Nine memberships (17 persons) participated. Due to various commitments, we travelled separately or small conveys to Beltana. Beltana is a historical town 550km’s north of Adelaide in the Flinders Ranges. Route north was via Two Wells, Mallala, Balaklava, Blythe, Quorn or Orroroo, Hawker, Beltana. Janet arrived first. Some members actually left Adelaide Thursday 12th and camped overnight rather than a full travel day. All arrived around the same time (3:30pm) Friday the 13th.
Excellent campground – well presented toilets and hot showers – large sites – large fire ring. We had booked all the sites. Two on the opposite side, we left unused, and all set up together. Friday evening all congregated around the fire. Many of the world’s problems solved.
Saturday morning 08:45 start to travel to the Nilpena Ediacara National Park entrance. Jan (the Beltana host) visited us and gave a talk about the Hall and work done renovating. Distracted us from heading to the tour meet point – but, we made the appointment. Our numbers of 17 confused our tour guide who was expecting 14 + 2 ring ins, meaning the bus would be overloaded with 19 passengers. A ring around confirmed we were allowed a small variation of numbers. The extra’s failed to show. We all piled of the tour bus – off we go!
Lillian (tour guide) presented interesting facts about the property, the owners, the fossil discovery, the acquisition by the government, declaration of the national park and now application for World Heritage. Checked out the Blacksmith’s shop and old woolshed restoration and first introduction to fossils.
After the tour of the of the old woolshed we returned to the Blacksmith’s Shop and entered a room with a state-of-the-art audio-visual animation above a fossil bed (known as “Alice’s Restaurant Bed”) relocated from the fossil field. A fantastic interactive display projected on to the bed along with being allowed to interact with the bed through touch exploring the fossils was a great experience. Following this, we all piled into the bus and travelled out to the fossil field. Great to witness the excavation noting the layer we look at is inverted. Lillian gave us some putty to impress on fossils to get a positive impression of creature. The Ediacara fossils reveal the first signs of complex animal life and Nilpena provides the most comprehensive record of Ediacara fossils in the world.
Back to Beltana via the old road. Have to travel a bit of rough stuff? Off to Royal Victoria Hotel for a drink and some light lunch.
Some of us headed towards Warraweena to Sliding Rock Mine ruins (approx. 23kms) for a look then returning to campsite for some well-presented nibbles (prepared by Cathy) around the campfire.6:30pm a short duration heavy rain downpour cleared everyone from the fire. Not too long later we all returned to the fire when convinced the rain had left the area. Sunday morning, all packed and left Beltana after a short but interesting club 2025:05 trip.
