The Facinating Flinders Ranges

What am I doing organizing this on Christmas
Eve.....not a care in the world have I...
Yet it bothers me that I have created this textile fibre book about the Flinders Ranges and want to convey how fascinating these ancient , eroded
and strikingly beautiful mountains are...
how they were invaded by a people two centuries ago, who were frankly not the least bit interested in the people who were already making a living there without destroying their habitat.

Yet the intrepid white people, with a philosophy
of needing to settle the land and make it productive, did an amazing job of exploring and
recording what they found.
Their  attitudes two centuries ago were so different to our present day of being aware of the delicate country side they were in. Of the delicate balance that keeps the ancient Australian eco systems from being destroyed....

The Ediacara ranges have revealed the most ancient and unusual fossils dating back to the pre Cambrian times....
In lake Callabonna in 1892, Fred Ragless found an amazing amount of scattered skeleton bones which proved to be a Diprotodon , the largest of the Marsupials and was mounted as a complete skeleton in the South Australian museum.

The Flinders Ranges were also explored for copper but none of the mines ever produced a great deal of copper and the arduous trek by bullock wagons didn't make it a worth while effort and so most of the mines which may have been started could not go on.
Still, the Flinders has the most poetic of name places ,Angorichina.. Wirrealpa..Umberatina..
Ical Icala..Moolooloo..Oratunga..Witchelina..
Wertaloona..Oraparinna..Hollowiliena..
Ediacara...
Here is my Christmas gift to you...I hope you will enjoy the spirit of it all.....