The Flinders Ranges

There's nowhere I know in the eastern states of Australia quite like the Flinders Ranges region of South Australia. The jagged terrain and flora — dominated by native cypress trees in many places, with massive red-gums along creek-beds that are dry most of the year but flood into torrents when it rains — make the Flinders unique.

Still, it's a landscape that is remarkably familiar, largely because of the work of Hans Heysen, the popular landscape artist of the first half of the 20th century, whose prints hang in a million homes and public buildings, who made the study of this region his specialty. Harold Cazneaux's photographs of the Flinders, from about the same period, have also helped give the region a special place in Australians' visual imagination of their country.

I can't say that these images, taken over about five days in late May 2023, strongly recall the paintings of Heysen or the photographs of Cazneaux. Because of the weather during our brief visit, we didn't see the magnificent brightness that fills Heysen's canvasses. But I hope you find some interest in them despite their rather more sombre tone.

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