Cath Ellis

When the alarm went off this morning, Tanja got up and I swiftly turned off the light and tried to get a few more minutes sleep. I slept well last night, maybe a bit too well…I didn’t want to get out of my comfy bed.

I finally dragged myself out of bed and the three of us got ready for our walk. We all decided that we wanted to stay another night out here at the Flinders Ranges, especially since the accommodation was so good and I went to reception to pay and to find out the best walks to do.

The man behind reception recommended for us to do the ‘Bridle Gap Hike’ which was 6 hours (18.8km return) and said on the brochure ‘Observe wildlife through the floor of Wilpena Pound’.

We set off on our walk and it was pretty much flat all the way to the Bridle Gap (a view overlooking the Ranges), the last part was a bit of a steep incline, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Half way through the Pound we stopped at the Halls Homestead. This was an old house which accommodated a family from about 1888, who used to keep sheep in the Pound. We took a small detour at this place and went to see the Wangarra Lookouts.

We saw loads of Wallabies, Kangaroos, some Emu’s, Goats, Parrots (who I shouted “Give us a kiss”, and went totally bananas) and Lizards. The Wallabies were everywhere, some shy, some not…our best find was a Kangaroo with a Joey in her pouch…that made our day.

After the walk I decided to head back for a show…Tanja and Matthias decided to do another quick hike called the “Mount Ohlssen Bagge Hike”, I think they were exhausted when they were done.

I wolk up this morning about 8am…the lights went on next door to our underground dungeon and we were all wolken up. I didn’t sleep well last night, the mattresses were unfortunately not mattresses, more like slabs of filling that normal people like us would use to stuff pillows…nice hey!

I was glad that our room didn’t get cold at night…it seems that these underground rooms stay the same temperature during the day and night.

The three of us got our gear together and we packed up the car…we left Coober Pedy at about 9:30am. We started to drive south and our destination was Port Augusta. The road all the way to PA changed from desert to luscious shrubbery.

We arrived at Port Augusta at about 3pm and headed straight to the Visitor’s Center. We were informed that the backpackers (which we had been searching for, for the last half an hour) had closed down and the only two other options was a place called the Flinders Hotel with no cooking facilities for $20 (which looked a total dump) and a place with cooking facilities for $35 (Extortion!). Another piece of information that was incorrect in the Australian Lonely Planet…it seems a lot of it is.

After a short debate we decided it was still early enough for us to drive up to Wilpena Pound Resort (a small resort at the southern end of Flinders Ranges National Park). We got back on the Highway and we arrived at Wilpena at 5pm. We were delighted to find that the dorms were not really dorms, but hotel rooms…along with comfy beds (no bunks), private bathroom, fridge and TV…it was like heaven.

We just sat and watched a DVD and relaxed.