I mistakenly had in my mind that Wilpena Pound was THE Flinders Ranges destination. In reality, it is most atypical, in many ways. The only campground within the Pound is extra expensive, being a fairly posh Discovery Park. It is run with the traditional owners, the Adnyamathanha, and their signage with their relevant stories along the walks was fascinating.
It is well done, with rammed earth amenities and Visitors Centre, a shop, fuel, restaurant, variety of accommodation, and heaps of shelters and facilities, with hot showers and flushing loos. As you can see, these are well spaced and the area is lush with trees.
Having got over my astonishment at visitor numbers and facilities at Cradle Lake In Tasmania, it was not such a shock.
There is a large area for powered sites but also plenty of room for solar-powered campers like me… unlike at Dove Lake in Tassie.
You do get a glimpse of the Ranges as you drive into the Pound, but if that was your only destination in the Ikara/Flinders Ranges, you’d be very misled. Once in the Pound itself, you are cocooned.
I’d say there would have been a quite a lot of people visiting only there, having whiizzed up from Hawker, plugging in their caravans, buying souvenirs, doing the gentle walks along the dirt road by the side of the creek, shaded by many River Red Gums and cypress trees, or even getting the shuttle bus for part of the way.
While there were few spots along the creek still holding water, evidence of the piled up logs showed its past power. There was even a small lagoon at one spot.
But I soon left the easy road and went up higher on the Boom and Bust track… not intentionally, as they’d changed the name, but it added an hour and a half to my walk, and more steep parts than my knees wanted. However it was interesting to see the drier country plants flourishing away from the creek.
The ’Pound’ itself is a creek-centred and thus treed gully, naturally enclosed by the ridges, widening out at the Hills Homestead end into the site of its early wheat-growing period.
There are other higher and steeper walks for the experienced or young to choose, but I was trying to be realistic.
At the old Homestead (rebuilt, closed up) I climbed only half of the way up to the Wangarra Lookout, to the first lookout. I was blessing my trusty walking stick, but by this stage my feet hurt, my knees were whingeing, and I was not lifting my feet enough, so I knew I was tired, and thus liable to trip.
I contemplated getting the shuttle bus back but the waiting driver said you had to have paid in advance.
He passed me twice on his runs as I was slowly trudging the three kilometres back … mean!
And just as I was reflecting that thankfully I’d seen no feral goats, as if on cue, right behind the sign about them, there they were! But the sign was rejoicing really, as were others I saw praising the Bounceback program, where the deliberate return of native species was making life harder for the invaders. Here it was the Yellow-footed Rock Wallabies, combined with culling programs.
As there was phone reception here, I could hotspot, so I spent a day catching up with this blog … and resting those overstretched ageing body parts.
I was also trying to identify strange plants; this slender, graceful one was an isolated plant near my campsite, and I think it’s a Weeping Pittosporum (Pittosporum angustifolium).
On my higher walks this narrow-leaved beauty caught my eye; it seems to be the Silver Cassia (Senna artemisioides), which I had spotted in a few other places.
But there were other eye-catching white-flowering ones that I cannot find.
I did buy the liltle ID booklets at Wilpena Pound, and I had searched unsuccessfully for a similar South Australian native plant boffin group as I have in NSW. I need them…!
The staff at Wilpena that I spoke to were not National Park rangers and could not help with plant IDs.
As i drove out, the green paddocks and rolling hills could have been anywhere… like the Hunter Valley before it was disembowelled for coal… except for the occasional emus unhurriedly strolling by. Such strange birds…!
I am heading for Bunyeroo Gorge and a much less posh campground, with no reception and no flushing loos. More my kind of place…
A lovely memory Sue, apart from the later tragedy. I don’t think you can climb that peak now, like Uluru, but there is a walk/climb to it that was too much for me. Yes, I fell for the River Red Gums; they are magnificent.
Growing up in Adelaide, my father took us all camping in the September holidays.it was the era of 1950’s to early 1960’s, when camping really was camping. We climbed St Mary’s Peak ( does it have another name now?), explored , fell in love with the mighty River Red Gums, and enjoyed the red, red oceans of wild hops and red kangaroos and red breasts of galahs galore.
We were struck with sadness when Nicky Bannon went missing, on St Mary’s Peak when he was about 10 . He was a pupil of one of our very close friends , a spirited soul, brother of the future SAPremier John Bannon.The tragedy was it seems he was playing hide and seek in the group, evading the search party, and was not found for about a year .
In later years, I was able to return to Wilpena Pound with my father, and show Mike the enormous River Red Gums. But I was devastated to see how sophisticated it had all become. Still, we managed to seek out the remote areas, and enjoyed visiting Hans Heysen’s dwelling by a spring, where he’d spend time painting .Hope you can find that, Sharyn!
Flinders Ranges are instilled in me as my spiritual home, in spite of the tragedy,as it is a truly powerful, special area.
Thanks Wendy. Yes, so much for the wildflowers…!!! And the mean man!
I’m enjoying reading your descriptions Sharyn. When we visited the Flinders Ranges in 1990 there were vast areas of Patterson’s Curse in flower. Quite a few of the tourists we met commented on the ‘beautiful wildflowers’.
I also think that bus driver was mean to keep driving past without offering you a lift! ?