9 minute read
David takes us to one of South Australia's ripper 4WD destinations
A pat on the back
at the
By David Wilson
Australia possesses plenty of ripper 4WD destinations and South Australia has more than its fair share and amongst the best can be found in the north of the state. The Flinders Ranges are an exceptional destination and it’s 4WD-friendly because of a now decades-old initiative of the locals.
Trackside erosion is what brings people here and makes for the challenge.
Twenty-five years ago they recognised that they could make a nice fillip to their and the district’s revenue stream by encouraging 4WD tourism. Having a network of trails kept people in the district, hopping from station to station and sharing the dollars around. One of the most creative members of that clique of landholders is the Luckraft family of the Bendleby Ranges (42km NE of Orroroo). Jane and Warren, and now the next generation, Kylie and Charlie, set about blazing a network of trails across the hills on the property in their Bendleby and Hungry Range formations, the most famous trail being the Billy Goat Track, which for twenty years rated amongst the toughest in the region.
Up and down like a yo-yo on Yakka Ridge and getting some low range mojo going. Not ones to rest on their laurels, they’ve had the dozer out to add more desire to their property with the creation of what the Luckraft’s call King’s Ridge and Pat’s Peak, a pair of trails that spin off old Billy Goat to complement the journey with some more white-knuckle experience for the uninitiated. Bendleby is a pretty full experience, with excellent accommodation and camping, walking, hiking and mountain-bike trails to support the 4WD activities. As much as I like my camping, I have to tell you there’s nothing better than coming back to base at the end of the day and laying my head to rest in a proper bed at either the Gumdale or Crotta homesteads, the Acacia Cottage or in the Shearers Quarters at The Springs.
If you must camp then know that there are plenty of established campsites scattered through the hills where you can drag a tent, a swag or a camper trailer in and have your own private piece of Flinders nirvana. About the only hustle you’ll encounter could be from a mob of Apostle birds, Corellas or a passing skippy or three. It’s serene. Because of the nature of the hills and the gradients a lot of the steep trails are one-way only and from a management perspective it makes total sense because the loose screes get chewed out mighty quickly with a spinning wheel hovering over them. To get to Pat’s we took a leisurely day-trip through the Hungry Range, coming from The Springs to the intersection at Lantern Gate before heading skywards. You’ll then bump into the meeting point of the Front Track and you guessed it, the Back Track. These are station trails, graded and in good condition, albeit a little dusty, that have been used to transport stock and attend to land management and fencing tasks. The trail starts its climb towards Yakka Ridge where there’s a couple of lookouts that offer great views of the Minburra Plain below (600-odd metres below). Yakka is a great trail to get your low-range mojo going, tyre pressures reduced to a sensible and flexy 15-18psi range and first or second gear selected depending on how technical
King’s Ridge razorback is a dozer scrape atop a soaring range. Quick stretch en-route to Pat’s Peak.
They come from all over South Australia and the world to tackle Billy Goat Ridge. The Bush Banana (Marsdenia australis) is a central Australian bush tucker food and grows on a vine.
the section might be. The descent to Sandy Bore below is always a crowd-favourite, a couple of low-grip descents will have you skimming over the surface and reminding you that you’re merely a passenger whilst Mother Nature guides you down the hill. Hill-Descent Control be damned, it’s not going to offer any extra reassurance! Back down on the flat between Sandy Bore and East-Side Bore you’re running with the Hungry Range on your right-hand side and heading south. You’ll likely see goats roaming the woodland that’s largely Black Oak and Bullock Bush. The really observant amongst you might see the vine of the Bush Banana twirling around the trunk of a host tree and the pendant avocado-sized and shaped fruit.
Prado tippy-toe at Yakka Ridge.
From East-Side it’s all up again and straight into Billy Goat. The ridge section is steep and not for the faint-hearted and a word of warning, once you commit there’s no turning around, no time for panic or tears for fears, just grit your teeth and send it … gently. Sending it hard might spell doom. We observed that a recently cracked sump had dumped a tell-tale ribbon of black diesel oil up the hill, making navigation a breeze, but you’d wonder about that engine’s longevity? The passage of time and countless vehicles has worn this track to its core, regularly you’ll bump into rock steps of embedded shale with razor sharp edges and requiring more articulation out of your suspension than the maker likely provided. So lock up that back axle, grab first or second again and tippy-toe to the summit knowing that you’ll likely need to get out to do some road-building.
