Outback excursion
Our family rarely comes to an agreement easily, whether we are talking about what to have for dinner or the name for our new dog. Once we realized that a trip to Uluru would have been a massive effort and cost, we actually agreed to make a visit this lesser known Outback icon – Wilpena Pound. This mountain features is in the Flinders Ranges which is roughly 5.5 hour’s drive from home for a glamping adventure. As you would imagine, there are limited towns and lodging options available, but we chose wisely to stay in the Ikara-Flinders National Park at “glamping” tents that included beds, power, and water.
It definitely was comfortable and gave us excellent proximity to the mountains since we were nestled into the national park. On our first day we took a private 4WD tour of Wilpena Pound, a 10 mile by 5 mile range.
The tour co-owner, Astrid, was an amazing and interesting guide, chatting us up about geology, history, flora and fauna and so much more. While 6 hours was a long time to be bumping along a lot of rough roads, it was an amazing tour through time. In fact one section was essentially a travel back in time due to the position of the deepest sedimentary layers (650 million years) to the more recent layers (450 million). Pretty incredible.
At the resort we enjoyed a welcome to country from Ringo, an Adnyamathanha aboriginal tribe member who led a traditional smoke ceremony (fire) and told us origin stories of the animals in the area; Baxter was captivated and even got a chance to hold up the tribal flag to learn about the symbolism for the flag and their tribe (the ‘Rock People’). We ventured out to a teeny tiny old timey ghost of a town, Blinman, to get a tour of the historic copper mine. After having lunch at the local pub, we had an excellent tour learning about how the local boys started mine work at age 14 (you should have seen Baxter’s eyes bulge at that!) and the harrowing life for the Cornish people whose families worked in the mine in groups for 40 years! We also visited the store/studio for a local aboriginal artist and enjoyed the gorgeous detail work on canvas, jewelry and more. The major highlight we all loved was the sky gazing we did after nightfall. The Milky Way was in view to the eye, as were a zillion unfamiliar other stars since the Southern Hemisphere has entirely different constellations than we have back home! It was vast, otherworldly, and breathtaking – we all enjoyed the views as well as telling some campfire stories.
We did a decent amount of hiking – to the top of Wilpena Pound to peer inside and the Alligator Gorge to hike through the dry creekbed along high red-rock walls called “the Narrows.” Jeremy got out to enjoy the sunrise and sunset every night, and even captured the infamous laughing Kookaburra sitting just outside the breakfast room at the resort. It was an amazing and rejuvenating trip to the mountains, to get a bit of the Outback, and enjoy a peek into the culture and history of this area. Two thumbs up! (Here are a set of some of Jeremy’s photos as well!)
