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Having left Mambray Creek our route along the Princes Highway takes us close to the Spencer Gulf, with large, flat topped, beautifully shaded mountains on the other side of the water, while on the land side a line of dark blue mitre topped ones misty in the morning light. The road is very flat & long & quite busy in both directions. The sky is blue with streaky clouds, & it's lovely to be in a warm 22 deg after the cold in the Adelaide Hills. For all that I personally don't regret the colder places we have been as they have had a different beauty & it's all a new experience, but I know Stu wouldn't agree as he has hated the cold weather. We are heading towards Port Augusta, & Port Germaine, two of many ports along this stretch of coast but we bypass them all, as we deviate off to Wilpena Pound. The scenery changes a little & the mountains become lumpy & the plains are covered in blue salt bush & mallee scrub. Following a small gauge railway line we soon realise it is the Pichi Richi heritage steam train line which takes tourists from Port Augusta to Quorn & back again, a full days trip. We soon arrive at Quorn itself, a very old town which I imagine relies mostly on tourists. It is very small but in Aussie tradition has 3 beautiful old pubs & was obviously a very busy place in the late 1800's. At this time of year it is very quiet, but at least it had a supermarket so we could stock up the pantry again. Next town was Hawker, similarly to Quorn had seen better days. Australia definitely makes the most of it's heritage which is good to see. It's pretty hard for these small towns to renovate the old buildings these days as so many of the farms have been abandoned after the long years of drought, so obviously the population has diminished somewhat. As I have said before in a previous blog, I have been looking for a ruin of some old building to photograph with a future painting in mind, & my dreams have come true tenfold. There are so many old stone homesteads abandoned en route, so not closer enough to snap. But finally we come to Kanyaka Station. The name is derived from an aboriginal word meaning 'place of stone'. In the late 1800's this was a beautiful, prosperous sheep & cattle station of 101 sqare miles with plenty of water for stock & copious amounts of pasture on the surrounding hills. The homestead was the home for the manager, his family & servants. It had 5 or 6 bedrooms, parlour, dining room, offices, kitchens, cool sores & cellars, surgery & laundry, not to mention the stables, woolshed, mens quarters, & other buildings for the blacksmith & carpenter, & stockyards, all necessary in the running of such a large station. It was surrounded by a stone wall to keep out the stock, & paddocks were also divided by dry stone walls as that material was so available in the area & more readily available than fence posts & wire. In the 1860's sheep numbered 41,000 before the droughts of that period & 10,000 after wards. The government of the day proceeded with a policy of subdivision into wheat farms & Kanyaka Station was whittled down to 18,000 acres, not enough for a viable pastoral enterprise. Sadly the whole thing was abandoned & over 100yrs later has parts of all it's buildings standing. I couldn't help visuallising the way it must have looked - what a sad end to so much hard labour. Many photos were taken & I'm sure one day a painting will be attempted if I haven't forgotten how to hold a brush by then!
Finally we arrive at Wilpena Pound a place we have heard much about. It is the best known feature of the Flinders & is an outstanding natural phenomenon. The oval bowl is 16km long & 10km wide surrounded by a 35km rim of steep quartzite cliffs which face outward. The landscape is wild & the rocky walls change colour during the day (provided you get sunshine). The floor of the pound if covered with eucalypts & native pines plus other varieties of trees I can't name, Apparently in season there are many wild flowers & we did manage to see some tiny grevillias & others which are unknown to me. The wildlife are rock wallaby's, wallaroos, (or euros as they call them) kangaroos & emus. There is also a rare yellow footed rock wallaby which I was hoping to spy, but weren't successful. We did see banded parrots, kookaburras, lots of little wrens, apostle birds, & too many crows with their horrible, horrible squawking. The crows & roos get into anything left around the camp in the way of rubbish & though most people were sensible in this respect, there were a few who obviously didn't heed the warnings . The entry into the pound itself is through a small opening by a super large rock aptly named sliding rock as it looks just like a large childrens playground slide. The camp & resort actually outside the pound itself, & all the hikes start from that point. Next morning we did a short walk of 6kms out to some lookouts & another abandoned small homestead site within the pound. The view from the lookouts gave us a better perspective of the pound itself. In the afternoon we took a bike ride, but no trails for mountain biking really. At 5pm Stu suddenly decided there might be a sunset, so we headed off by car for a particular lookout we had been told was 'the place'. At first we thought we were going to be disappointed but patience is a virtue & it gradually took on the most fantastic glow. (See Stu's best ) That same night I heard a morepork & thought I was back home.