On the ascent Billy Goat doesn’t suffer fools and traction is the name of the game. Luckily this generation Prado has great traction control. If you’re scared of heights don’t look out the side windows because the valley floor is a long way away and as a driver, grabbing the occasional glance in the rearview mirror is likely to give you a moment of panic. It’s steep. On our most recent visit we were driving a couple of stock-standard utes, a new 2021 Isuzu D-MAX X-Terrain and a 2020 Mitsubishi Triton GSR, both running passenger car tyres and typically closer to Flinders Ranges earth than I’d like. Thank goodness they both had diff-locks which balanced out the badness. You see, sidesteps are a liability in this sort of country and inevitably they’re going to touch down. The score midway through the account was Rocks 2, Sidesteps 0. Yep, they got whacked and twisted, the Isuzu’s to oblivion and the Triton’s able to be straightened once home. Another casualty was the Triton’s mass-balance dampener, a lump of metal hung off a bracket at the front of the rear diff that’s awkwardly exposed to rock impacts. We did.
This is what happens when manufacturers don’t take 4W driving seriously. Triton has this lump sitting in front of the rear diff and it’ll always get clobbered.
Atop Billy Goat you can step out of the car (if you made it this far) and give yourself a pat on the back because you’ve just knocked off one of the hardest trails going for a noncompetition, registerable 4WD. Suck in that clean outback air and take a panorama of the location because it’s stunning! But don’t get too cocky because after you make the top turn and head right (north) and past the traditional descent down to the Three Gates intersection, continuing gets you on to King’s Ridge.
Had to whip the phone out to immortalise the trail in that moment … knees make for great steering.
Try as hard as you might you’ll inevitably touch down on a lump of quartzite that won’t yield.
This bulldozer scrape runs atop the main Hungry ridgeline and follows its contours and does very little to flatten them. Up hill and down dale you’ll go splitting the rarefied air between Yuruga Hill and Eke Hill. It is a bit tamer than Billy Goat and I’m OK with that because I know in time it’ll erode and become every bit as craggy as Bee-Gee and I look forward to seeing that evolution (err erosion). In a decade it’ll be banging on a ten on the Gnarly-Meter.
I was a little incredulous with the first ascent, so much so that I had to whip the phone out to take a pic of the Triton ahead of me. My co-pilot Steane took exception to me steering with my knees whilst snapping the moment. I couldn’t see what the problem was? Watching the sidewalls of the tyres flex over those pointy bits had me wondering whether we’d bitten off more than we could chew because passenger car rubber is junk. Luckily the rubber-Gods were smiling on us all weekend because pressure maintenance saved the day. Picking an appropriate line required some spotting at times, so we took turns, alternating from behind the wheel and swapping the driving tasks or outside on some sighting moments for one another’s benefit when it was super-technical. There’s nothing more likely to convey just how steep the gradient might be than hanging in the reassuring harness of your seat belt and on plenty of occasions in the descending phases that was our experience. Somehow goats thrive in these conditions, their surefooted and unfearing gait sees them flanking us on hills just as steep and doing it without vehicular assistance. Eventually Pat’s Peak is reached, not sure of the height as I didn’t have a gadget to record the altitude, but I can assure you you’ll find more typically breathtaking views unfold and all around that look like they could reach all the way out to Broken Hill given half a chance. After a couple of hours amongst the clouds, the spinifex and the rocks, the trail heads back down to the plains and their intersecting creek beds with the familiar River Red Gums and paddocks recently refilled with sheep. Life out here is pretty tenuous and the drought of 2019-2020 resulted in totally destocking the property to preserve what little vegetation there was. Winter and Spring rains in 2020 repaired a lot of that harm and now the yards are alive with plenty of bleats and baas.
Another steep descent near Yuruga Hill. Pat’s Peak panorama over Minburra Plain.
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Call Kylie on: (08) 8658 9064 Email: admin@bendlebyranges.com.au
