An Ambitious Journey to Australia 1: The Flinders Outback

I was born and raised in South Australia, in a small farming town called Jamestown. I haven’t been back to Australia for seven years. I have three brothers who live there, and lots of nephews and nieces.

It was time to return, and my step-daughter Kim, from Kansas, was willing to come along and help carry the bags. She was a great traveling companion. She loved the Australians, and they loved her.

We took a flight from DFW direct to Sydney by Qantas, and it took 17 hours. We both slept for 6 hours but there were still 11 hours to go.

My cousin, Fran, kindly let us stay with her in Sydney. We talked and talked. She loves words, always has, and is an excellent communicator. We took a ferry trip across Sydney Harbor to Manly Beach, which is always a highlight. But no swimmers at the beach since it was mid-winter down there. Sydney has one of the world’s beautiful harbors, and homes are priced extremely high, like they are in California.

Australia has many bakeries, and all the bakeries have cream buns. Or lamingtons with cream. A lamington is a light cake covered with chocolate and coconut, with real cream inside. And the cream is real or clotted cream, not the artificial whipped cream in the US.

In Adelaide, where my brother Neil lives, his family came and met us and introduced us to all their grand-children. Kim, who is an author of six children’s books, read from The Carefree Tumbleweed story. She reads very well, and captivated us all – adults as well as children.

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The search for the T-Junction waterholes.

With my brothers, I had previously hiked into the T-Junction of the Mawson Plateau, which used to be called Freeling Heights. It’s at the top end of the Flinders Ranges, and about an 8-hour drive north of Adelaide. A feature of the Plateau is its impermeable granite base, which means the waterholes keep their water for a long time, rare in this part of the desert which gets less than 6 inches of rain per year.

However, this year was different as this area of the Flinders (Moolawatana Station) had 16 inches of rain in February and March in 2026, the most rain in 50 years, and the grass and trees were spectacularly green. The waterholes should be filled with water and looking magnificent. Three waterholes below the T-junction are shown in the picture, taken in a normal years by Ken Mableson of Victor Harbor. He called the area “magical” and this added to our ambition to get in there.

.The other part of my vision was to get some tourmaline for Kim, who is a rock-hounder. Tourmaline is semi-precious rock, crystalline, that often grows out of quartz. I had found some at the T-Junction ten years ago, black in color, and I just wanted to find some more samples for Kim. The photo shows pink tourmaline that I purchased, possibly from the Himalaya Mine in California, and this tourmaline has been made into classy expensive jewelry.

We had a plan, worked out by Neil and his son Mike, and myself. It was ambitious, because this area is very isolated, and few people ever get in there. But we kidded each other that we could do it, despite the age of us three brothers (72-82 years). So we headed off from Adelaide with three 4-wheelers, three old fellers, and three youngsters aged 40-60. Enthusiasm burned within us. Clive provided one of the 4-wheelers, and Mike provided the second one. The third was a jeep that we rented.

Setting Goals In Life.

Now a quick reflection about setting goals in life. It’s a risk to set a goal, because you may not reach a goal you set, and this can be a big disappointment. On the other hand, if you don’t set a goal, you will miss the euphoric feeling that comes with achieving the goal. I launched out and set for myself four different goals for this trip to Aussie. One was to take Kim, my stepdaughter, to Australia. She might not enjoy meeting all my family and friends. She might be overwhelmed by all the activities I planned. She might get sick.

Goal two was the Mawson Plateau, to find some tourmaline and the magical waterholes, which is discussed in this blog. Goal three was to visit Coober Pedy, the opal mining town in the outback desert, and dig to find an opal myself. Goal four was to take a boat to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkel in the outer reef where the coral is spectacular, and swim out to the abyss where the reef suddenly falls away to very deep and scary water.

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We spent the night at the Lyndhurst hotel, a rustic enterprise in the last town we would see for several days. Next morning we set out on the Old Talc Road for a bit, then got off onto a station track that had been graded after the big rain. Neil had phoned the Mount Freeling sheep station to gain permission to drive on their property. After several hours, this track ended in a primitive two-roomed Tindelpina hut located near a sheep tank.

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From then on, the track deteriorated and our progress became slow. But Mike had the latest GPS info and he could mostly figure where the track went. If he couldn’t Rex would walk ahead and search for faint track marks in the desert.  

The going was also slow because some small creeks had been flooded out by the big rains and entry to the creek was a two-foot drop. We had to use pick and shovel to flatten the steep sided creek. Rex was great with the pick. But night fell and we hadn’t reached our planned camping point. We lost the track and gave up.

We camped around a fire and had a lovely evening with lots of talk and laughter. Kim loves camping out, and said this was her favorite part. Neil’s wife Lyn had put together most of the practical trip preparations, including all the meals, equipment, and hotel reservations. Kudos to you, Lyn, for an impressive effort, and many thanks from all of us.

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The Tourmaline Mine.

Next morning we found the track again, and our 4-wheelers crawled on toward an old tourmaline mine marked on the map. In places the scenery picked up, as the photo of clumpy spinifex grass below rock ledges and stately gum trees (eucalypts) shows.

When we met a large creek, we had to leave the cars and walk the rest of the way to the mine, which was a long tough hike. We expected to gain a view of the plateau spread out toward the T-Junction. But we were disappointed – all we could see were more hills and valleys, and it became clear there was no way we could get to the magical waterholes from here. We had underestimated the series of hills and valleys that would have to be crossed to get to the magical waterholes.

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.But we did accomplish one of my objectives – we found the old tourmaline mine, and I carried samples out in my pack. Sadly, these samples from the west edge of the plateu had no true crystal structure, like the tourmaline samples I found on the east side of the plateau on my previous trip.

That night we sat around the campfire, kind of exhausted, but glad that nobody had turned their ankle on the day’s long hike. It felt good to get into our sleeping bags. Clive awoke in the morning with cramped legs and hung onto the central pole tent for support. Through sleepy eyes, Kim said later she thought Clive was pole dancing, and that got a good laugh.

Our next stop was Hamilton Creek at the northern edge of the Mawson Plaeau. Here Mike discovered an enormous waterhole. It wasn’t one of those near the T-Junction, but it was the next best thing, and spectacular to see in the middle of this isolated desert. This was a fitting alternative to the T-Junction waterholes, especially as we came to realize you can only access those by packing in, meaning camping overnite. However, this was a non-starter for us oldies — too much gear to carry.

I went back and analyzed the maps to see where we had driven and hiked. If my analysis is correct, when we got to the tourmaline mine, we were not very far from where I think the magical waterholes were. We just ran out of time.

We spent the next two nights at the Arkaroola hotel, back amongst civilization. It was great to eat a real dinner, and sleep in a real bed. The dinners were memorable, as we poked fun, and kidded, and roasted any one of us who dared to open his or her mouth. We laughed and laughed.

I wish to thank these six travelers, and Lyn who prepped us so well, for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that forged memories and relationships that we won’t ever forget. And to thank God that we and the 4-wheelers stayed safe during the entire trip, so dangerous when so many things could have gone wrong.