This is deep time. It is hard to comprehend. Human history starts around 60,000 years ago and that long history is also difficult to comprehend. The Adnyamathanha have lived here for around 49,000 years. Their histories and stories would have been written in the land.

The country we were walking through was dry. When we crossed a spur we came across Geosite 5, which referred to the  three formations or ranges: Balcanoona Formation in the east, Rampart Range in the west and Italowie Gap.

After the spur we turned onto the Mt McKinsey track that led to Italowie Gorge. It was a small , narrow gorge with step sides with two water holes. The gorge was impassable. So we had lunch there, before making our way back.

We didn’t bother to walk around the hill and explore the gorge from the opposite end. Instead we returned to the group of red gums at the entrance to the gorge that were nourished by the Mt McKinsey Spring in the lower part of the gorge.

What is impressed on you when walking through this semi-arid landscape is the deep time of this country and its significance. For instance, the 350 million year time period from the Neoproterozoic (850 million years) to the Cambrian (500 million years) is the critical geological time-frame as this was when complex, macroscopic (multicellular) biological life first emerged on Earth.

The Cambrian biological event happened in the western side of Ikara-Flinders Ranges, which are due south of the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park. Hence the former’s world heritage listing in 2021.

It is just so hard for me to comprehend both the deep history and the dramatic climatic changes that have shaped this country. I just wish that I had the skills and the knowledge able to read its geological history as I am walking through it. I feel a stranger in this country as I do not have the knowledge to find my way around it if I stepped off a marked trail and started wandering around.

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