We also passed Simmonston ruins. An information board told of the story of
this town that never was. Apparently, on
the prospect that the all important rail line was to pass directly through this
area, Simmonston was created. A two
story pub, a general store and two dwellings were erected before news came that
the line was to run further east, not through Simmonston at all. The town was dead before it had even
started. How disheartening!
The story of heartbreak and hardship is littered all
throughout this country. Many pioneers,
pastoralist and farmers strove to make a living in this semi-arid, harsh
country. After being surveyed and
explored in the mid 1800’s, there had been unusually high levels of rainfall in
the area, therefore an abundance of grass and plant life. A large number of settlers ventured into the
country, taking up leases and building infrastructure. After a couple more years of these bumper
seasons, the country returned to its normal levels of rainfall and its hard,
desert-like land. The grazing and
pastoral leases were over-run, and eventually failed. Many people simply walked off the land with
stories of heartbreak and loss.
We drove to Hawker and into the Flinders Ranges National
Park. For all the ranges and hills prior
to this, the Flinders proper loomed large and impressive as you drive in.
Wilpena Pound is National Park and tourist central, with a
campground, resort accommodation, bar, restaurant and even a pool. We booked a site, not too disgusted with the
$22 a night we had to pay (we’d seen MUCH worst elsewhere..... let’s not get the rant started!). We set up, had a shower and then lashed out
on a meal at the bistro.
The meal here was surprisingly fantastic. It was not too over-priced and the quality
was quite impressive. The kids had their
normal kids fare, whilst we enjoyed a chicken schnitzel... yummo. Amy’s only criticism was the frozen vegies
that had been steamed, but not enough given some of them were still cold. The whole park was pretty quiet, so obviously
off-peak and we wondered if in peak times they had a regular supply of fresh
vegies. Anyway, only a small blip on an
otherwise lovely meal. We topped it off
with desert, jelly for the girls, quangdong crumble for us. Deeeeeelicious.
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| Wilpena Camp ground |
After walking back to our camper that night, some big ominous
clouds started to roll in. By the time
we had the girls in bed, some deep rumbling thunder had started (which wasn’t
just from the dinner). It all built up
pretty quickly and we sat under our awning watching a huge lightening
display. Amy commented on how many of
the lightning strikes lit up the campground like it was daytime!
The lightning and thunder were quickly followed by some
dumping rain. It bucketed down. Glenn was madly trying to get some computer
banking done, much to Amy’s distress.
“Do you think you should be doing that with all this lightening??” “Well, probably not, but we’ll run out of
money if we don’t!”. Probably a little
melodramatic, but the jobs got done.
We quickly finished packing up and shot off into bed early to
listen to the show. It was full on, but
we were happy we were off the ground in our camper. We settled back into bed and watched a DVD on
our portable DVD player. Actually, after
only watching about 3 movies in the first 6.5 months of our trip, lately we
have kicked into nearly one a night.
It’s become quite a nice ritual.
The two of us have never seen so many movies in all our lives. We MUST be relaxed!
The rain eventually eased and we drifted off to sleep. In the morning, reasonably early, Glenn got a
call on his mobile. It was our friend
Gabby. “There’s a huge storm coming your
way, maybe you shouldn’t be under trees, or should get indoors!!”. “Errr... wow, really, when’s it
coming??”. “It should be there pretty
much now”. At this stage, Glenn was
thinking, ‘how fast can we pack up the camper and get to a unit accommodation?’
So Gab looked up the BOM site. “Hmmmm.. umm, I can’t see it there, let me
check when all this was posted on Facebook.......”.
“We did have a big storm last night, is that what you’re
talking about?”.
Gab, “Oh, the postings were from last night!!....... are you ok?
Did you survive?”
It was great to have concerned friends looking out for
us. Pity it was SO LATE!!! J Funny.
Lucky we didn’t get the call the night before, we probably would have
packed up and booked into a unit.
Anyway, we survived the Mega Storm!
We wanted to go for a walk into Wilpena Pound. Glenn had been through this area probably a
half dozen times, but had never done any of the walks. The morning was still pretty drizzly, so we
decided to stay an extra day, do the walk tomorrow, and go for a drive today.
We found the Moralana scenic drive which goes along the
southern edge of the Flinders. Driving
along some little ridges looking up at these magnificent ranges was well worth
the trip. It was a pity that things were
so grey and overcast, but still, the mountains stood out and looked as rugged
as ever. We really enjoyed this little
excursion.
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| Along the Morolana scenic drive |
The next day was sunny and blue skies, so we trekked off to
do the pound walk. We cheated a little
(having the two girls to think about) and took the shuttle bus the 2.5kms into
the walk to make things easier. We
walked up to the homestead, and then up the 800metre climb to the lookout.
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| The kids would have been happy with just the five minute shuttle bus ride |
From the top, you can really see the ‘bowl’ that the
surrounding range makes to form the natural pound. It was a big area and you can see why it was
used by early settlers to contain their livestock.
 |
| At the top lookout at Wilpena Pound |
Back down at the homestead, they had some great information
boards, telling stories of the families that had lived there. Needless to say, there was significant
hardship, troubles and heartbreak. Many
people worked their guts out here, many died, and lost their loved ones. One interesting point was talking about how
the early settlers were taxed on their lease based on what level the Government
‘thought’ they should be able to stock the land. These figures were grossly overestimated. Within a 15 year period, the overstocking had
destroyed the countryside and ability to keep grazing.
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| Old Wilpena Homestead |
When we got back to the campground, around lunchtime, we had
decided that we would pack up and move to a bush camp further up into the
National Park. Unfortunately we forgot
to tell Savannah about this plan. She
was “not happy!”. She become very upset,
saying that she didn’t want to move on, she liked it here, and they hadn’t even
swam in the pool yet!!!. This was
heart-wrenching stuff. Savannah was well
known for wanting to stay in nearly every place we stop at, even roadside
stops. She’s a home body and likes where
she IS. This was a little different
though, she REALLY meant it, and it took some convincing to talk her back from
the edge. We both nearly caved, she was
so heartbroken. It was awful. We were later to be validated (as we knew)
when she absolutely LOVED our new spot.
Mental note: remember to set expectations on what we are doing early, a
rare slip up this time!
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