It was a cold start to the day, possibly the coldest of the entire trip with 5C showing on the thermometer when we rose. After a leisurely breakfast we headed off for a walk into Wilpena Pound and up to the top lookout.
The option of the shuttle bus down beside the creek to the start of the climb to the lookout was appealing, but we couldn’t be bothered waiting the hour for the next bus. The creek had little water in it, with only a trickle making its way downstream although there was plenty of debris to suggest it could be a raging torrent after heavy downpours.
The walk along the creek was easy enough – a flat, winding, well maintained path, ending at the original restored homestead. From that point on the track climbed up and up to the first lookout and then on to the top lookout further up the ridge.
The views of the “pound” were excellent from the top lookout, with more trees than we could remember from our initial visit 20 years ago. Seems the top lookout was not popular with many of the visitors as we had it to ourselves.
The return walk (downhill) was easier and we made the cafe in good time for a latte before lunch. Following lunch we drove north to a track that we may have attempted 20 years ago only to be stopped by a deep river crossing. We set off to see if we could retrace our tracks and find the river crossing again. We turned off the main northern road onto a track that warned of 30 kilometres of narrow, winding gravel road ahead.
We twisted and turned through areas covering by pine trees and up onto ridge tops with commanding views of the Flinders Ranges. We dropped down into gorges and eventually came upon the river crossing that had stopped us 20 years ago. Dry and dusty is all that can be said about the river crossing this time – no challenge at all!
We continued along the track and started spotting emus – 1 to the right, 2 – or was it 3 – on our left, then an entire family of 8 chicks and an adult directly in front of us on the road as we rounded a corner. They were happy enough while we kept our distance but took off as if starting in the Olympic 100 metre sprint as we got closer.
Emus are dumb. They have less road sense than a wedge-tailed eagle! They will run flat out in one direction, then turn and run flat out back where they came from. As a result, there are ever increasing numbers of dead ones lying beside the roads around here.
Fortunately we kept sufficient distance from them so any radical change of direction from the family group could be dealt with without incident. One family group did cross in front of us twice before heading off to join a larger mob of emus grazing to our left.
Our return journey became an endless game of ‘spot the emus’ (and 3 kangaroos) before retreating to the emu-free camp grounds at Wilpena Pound Resort. We’re booked in to the restaurant tonight before heading off to Broken Hill (and probably more emu spotting) tomorrow.