Kerry and Bens Travels: Sat 4th – Sun 5th – Flinders Ranges and Wilpena Pound

Fueled up in Port Augusta, we’d been warned not to stop too long there… and kept going up to the Flinders, stopped on the way to check out some aboriginal cave paintings…we didn’t realise how long the walk was from the car park and it was a 37 day but we made it and Benny enjoyed a beer when we got back to the car ;) Kept going and got to Mena Mora Station…. That offers accommodation and 4WD tracks, it was too late to start a track but as a treat we’d booked into one of their rooms with air con…very old air con but it did the trick, that was until early morning when the power went out!! Also enjoyed a shower, the first real one for just under 2 weeks!!!! In the morning we bought a map for the 4WD and a key for the gates and set off… I’m balming this partly on Benny cos he bought the map as I was packing up so didn’t ask questions about scale etc (theres a photo of the map below….) So we set off and I was the “navigator”… how I was meant to navigate with a squiqly line and some numbers on it I have NO idea so, yes, we got lost and ended up making up where we thought the start of the track should be, we did end up on a 4WD track that took us along a fence line and was pretty steep, as some points I did forget to breathe! We figured this was not the right track as there were no locked gates for a start… we made it back to the main ‘road’ and started again, this time Benny drove a bit slower and we both looked a bit harded and managed to find the real track J It was fun, not as steep as the one we’d found but the numbers on the map were ‘points of interest’ along the way so we learnt something…

After the 4WD adventures we took the key back to the station and explored the Flinders Ranges National Park, checking out some of the gorges and history… I wanted to camp at Wilpena Pound cos my Mum and Dad had done the same thing 30years ago!! After we checked in at reception the receptionist kindly said “feel free to make use of the pool” My eyes lit up (it was another HOT day) and said “theres a pool??!!!” I was straight in and it did the trick of cooling me off J Benny just dipped his feet in, the wuss ;) Back at camp we did dinner and Benny evesdropped on the drama… a sweedish tourist knocking on the Rangers cabin door yelling “theres a kangaroo and its eating all our food, I’ve pushed him but he’s not moving, you’re supposed to get rid of them!!” we thought this was hilarious….until one of them came near us, they’re pretty viscous!! I was on the phone to home and Dad was telling me to tickle it under its chin, which resulted in a scratched arm, and Mum was telling me to move away cos they use their arms to split the front of your body open!!! Wish I’d listened to Mum first ;)

That night was strange temperature, it was boiling when we went to bed, so hot I had to get up and just try and find some breeze to cool down and then at about 4am the wind picked up and was icy, it was freezing!! After a sleep-in we grabbed some hiking maps and set off up the highest/steepest peak to see Wilpena Pound from the top…. It was pretty hard work!!! Benny wore shoes on the way up (cos he had something in his toe he couldn’t get out) messed around with the tweezers at the top, got the spike out and so came all the way back down (very rocky terrain!) with bare feet!! Enjoyed a shower and kept going…