Worumba is located 30km east of Hawker. A land of beautiful contrasts, from craggy mountain peaks to rolling hills of pasture, with mallee bush and pine forest and river red gum lined creeks.
The weather dictated the walk planning. Both Saturday and Sunday mornings proved to be cold, damp and blustery, but after the sun burned off the low cloud, the afternoon walks were magnificent
Saturday morning we hiked to the summit of Mt Plantagenet, a slow hard climb given the weather. We detoured along the way into Box Canyon. The first hour was spent in creek beds to escape the icy winds, but after morning tea, it was time to tackle the spur line to reach the summit from the east. It was a tough 500 m in total whiteout conditions, with the wind roaring and a wind chill factor of 0c!!!! The noise of the wind even drowned out the mournful bagpipe music being played by Simon who quickly gave up his feeble attempts as his lips and fingertips were going numb.
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| Box Canyon - looking eastwards |
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| Box Canyon - looking west |
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| Misty Morn |
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| Summit! |
Gloves, beanies and coats were donned to keep warm and avoid hypothermia, and after a few summit photos, we descended quickly along the western ridge. The western side was wild terrain, mainly spinifex and rock. Clambering and scrambling the only way to descend. We had lunch on the western face, with the clouds lifting to reveal distant views of the Flinders Ranges, from Dutchman's Stern to Mt Arden, to the Elder Range and Wilpena Pound.
We headed back to the quarters hiking through native pine forest and stony creek beds.
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| Tree-hugging! |
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| A meadow of green spinifex! |
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| Stunning views! |
The sunny afternoon enticed some of us out for another hike, this time to the south of the property. An unnamed peak, which became Hill 863 was the target. We even had to resort to stripping down to short sleeves for the climbing, the sun keeping up appearances for most of the afternoon! Plenty of kangaroos keeping a watchful eye on us from a distance. Again, the views or this summit did not disappoint, with the afternoon sun making silhouettes of the ranges on the horizon. The walk back in the fading afternoon light with the shadows lengthening was magical. It was like walking through a Hans Heysen painting.
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| Track.... |
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| Then off-trail! |
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| Another summit! |
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| A Heysen landscape! (photo by Jo Chesher) |
The Sunday walk plan was modified again due to the weather. During the morning, we hiked along creek beds to avoid the winds, and over green bald hills, that reminded me of Burra.
Jack, Peter and I detoured at the end to climb another hill, close to the shearers quarters. From the top, we took in the views of the valleys and rolling hills that surround the station homestead.
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| Bald Hills |
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| Thanks for the photo, Peter! |
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| Jack made it to the top first, again! |
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| Rolling hills and valleys |
Sunday afternoon's goal was to tackle Mt Craig. Again, the clouds had cleared, and again we walked in short sleeves. We followed dry creek beds and animal tracks as we approached from the east. We had a close encounter with a goat when we stopped for a drink, he sauntered down the hill and came close to only 10 meters away from us. And for a few minutes it was like a Mexican stand-off until he ran off to find his herd. Mt Craig certainly lives up to its name and Simon navigated us around to the northwest for the ascent to avoid numerous rocky outcrops.
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| Which way? |
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| To the north |
From here, the only was was up! A steep climb avoiding the spinifex ensued. The vegetation on the ascent reminded me of Patawarta Hill, but it was shorter, and steeper!
But, oh the views!!! I really do get "summit fever", and this time was no exception...
Magnificent 360c panorama - gorgeous!
Given the weekend had a Shakespearean theme and my initial plans for Mt Plantagenet had been thwarted by the atrocious weather, it was a perfect opportunity to reveal my costume.
So I donned the fairy wings and tutu and danced around the summit cairn in my guise as Queen of the Fairies, from A Midsummer Night's Dream. My fellow hikers thought it was a mid- autumn afternoon's apparition! What can I say, Little Miss Sunshine was having fun in the sun!
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| Rocky mountain high! |
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| Off with the fairies! |
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| The two of us, one of us in a tutu! |
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| Mt Plantagenet in the background, with moon rising! |
Looking south to where we were going to descend looked like a dinosaur's spine, beautiful ancient rock mountain ridge tops, does it get any better than this!
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| Gorgeous! (photo by Jo Chesher) |
It was a slow descent owing to the steepness and a lot of rock scrambling. I managed to persuade a couple of the males of the group to don the tutus and wings to add some joviality to proceedings. We walked through Willow Waters Gorge and arrived back at the cars just as the sun was setting.
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| Looking back northwards to Mt Craig |
Worumba is highly recommended for a Flinders Ranges get-away from it all break.
Check out their website: http://www.worumba.com/
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