The idea of a cycling trip exploring just the northern end of the Flinders Ranges had been percolating for a while, and when Ty Domin posted up his Ikara Outback route on Bikepacking.com, it seemed fated!

In the last week of May this year I was lucky enough to take a week off work, and head out to the Flinders Ranges for a week bikepacking with my partner and our 2 and half year old daughter. If that seems simple enough, then you probably haven't met a 2.5 year old child lately, or tried to think through the logistics of wrangling said child, two touring bikes, camping gear, 4 days of food and an off-road cycling trailer to a relatively remote mountain range 5 hours drive north of Adelaide.

I had ridden through the Flinders twice on previous trips and always been amazed by the wild geology, the incredibly dense and rugged landscape, the sweeping views and stunning sunsets. In 2017 I had gotten a bit obsessed with the book Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun. It's a beautiful book that looks at the early influences of Muslim and Southeast Asian communities in the Australian outback. The book starts around Australia's first Mosque, built in Broken Hill in 1887, and if you have ever wondered why the Central Australia train is called the Ghan and why the outback is full of camels, it's well worth a read. Anyway, on that trip I took the train out to Broken Hill, then rode south to Yunta, before heading west through some extremely remote roads to the Flinders. The Flinders Ranges was a welcome respite, but there wasn't much time to explore as I jumped onto the Mawson Trail and rode the rest of the way south to Adelaide.

My second trip through the Flinders in 2019 was similarly focused on covering distance. Riding with a friend Geordie, we started in Hawker, rode through the Flinders and headed immediately onwards to Maree, The Oodnadatta, before foolishly tacking the sandy desert tracks through Finke on to Alice Springs.

The point I mean to emphasise is that although the Flinders Ranges itself stretches almost 400kms north to south, the main part of the Flinders Ranges National park is only about 50kms from top to bottom. It's very easy to just ride through or past in a single day and miss the incredibly cycling the area offers. For this trip we aimed for daily distances between 30 and 55kms, had some opportunities for indoor accommodation as well as camping, and options for water and food resupply. One of the many small logistical issues of touring with a toddler is that it's not just carrying enough clean diapers and wet wipes, but the challenge is carrying out all your waste diapers, so having access to a bin every few days was an welcome relief!

Planning a trip just focused on exploring the Flinders itself, I was grateful to have some good chats with Will Hartnett and Ty Domin who were both generous with their ideas for a shorter loop, more focused on exploring the area and with toddler-friendly daily distances. This route is almost entirely based on their suggestions, just modified to suit the reduced daily distances we were looking to cover. Will in particular runs semi-regular cycling trips in the Flinders with Cycling Wild, who offer catering and logistical support, and this would be a great option for someone keen to explore the area but nervous about riding solo. 

Funnily enough the route I have outlined here as my personal suggested Toddlerpacking itinerary would also make a great route for anyone just keen on a leisurely tour, that allows time for a bit of walking, exploring, painting or reading. Pack a set of watercolour paints, a birding or plant book, or your hiking shoes and enjoy a magical relaxed bike tour unconstrained by any pressure of covering big daily kilometres!

Route notes

Day 1: Wilpena Pound to Bracina Gorge (32km)

Starting at Wilpena Pound is a good option in the area, as it has certainly the best grocery store in the area and there is a long-stay carpark in the national park. The only other shop on route for groceries is in Blinman, which has a bakery but almost nothing in the way of actual groceries. So stock up in Wilpena. The first 15kms north out of Wilpena Pound is a glorious mix of singletrack and rutted jeep roads. We had a slow start reassembling our bikes, packing bags and stocking up on groceries, so didn't start riding until almost 2pm, but luckily it's a net downhill day and we were able to roll into Bracina Gorge, find a campsite, and set up before sunset. 

