Driving on the Bridle Track in South Australia’s Southern Flinders Ranges.

24/7/2020

The Bridle Track is one of our favourite roads in SA. When we can, we choose to take it in preference to the bitumen. It offers 19km of jaw dropping views for those who are willing to open a few gates and take their vehicle off road.

Taking the route from East to West means that you have outstanding views along the coastline from high up. On a fine day it feels as though you can see forever.

When we drove the route with friends last week the clouds were hanging low in the sky, so the view wasn’t what it might have been , but it was still pretty spectacular.

How to get there

From Melrose take Survey road heading south out of town. There is a brown sign on the corner of Searle St (which turns into Survey Rd) and Horrocks Highway. Follow the road out of town for about 15km. Turn right onto the Bridle track and open the first of five gates.

The Drive

The track winds its way over the hills and gradually makes its way down onto the flat ground away to the west. On the way there are some challenging areas of driving (mostly caused by rutted track or rocky sections) which demand good vehicle placement. There are also a couple of areas of steep descent which allow for practice with using low gear, or the use of fancy “crawl” buttons on more modern four wheel drives. There are a couple of areas where the track comes close to the side of the hills, so not for the extremely faint hearted.

We were pretty impressed with Al’s new Prado, which handled the track beautifully.

Gates

This is a public road route, but is across private property, so please respect the landowners who kindly allow access. Leave the gates as you find them.

On this visit there were sheep out grazing along the track in one section, demonstrating the need for the gates.

We also saw some kangaroos along the way.

Once again it was getting pretty late in the day by the time we were finishing the drive, so we had the pleasure of “the golden hour” as we finished our descent from the hills and made our way back to Mambray Creek campground via the Cattle Track.

Tonight we quietly toasted to the fact that we are free to enjoy these amazing places and are still able to do so.