The picture below is a snap of some  tree roots in a dry  creek bed on the eastern side of  the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges  in South Australia in 2021.  We had traveled on the gravel Arkaroola-Junta Rd along the eastern edge of the ranges,  then turned into the North Flinders Rd  passed Wertaloona Station, then  crossed the Wearing Hills  through the Wearing Gorge.  

I cannot remember which creek it was. More than likely it was Wearing  Creek as we drove through the creek bed whilst the gorge. 

We were returning to  Hawker via Blinman after  we had been 7 days walking in the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges. Our  camp, which was  organised by Retire Active SA, was  at  the shearer's quarters  in the old Balcanoona Station --- a one time sheep/pastoral  station. The station homestead is  now  the National Park Head Quarters. 

We had been walking around Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges.  The creeks, which flow out across the plains to Lake Frome,  were dry when we were there,  including Balcanoona Creek.   However, there was some water in the deeper water holes in the  rocky gorges. The land is dry, windy and drought prone.

This  is a long way from the inland sea, shallow  lakes,  peat bogs,  humid forests and the  cool and moist climate around 50 million years ago when Australia separated from Antartica.  That was when the final uplifting of the Flinders Ranges (a folded mountain range)  to their present extent happened.

I have next to no geological knowledge of the climatic changes  since the Eocene era apart from there being several  periods of glaciation that started   at the end of the Eocene, about 35 million years ago. Others included one about 15 million years ago another as part of the Terminal Miocene Event about 6 million years ago;  then the final glaciation, the Great Ice Age, began in the Pliocene about 3 million years ago. During this period the sea level fell and rose the continental shelves were covered and exposed, the high ground was glaciated, and arid phases alternated with pluvial phases. 

 I know that Lakes Frome, Torrens and Eyre are isolated, dehydrated remnants of former larger lakes that deposited clay and dolomite around the periphery of the Flinders Ranges between 30 and 2 million years ago.