“Premier Mike Rann announces permanent protection for Arkaroola”
Headline of South Australia’s Advertiser on July, 23, 2011
“Yesterday, Mr Rann announced mineral exploration and future mining would be prohibited at Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges through changes to the Mining Act, special legislation and national and World Heritage listing.”
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21 years before Premier Rann’s 2011 announcement, on the 22nd and 23rd of July 1990, my bike and I had reached the southern part of the Flinders Ranges, Alligator Gorge and Quorn, and I was eagerly looking forward to the arid and rocky country ahead, thinking of three incredible South Australians, Douglas Mawson, his student Reg C. Sprigg, Sir Mark Oliphant, all three absolute admirers of Arkaroola’s beauty:
| “It is not recognized by many who honour Douglas Mawson for his almost superhuman exploits in Antactica, that he was equally fascinated by the strange beauty and the geological puzzles of this semi-arid and mountaneous part of South Australia. …As Reg Sprigg has written to me:’To Mawson, the Arkaroola-Mt. Painter region, … amounted to one great open-air museum of geological history.’” Sir Mark Oliphant in Reg C. Sprigg, “Arkaroola-Mount Painter – The last billion years”, 1984, Adelaide |
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On the 22nd and 23rd July 2011, on a cold summer’s day in Europe, it is time to place a celebratory wineglass and bottle on the map, right near Mount Painter, Mount Gee and the Armchair, not to forget the now protected East Painter Gorge … |
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… and browse through treasured books.
Walking boots, water-bottle, map and compass are calling! Cheers to Arkaroola, the protected open air-museum!!! |
