Scenic Road, Ngapala - Not on your Tourist Route.

Quite often around Australia, many great drives and special features and not on the average tourist drive, and Scenic Road, just north east of the forgotten town of Ngapala is one such small drive.

Recently there was a forum question by a member about the weather conditions and what is there to see and do in the “Clare Valley” in late June. There were a few replies and one caught my eye, posted by member “Cruiser” of the old ruins of the former Julia Creek Police Station, which is not really in the Clare Valley. Cruiser could not remember where he found the old site, but was on one of the back road between Gawler and Mount Bryan. I had seen photos of the ruins before, so I set myself a goal to try and find them myself and to get some images and add it to the “Places” page.


The good thing about living in a small country area, is that it took me no time at all to find out where the ruins were and after only 3 phone calls, made contact with a local from Ngapala that painted the ceramic tiles for the memorial and was able to give me a first hand account of how this site was officially unveiled back in November 2000. It was during a talk from the Police Historical Society and the history of the area in the late 1990’s, that locals were able to give the Police Historical Society details of where the former Police Station was located, as Police records for the area could not locate the exact location. After extensive searching of Police records and other Government documents, it was confirmed that the locals were correct and the memorial was erected.



Wet weather continued for a few weeks before it fined up enough to head over towards Eudunda and headed to Boggy Road where I knew the memorial was located. With the memorial accurately recorded on my GPS and images of the site, it was time to head home the long way, rather than back on the bitumen roads that I have travelled countless times over the years. From the memorial site, it was north to the small former town of Ngapala and then I made my way in a north easterly direction on Dunstan Road to the intersection aptly named “Scenic Road”.











Running parallel to the top of Bluff Range, Scenic Road my only be a short drive, but the views from the top make up for it. The almost vertical drop off sits over 200 metres above the plains below with uninterrupted views to the north, south and east. Two large Wedge Tail Eagles were making the most of the thermals and glided gracefully above and were the true “Kings” of the sky. Scenic Road may only be dirt, but was in good condition and is capable of being driven by a standard passenger vehicle with low ground clearance, after all I was only driving our VW Golf for the drive and they have no ground clearance at all compared to our Prado. Following the road north you will come to the only other road junction, with Garden Road on your left and Scenic Road ends and the road though Inspiration Point now called Hills Road.










.I headed down from Inspiration Point and from Robertson followed more good dirt roads through Emu Downs and Black Springs and back out to Farrell Flat where is was all bitumen back to Clare.


If you ever in the area near Eudunda and would like to some special scenery that you will not find marked on any map, make your way to Ngapala and follow Scenic Road for some truely inspiring views.




Stephen Langman
June 2016.