Day 2: Bracina Gorge to Blinman Hotel (37km)

We woke up in the tent to some heavy rain, which certainly made packing up an interesting process. If anyone has tips on how to keep a toddler dry while packing up a tent in the rain I would love to hear them. The Flinders region has a particularly sticky and thick mud that verges on clay, and can make cycling virtually impossible when it gets wet.  Luckily the rain only persisted for half the day, and the roads weren't too soaked, so despite getting absolutely drenched and extremely filthy we were able to keep plodding along, and then rode the second half of the day along the tarmac road into Blinman. It was a welcome respite after a pretty wet day of cycling to book a room at the Blinman pub, have a hot shower and dry out our clothes and tent. 

Day 3: Blinman to Moolooloo Station (44km)

The northern loop out of Bliman passes through a public access route across the vast Moolooloo Station. It's worth reaching out to them about camping and accomodation options, as we found them to be extremely hospitable, and it's an incredible blessing that they have opened their private property to allow cyclists and intrepid four-wheel drivers to pass through. The stretch from where you turn off North Flinders Road to Hannigan Gap is definitely the slowest and lumpiest bit of riding of the whole loop. It's incredibly beautiful with stretches of sensational dry river bed riding, but it's also incredibly slow. We probably averaged 8kms an hour, and despite the fact we were towing a trailer, I would be surprised if many folks averaged any faster.

Day 4: Moolooloo Station to Trezona Campground and Tank (55km)

Heading out of Moolooloo Station back towards Blinman you have a bakery lunch to look forward to, and some bits of tarmac road to help increase the average speed. We had hoped to buy more groceries in Blinman at the store, but the best we could buy was a box of muesli bars and some packet soup - it was extremely slim pickings! We ended up buying a few fresh cakes and slices to bulk out our dwindling food supplies.

Our daughter Alice had her only real tantrum of the trip riding the tarmac road south from Blinman and we ended up stopping on the side of the road and setting up the hammock for a spirit stop. The hammock was actually a really good thing to pack to keep a toddler entertained, and out of the dirt! Between the semi-constant supply of crackers and biscuits to our toddler friend in the trailer, we kept her in good supply of Bluey books and then dangled the carrot of hammock time to keep her happy on some relatively long days of cycling. This day had certainly some easier riding, but still had some beautiful stretches. When your turn off the tarmac road and back onto the dirt riding across Red Hill you have some incredibly views from the top of the ridge over the Flinders Ranges park.

Day 5: Trezona Campground to Wilpena Pound (31km)

Rolling south back towards Wilpena Pound you again have some amazing views of the Flinders Ranges and the riding is relatively easy for this last stretch. If you had more time you could extend the loop with a ride out towards Willow Springs Station, but for us with with an increasingly crusty looking toddler and dwindling food supplies we were happy to be done with riding. 

Equipment

In terms of equipment it's worth mentioning the trailer we used, which was a Tout Terrain single trailer. This trailer is relatively unique as it has just a single rear wheel and a rear shock with adjustable 160mm/220mm suspension travel. This was a godsend on the bits of single track and rocky river bed sections, where I feel a two-wheel conventional child trailer would have really struggled. Our daughter was so well suspended she would often yell "more bumpy bumpy!" 

I towed the trailer behind a Surly Bridge Club running Vittoria Mezcals in 27.5x2.6 and a Shimano Cues 1x9 drivetrain. The sheer volume of stuff required for toddler camping, multiple days worth of food and 5 days of diapers, wet wipes etc. meant I was running front and rear panniers, a large handlebar roll, three bottle cages and the trailer. I was running some prototype micro front panniers made by Harry at Hungry which were amazing, extremely confidence inspiring offroad! I really have no idea how heavy this was as a combined load, but it was extremely heavy!

This allowed my partner to ride a relatively lighter-weight setup on a Hudski Dualist, running Vittoria Peyote 29x2.4 tyres, a Tumbleweed rear rack, Old Man Mountain micro panniers and Curve Rocket Fork packs.

Getting there

We flew with our bikes and the trailer to Adelaide airport and then hired a enormous Kia Carnival to drive north to the Flinders, this meant we could leave the bike boxes in the car while we were cycling. A fair bit of organising but it actually worked pretty seamlessly.