Julia Creek

Julia Creek is another very small township in the McKinlay Shire. It has the main shops you might need and a pub, so I guess that's all taken care of. The main reason I wanted to visit here is because the Visitors Centre, known as 'At the Creek' has a display and feeding twice a day of the Fat Tailed Dunnart. The Julia Creek Dunnart is a tiny bright eyed insect eating marsupial only found in the Mitchell grass downs of North West Queensland. They would be mistakingly taken for a mouse but they are actually in the family of the Tasmanian Devil. They are pretty cute and extremely tiny.

One interesting fact I learnt was that the Dunnart store fat at the base of their tail when food is plentiful. This fat is then converted to energy when food is scarce in the colder months.

A Fat Tailed Dunnart

There's not much else to see in town but at night the towns water tower looks impressive. The 30 metre wine glass shaped water tower has the capacity to hold 454,000 litres of water and stands above the fourth bore that was sunk in Julia Creek. 

30 metre water tower

Another impressive sight is the metal sculpture named the Spirit of the Light Horse, a sculpture saluting McKinlay Shires servicemen and women.

Spirit of the Light Horse 

Quorn to Rawnsley Park Station – Flinders Ranges

Rawnsley Park Station has been recommended to us by lots of people, so we just had to stay here.
Rawnsley Park Station is a working sheep property although these days only running about 2000 sheep as it’s main focus is tourism. The Park is situated at the base of one of the walls of the amazing Wilpena Pound.  For some reason I have never been over enthusiastic about visiting Flinders Ranges, but I am now really glad we did visit as the scenery is spectacular.
We took our first day here pretty easy, driving around checking out some of the lookouts.  The views from Stokes Hill Lookout were amazing and to top it off as we drove back down the hill we were greeted by a local kangaroo family. I just love our Kangaroos; they are such a beautiful and interesting animal. Some weren’t to sure about us, but then some decided to check me out as I checked them out.

Flinders Rangers on the horizon

Some True Aussies

Too Cute

Next stop was Appealinna Ruins. The story behind these ruins was very interesting. Built in 1851 and occupied until the 1870's, the Appealinna Ruins is a testament to the early pastoralists hopes and aspirations. The Wills family didn't have it easy though, there was constant conflict between Joseph Wills and the towns miners. Eventually Joseph was killed and it was rumoured that one of the miners had committed it, but no-one was charged. It was also rumoured that Joseph could have been a bit dishonest when it came to which property was his.

Appealinna Ruins

Our last destination for the day was Sacred Canyon. As we walked down the dry river bed the old Red River Gums looked like the old men of the river greeting us. Nearing the Aboriginal Carvings the riverbed got very rocky so off I ventured climbing my way forward. As I was climbing over the rocks it made me think of how I would have been prior to leaving on our Aussie Adventure back in May 2013. I don’t think I would have even tried to climb, I would have thought of some reason why I just couldn’t do it. I am pretty proud of how I have grown over the past 10 ½ months. There wasn’t a huge amount of rock carvings but still very interesting.

The trees almost talked to us

 

Aboriginal Carvings
The circle carvings represent Rock hole or Spring
and the three prong carving represents Emu.

 

Not really a nice leisurely walk