The following day we undertook a hike/climb to St Mary's Peak, the highest point of the Pound, & the tallest mountain in the range. Falls of snow have been recorded on the peaks surrounding the Pound & I can quite believe it. We left on a windyish, cloudy morning at 9,15am through a delightful section of the bush, had morning tea on a large rock slab, then started the climb upwards. Naturally it went higher & higher, soon becoming a rock climb rather than a hike. She who is not fond of heights decided not to look down, determined to reach the top. We knew there were others who had left about 15 minutes before us, & soon we caught up to them (a group of 3 young women) at almost what we thought was the top . Meantime the weather was closing in, becoming much colder & windier, though we were quite warm enough with all the exertion. Having reach the saddle, we took photos before it was too late, & we then had to walk along quite near the edge according to the arrows,. But I was having none of that so found my own trail further back & a bit safer. The markers were really not very good by that time, but we eventually found the track to continue upwards to the actual peak which by that time was totally covered in mist & cloud. I've heard of the saying 'having your head in the clouds'. Well we really did - an amazing feeling. Felt like using Sir Edmund Hillary's words - 'We knocked the .......... off'. Anyway, having attained our goal, no view to capture by now, we decided to do the loop & not continue back down the rock climb. This meant an extra 6kms, but we knew it would be down, then flat. Weatherwise it was a bad decision, as it got windier & colder, so having started the day in lightish clothing, we then donned our warmies, including rain jackets t& hoods to keep out the wind. We had lunch on a very low, flat rock surrounded by bushes to stay warm, then trudged on along the very rocky underfoot track. It really was pretty boring & became a bit muddy before the end as we had rain the night before, but we enjoyed the challenge & after 22.5kms, were back by 3.30pm, 6.25hrs after we began. As the time allowed was 9 hours we felt very proud of our efforts, & I have to say that other than the Tongariro Walk back in NZ, it is the hardest I have ever done. Nice to get back to a hot shower & a good old cuppa & no sore muscles next day.
Rough night, very windy & wet, & still raining next morning . We were to have done a 4WD tag-along tour, which means we join an experienced 4WD driver with his paying tourist passengers, & follow him on a route we would be unable to undertake ourselves, over some of the high ridges & onto a private cattle station. Because of the weather it was naturally cancelled - not safe, so we decided to hit the road again rather than sit inside the van all day doing something like reading!. Far too boring! Also disaster had hit, in that our prepaid broadband thing-a-ma-jig was not functioning, so needed to find a Telstrar shop in Port Augusta. The weather brightened in patches along the way, & I saw a lovely rainbow of the mountains which I would have loved to capture with the camera but couldn't stop. We also missed going to some aboriginal rock carvings because it was too wet. The big grey clouds seem so low as we drive over these flat plains, something I have never experienced before. There a more caravans on the road today than we have previously seen, so we really are beginning to feel we are on the Grey Nomad Trail.
One of the similarities between here & home is the road kill on the roads - here it is kangaroos or even emus which I find much sadder than seeing possums. Saw 100's of Corella's in a flock in a paddock, which are similar but smaller than a cockatoo but without the crest. Another thing we keep encountering is a very large road side sign which says 'STOP CREEPING'. We have no idea what it means but did hear some other vanners talking on their CB's & one of them thought it was to remind you to check your speed???
On arriving at Port Augusta & the Telstra shop, we were told they couldn't check our broadband thing as they were only a sales outlet, so we had to drive another hour to Whyalla further up the coast. We had by then parked the van in the caravan park, & luckily had the problem solved in Whyalla. This port is the home of the iron ore smelter & not very exciting, but on the drive there I couldn't help noticing the colours on the plains, like a tapestry of gold, blue greens & dark green of small mounded bushes. Tomorrow we set off towards Coober Pedy, the Opal City, with a nights stopover in a freebie along the way.
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