uphill draught flue.

The first great burn to smelt the ore was performed within a year of the outcrop’s discovery. Thus, in November, 1870, the mine was officially named at a ceremony sadly missed by many coming up from the Blinman township and mine. Their horses had wandered off. What’s more, the fire went out.

The venture gained its name from the massive quartzite grater-like formation over the creek. In the 1870’s, the flats below the mine were soon housing up to four hundred miners and their families. A parliamentary report observed that there were many ‘humble habitations’, so primitive that ‘they might have been erected in the days of Adam’. Soon, Sliding Rock boasted a butcher shop and a general store, and Charles Faulkner, already famous for his North Blinman Hotel, raised a ‘real stone’ pub here, too. The walls of the establishment stand defiant to this day. Stony tells visitors how an official town survey was eventually undertaken.

“But the residents did not go along with what the government called it. The name was Cadnia, which means ‘rock’ in the language of the Flinders aboriginal people. So the government was sensitive in recognising their culture, but it was never used by the miners”.

There’s some carefully crafted stonework that creates a long reed-filled pond - part of the works for a substantial boiler. Constructed in Adelaide, it was shipped to Port Augusta, whence it took two months and twenty bullocks to get it to Sliding Rock. When it was first put into operation in 1872, the good news was sent speedily back to the capital by the new Overland Telegraph just completed along the western edge of the Ranges.

The good news did not last long, however. In this arid and parched landscape, the mine shafts were soon over-run by... water. It began gushing in only seven metres down, and even a major pumping house couldn’t save the mine. When a heavy iron part broke, its replacement was too far away, and the workings were destroyed by the flooding underground stream. [There was one positive - the water was pumped to the new coal town of Leigh Creek in the 1940’s until the Aroona Dam was built].

With the added difficulty of getting bullock teamsters to come this far north, the company went under in just seven years. A couple of later attempts to re-open the mine were to no avail. And then, when the pub burned down, that really was the end of Sliding Rock.

Until recently, the mine ruins have been hidden away, inaccessible to the public. Now, however, we’re welcome to include this into a visit among the daunting but enchanting crags and crannies of the North Flinders on Warraweena. The magnificent beauty of the park only heightens our appreciation of the value of Operation Bounceback, working to restore the area to the fullness of its original glory. There’s a low gorge cutting through a range just beyond the homestead, and driving through the river red gums takes you to 130 kilometres of 4WD tracks. Warraweena is a private conservation park that’s big on public access.

For more about rates and bookings, and the walking, camping and driving options on this grand patch of the North Flinders, contact Stony, or visit their informative website. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au

Warraweena Private Conservation Park
Via Beltana North
Flinders Ranges
South Australia

Phone: (08) 8675 2770
Web: www.warraweena.com