Flinders Ranges-3

After leaving the airstrip, we headed to Wilpena Gap, the only practicable route between inside and outside the Pound. This is one reason why the Pound was considered good stock country- only one means of entrance and exit had to be patrolled. There is a visitor centre there.

The local trees are mainly redgums. They seem to have a fantastic capacity for regeneration, even when they are so rotten as to be completely hollow. Gums anyway shed limbs naturally with great ease- the advice is not to go to sleep in the shade of a gum.

The upper branches are usually very pretty.

We headed off along the tourist track into the Pound

Seeing numerous kangaroos, this family of emus

and this rather antediluvian-looking lizard.

After a climb that was rather knackering in the temperature (by now 38 Celsius) we got to the top of a low hill with this panoramic view over the inside of the Pound.

We next got back in the bus and headed North to the Bunyaroo and Brachina gorges through the Heysen mountains. This is looking down into the Bunyaroo gorge. The road we followed to get down can just be seen in the distance.

Many examples of extreme folding of strata, leading to nearly vertical rock bands on the hills, can be seen once on the bottom of the gorge. This is the effect of the crustal upthrust mentioned in the last posting.

The strata here are more horizontal. The changes in conditions of the sea that laid these strata results in alternate hard and soft bands that weather into what looks like ornamental brickwork.

We followed into the Brachina Gorge. There was the occasional heat-dazed kangaroo,

But what we were after was the yellow-footed rock wallaby. They had too much sense to be out under these conditions! So the nearest we got was this rather amateurish sculpture at Quorn.


Outside the Brachina Gorge, we debouched into a stretch of much less lush outback country. This still doesn't qualify as "desert".

We made it onto the tarmaced road north to Parachilna. What is it about a pub sign that makes thirsty people stop the bus, get out and photograph it, instead of doing what it says and rushing on to the pub? This place is famous as a bush-tucker restaurant and I'm told that people will drive up from Adelaide purely to eat there, difficult though this is to believe. We didn't sample the kangaroo and emu steaks, etc. The female members of the party had the bush-fruit ice creams while we others satisfied ourselves with Fargher Lager, which has rather more body than Fosters.

Readers will be relieved to know that we turned back at this point and didn't go to the next gorge north, intriguingly known as Mount Buggery Gorge.

Even with the above refreshment, the pool back at Rawnsley was very welcome.