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TRAVEL
Kanku-Breakaways
Conservation Park, SABasin, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of
subterranean water.)
Surprisingly, this harsh desert
environment supports more than 60
native plant species (two of them rare) in
a variety of habitats, such as acacia-lined
watercourses, scree slopes dominated
by mulga, and open shrublands of cassia
and eremophila — all perfectly adapted in
their own way to conserving moisture and
surviving the intense heat.
Some species, such as acacias, have thin
spiky leaves to minimise transpiration;
saltbush, daisy bush and other succulents
greedily suck moisture from the soil when
rain falls and store it in their fleshy leaves;others, such as pussy tails and fox tails, have
a felt or fine powdery coating on their leaves
to baffle the drying wind, leaving a humid
layer of air around the leaf ’s surface.
Because rainfall is unpredictable and
sporadic, seeds germinate only when there
is enough moisture to ensure the plant can
grow to maturity, then they emerge and
flourish. In this way, flowering annuals
sprout after good rain to provide spectacular
displays of colour.
This arid, sparsely vegetated landscape
is also home to a surprising abundance of
native animals and birds across about 60
species. Visitors are most likely to encounter
red and grey kangaroos, euros and dingoes
around dawn and dusk, and reptiles such
as bearded dragons, goannas and snakes
during all but the hottest daylight hours.
The Perentie, Australia's largest monitor
(and also the second largest lizard in the
world after the Komodo Dragon), is a wide-
ranging predator across the rocky outcrops
and gullies.
Flocks of galahs, corellas and budgerigars
add a colourful, and sometimes noisy,
dimension to this stark desert tableau; birds
of prey are ever-present — kites, hawks and
kestrels hunt the plains and mesa by day and
magnificent wedge-tailed eagles spot their
prey while soaring on thermal airstreams.
When the sun has set and the twilight
fades to cooler darkness, owls glide silently
through the shadowy landscape seeking
native mice and dunnarts, while bats take
insects on the wing.INDIGENOUS CONNECTIONS
The Breakaways are within the
traditional lands of the Antakirinja Matu-
Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal people who lived
in this region for thousands of years before
European settlement. In their language the
area around present-day Coober Pedy is
called ‘Umoona’, meaning long life, referringAbout 115 million years ago, the central
plains of SA comprised the bed of a
vast inland sea, a basin where mud and
mineral-rich sediments collected and
compacted under their own weight,
layer upon layer until they formed a
deep plate of rock. The sea receded,
exposing the plain to solar radiation and
searing temperatures that evaporated
all moisture from it and baked a durable
crust of silcrete (sand and gravel
cemented by dissolved silicon) to its
surface. Tectonic forces stretched the
crust and buckled it causing cracks and
fissures that were widened and deepened
by wind and water.
Millions of years of weathering and
erosion ate away the soft sedimentary
substrate, leaving a flat cap of silcrete
flanked by steep, multi-hued escarpments
crumbling down to gibber-covered
foothills and floodplains. These gibbers
are the discarded fragments of the once-
impervious silicon crust that eventually
succumbed to the irresistible elements.
These erosive forces continue to work
on the ancient landforms in a climate that
is arguably the hottest and driest of any
region on the continent, where summer
temperatures can rise to 50C (65C on
the ground) and the parched landscape
receives a miserly annual rainfall of less
than 170mm. (Ironically, ‘Breakaway
Country’ covers part of the Great Artesian