The Remarkable Mt Remarkable National Park

Tanya
Feb 12
3 min read

After being blown away (literally and figuratively) by the Eyre Peninsula, our next stop was Mt Remarkable National Park. We skipped past a lot of the east coast of the peninsula due to the windy forecast so it was a big day pushing from the bottom to the top.

From Whyalla onwards the landscape seemed to be a hot, flat, barren, dusty expanse with not a lot going on. We began to wonder who would live out in this part of the world and also started severely doubting how good the southern Flinders Ranges was going to be.

As we turned down the dusty road to the national park, we were suddenly met by huge gum trees, with trucks bigger than our car. We pulled up to our campsite at Mambray Creek utterly taken aback by its beauty.

As far as national park campsites went, this had to be one of the best we’d been to. The sites had all been resurfaced, there were proper toilets and even hot showers!! The camp was filled with birds, wallabies, kangaroos and even some goannas. There were also quite a lot of flies about, the kind that go straight for you ears and ear holes, but we had bought a big fly net box (thanks Mum for the Xmas gift) for this exact reason so we were still able to enjoy the camp.

We woke up the next morning before the flies to cook breakfast and then set off on a hike along the creek. Halfway there we were surprised to find a small historical building about 5m by 3m. The sign stating it was built by a Shepard in the 1800s for himself, his wife and three children. It was crazy to think of a family living so isolated it a tiny house, with barely enough room for them all to sleep. It would have been blistering hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. Oh and the flies!! The sign also said that the Shepards of the area often wrote about snow drifts in the area in the winter which was a huge shock to us!

We chilled out the rest of the day as the next day, we were attempting the Mt Remarkable Summing hike. Knowing it was set to be a hot 36 degree day, we awoke at 5am and drove over to the summit hike, which was about an hours drive from our camp. We started the hike just on day break, feeling good and energised.

It wasn’t long into the hike when we heard rustling in the bush. We both paused, pricked our ears and looked for whatever wildlife made the sound. And what we saw shocked us! A stag!! He was covered in beautiful white spots and had magnificent antlers. He stayed still long enough for me to snap a pic before darting off into the bush.

The summit hike was a slow and gentle slog and we made it to the summit of 995m in about 2 hours. We spent a bit of time on the summit before trudging back down. And when you see the image - no I’m not injured, I just strapped by knee as I bumped it a few days before and it was feeling a tad fragile.

For those that know, I did a big overnight hike in 2025 where my hiking boots ATE my ankles. In response, I threw those boots out and bought new ones. Well after this hike, I can report that I STILL ended up with large blisters on both my heels. I’ve decided it must be my socks this time that need replacing.

We treated ourselves post hike to woodfire pizzas and beer at Jackas Brewery in Melrose. The brewery was inside an old mill building and look fabulous (the pizza and beer were good too).

And because we weren’t yet hiked out, we went to Alligator Gorge to do another short hike. This one took us through one of the best gorges I have ever seen. I would have loved to do it in winter time where there would be a bit of water in the gorge.