If you’re heading for the Flinders Ranges, we highly recommend a visit to the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary to get a true insight into the amazing history of the Flinders Ranges.

STORY ANDREW CLUBB PHOTOS DAVE DARCY & CLUBBY

Check that view! And check out the rocks you can see in every direction. The Flinders Ranges are geologically spectacular and Arkaroola knocks it out of the park for being the ultimate rock farm.

Rich red earth and rock-littered ranges are the absolute constants when you start exploring Arkaroola’s back tracks.

Famous last words. You just have to love them. And how they can come back to haunt you. Fast.

Let’s turn the time machine back to 2011 and the inaugural Ténéré Tragics Run to the Rocks gathering, staged at Arkaroola Village in the spectacular Flinders Ranges of South Australia. I’d thrown an invite out for any other Ténéré devotees to join me in a get together in the Flinders, which included two nights at Arkaroola.

On the day in the middle I’d put together a mud-map of a ride around the northern end of the Flinders, which started with the rough and rocky run out the back of Arkaroola and headed directly west past Umberatana Station and on to Copley for morning smoko. I’d done the same ride a few years earlier — on a 1983 XT600ZL Ténéré — and the old banger came through with flying colours.

“But just take it easy to start with,” I barked to the virgin Tragics as I handed out the route notes. “The first few kilometres out of Arkaroola are pretty rocky …”