Flinders Ranges

The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna.

The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhabited the range for tens of thousands of years.

Its most well-known landmark is Wilpena Pound / Ikara, a formation that creates a natural amphitheatre covering and containing the range's highest peak, St Mary Peak (). The ranges include several national parks, the largest being the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, as well as other protected areas.

It is an area of great geological and palaeontological significance, and includes the oldest fossil evidence of animal life discovered. It presents a major stage of Earth’s history, a complete record in rock layers of “the dawn of animal life”. The Ediacaran Period and Ediacaran biota take their name from the Ediacara Hills within the ranges. In April 2021, a nomination for seven sites in the Flinders Ranges to be named a World Heritage Site was lodged. it remains on the tentative list, due to be voted on in 2026.

History

thumb|upright=1.1|The Flinders Ranges at the southern end of [[Wilpena Pound]]

Traditional owners

The first humans to inhabit the Flinders Ranges were the Adnyamathanha people (meaning "hill people" or "rock people") whose descendants still reside in the area, before being dispersed by European settlement after colonisation. Cave paintings, rock engravings and other cultural artefacts indicate that the Adnyamathana and Ndajurri lived in the Flinders Ranges for tens of thousands of years. Occupation of the Warratyi rock shelter dates back approximately 49,000 years.

19th century: European explorers and settlement

The first European explorers were an exploration party from Matthew Flinders' seagoing visit to upper Spencer Gulf aboard HMS Investigator. They climbed Mount Brown in March 1802. In the winter of 1839 Edward John Eyre, with five men, two drays and ten horses, further explored the region, setting out from Adelaide on 1 May. The party set up a depot near Mount Arden, and then explored the surrounding region and upper Spencer Gulf, before heading east to the Murray River and returning to Adelaide.

thumb|upright=1.1|The Flinders Ranges as seen from the [[Stuart Highway]]

There are records of squatters in the Quorn district as early as 1845; however, the first three pastoral leases in the central Flinders Ranges were only marked out in 1851. These were Wilpena, Arkaba, and Aroona, which were developed as sheep stations. The leases were initially granted for 14 years by the government of the Colony of South Australia, over land dubbed "unoccupied waste lands".

Aroona and the Brachina Gorge massacre (1852)

The name Aroona is derived from an Adnyamathanha word meaning "running water", or "place of frogs". Aroona Valley is a long open valley that lies around north of Wilpena Pound, between the Heysen Range and ABC Ranges. The lease was taken up first by the Brownes, and then by Johnson Frederick Hayward in the 1850s. Hayward had arrived in 1847 from Somerset, and was initially overseer of Pekina Station. Hayward Bluff, False Mount Hayward, South Mount Hayward, and Mount Hayward, in the Heysen Range, are all named after him. The Aroona head station was built next to a waterhole used by local Adnyamathanha people for its permanent supply of fresh water, but the Aboriginal people were not welcome on the station during Hayward's time there. Hayward said that he was obliged to defend his men, due to the absence of police, and that he was attempting to "capture the murderers", firing at them in "self-defence". Sergeant Major Rose, who was in the district at the time with the Protector of Aborigines, Matthew Moorhouse, arrested two Aboriginal men called Bill and Jemmy, but they were released after being held for some time owing to lack of evidence and problems finding an interpreter. In the early 1860s Hayward returned to England, and purchased an estate near Bath, which he called Aroona.

Mining exploration continued in the region, but coal mining at Leigh Creek and barytes at Oraparinna were the only long-term successes. Pastoral industries flourished, and the rail line became of major importance in opening up and servicing sheep and cattle stations along the route to Alice Springs.

Hawker townsite was surveyed at a bend in the railway line where the train line left the main road to Blinman, and named in 1880 after South Australian politician and pastoralist George Charles Hawker.

Quorn was surveyed by Godfrey Walsh and proclaimed a town on 16 May 1878. The township covered an area of and was laid out in squares in a manner similar to the state's capital city, Adelaide. Governor Jervois reputedly bestowed the name 'Quorn' because his private secretary at the time had come from the parish of Quorn, Leicestershire in England.

