Visiting Nilpena's ancient fossils and the Flinders Ranges

🚙 DESTINATION: A warm, shallow sea, 635 million years ago.
📍WHERE: About 650km North of Adelaide, in the northern part of South Australia's Flinders Ranges.
🔍 WHY: To see some of the most remarkable fossils in the world - beautifully preserved impressions of plants and animals from the dawn of complex life on earth.
WHEN: We were there in the first week of September. Warm days, cool nights. Take a jacket.
👀 HOW TO SEE THEM: You MUST book a tour to enter Nilpena Ediacara National Park where the fossils are. You can't just "rock" up (see what I did there 😉). You can book through National Parks and Wildlife Service South Australia and through the Prairie Hotel at Parachilna (about 25 minutes down the road).
🚶‍♀️ABOUT THE TOUR: We did the Nilpena Ediacara Extended Fossil Tour booked from the Prairie Hotel ($195pp). You will need to drive yourself out to the park from Parachilna. A 4x4 bus and tour guide picks you up at the gate. Our tour guide was the owner of Nilpena Station (most of the property has been given over to create the park and protect the fossils). Extremely knowledgeable and tells a good yarn and has a very personal connection with the area. The tour is a couple of hours and concludes with the most remarkable audiovisual display I've ever seen. No video allowed in there, so I can't show you - but it was awesome! You will be taken back to your car.
🛌 STAYED: We stayed at the Prairie Hotel in the village of Parachilna. The facilities are excellent. The historic pub has been beautifully renovated. Great rooms! A wonderful surprise.
👏🍺🍷🍖🍽 DINING: I would have been happy with a craft beer brewed on site and a bag of 🍟 but the dining was next level. It focuses on "feral and native fare with flare" and we thoroughly enjoyed the food and the experience. They use many local and regional suppliers. It was a very high standard of service, especially considering where we were!
ℹ️ Find out more: https://bit.ly/3XT4awM