20th century

In the 1920s Aroona became an outstation of Oraparinna Station, and spring water was used to irrigate large gardens there.

Its most characteristic landmark is Wilpena Pound / Ikara, a large, sickle-shaped, natural amphitheatre that covers ,

The Heysen Trail (named for artist Hans Heysen) and Mawson Trail (named for geologist and Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson) runs for several hundred kilometres along the ranges, providing scenic long distance routes for walkers, cyclists and horse-riders.

Protected areas

Several small areas in the ranges have the protected area status. These include the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park near Wilpena Pound/Ikara, the Mount Remarkable National Park in the south near Melrose, the Arkaroola Protection Area in the north, The Dutchmans Stern Conservation Park west of Quorn, and the Mount Brown Conservation Park south of Quorn.

Geology

thumb|upright=1.1|Flinders Ranges from space

The Flinders Ranges are composed largely of folded and faulted sediments of the Adelaide Geosyncline. This very thick sequence was deposited in a large basin during the Neoproterozoic on the passive margin of the ancient continent of Rodinia. During the Cambrian (about 540 million years ago) the area underwent the Delamerian orogeny, when this sequence of rocks was folded and faulted into a large mountain range. The area has undergone subsequent erosion resulting in the relatively low ranges today.

Most of the high ground and ridgetops are sequences of quartzites that outcrop along strike. The high walls of Wilpena Pound are formed by the outcropping beds of the eponymous Pound Quartzite in a synclinal structure. Synclines form other high parts of the Flinders, including the plateau of the Gammon Ranges and the Heysen Range. Cuesta forms are also very common. In 2004 a new geological period, the Ediacaran Period, was created to mark the appearance of Ediacaran biota.

Climate

thumb|upright=1.1|Arid land in the Flinders Ranges

The region has a semi-arid climate with hot dry summers and cool winters. Summer temperatures usually exceed , while winters have highs around , depending on the elevation. Although rainfall is erratic, most of the precipitation falls in winter. There are also some monsoonal showers and storms that move in from the north during the summer. The area gets around of rain annually, with the highest at Wilpena Pound, at . Frost is common on winter mornings and temperatures have dropped as low as . Snow has even been recorded in the Wilpena Pound and at Blinman. As of 2013, the last significant snowfall was in 1995.

Flora and fauna

thumb|upright=1.1|[[Feral goats in Australia|Feral goats were first introduced into the Flinders Ranges in the 1840s, and grew to become a problem after the eradication of dingos in the 1940s Insectivorous bats make up a significant proportion of the mammals. There are a large number of bird species including parrots, galahs, emus, the wedge-tailed eagle and small numbers of water birds. Reptiles include goannas, snakes, dragon lizards, skinks and geckos. The streambank froglet is an endemic amphibian.

The Ranges are part of the Tirari–Sturt stony desert ecoregion.

World Heritage bid

A team acting on behalf of the Government of South Australia and the traditional owners, the Adnyamathanha people, which includes internationally-renowned American palaeontologist Mary L. Droser, lodged a nomination for a tentative listing as a World Heritage Site,

The application was made on the basis of its unique geological and palaeontological values. It is a lengthy process, and the site needs to fulfil very specific criteria as well as showing strong evidence that its values are absolutely unique in the world.

The involvement of the Adnyamathanha people, particularly their caring for country and sharing knowledge of their cultural heritage, is an important part of the future management of a World Heritage site. In November 2022, the state government announced an allocation of over four years towards enabling the Adnyamathanha people to identify priorities for cultural heritage protection. One example is the rock engravings that are understood to be the oldest artwork in the world, some dating back 40,000 years. Elder Vince Coulthard has been involved in the application process, and says that the creation stories also need to be included.

Seven geographically separate properties in the Flinders have been identified as possessing the technical and scientific evidence necessary to support the bid:

Arkaroola Protection Area
Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park
Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park
Nilpena Ediacara National Park (formerly a pastoral lease and conservation park)
Maynards Well (pastoral lease)
Angorichina (pastoral lease)
Ajax Mine Fossil Reef (on Puttapa (pastoral lease))

the application remains on the tentative list,

References

External links

(SA Government)