Tuesday 1st November
From Port Augusta we headed north east through Quorn again, and continued on to Rawnsley Park Station in the Flinders Ranges. Rawnsley Park Station is a working sheep station that also runs a caravan park and several tourist lodges. It is nestled on the southern flanks of Wilpena Pound which is the main tourist attraction for the Flinders Range area.
On the way up from Port Augusta we passed the ruins of several old farm houses, just the stone walls left standing, as testament to the hard days of the early settlers. At one spot we could see quite a cluster of these stone ruins about 200 meters away from the road. We then came across a sign indicating it was the ruins of the Kanyaka Station homestead and outbuildings.
We drove down for a look and spent some time wandering amongst the ruins. It was absolutely fascinating to see the amount of hard work that the early settlers had to go to in order to build a home and set up the station.
An information board stated that at its peak in the 1850s, over 70 people were employed at the station. The station occupied over 365 square miles, and ran over 40,000 sheep. A succession of droughts in the 1880s finally wiped it out.
From there we drove on through the small town of Hawker and then on up to Rawnsley Park Station. The whole way from Quorn to Hawker, and for some distance beyond, was as flat as a pancake with ranges of hills all around. It was like driving across the bed of a huge ancient, dried up lake.
The caravan park at Rawnsley Station is about 4 kilometres in from the main road, and as we arrived at the entrance we came across an Emu family of mum, dad, and six half grown chicks. We managed to get a couple of quick photos as they took off into the scrub.
Shortly after we set up camp, Cameron went for a walk with his camera and came back with the news he had come across another bunch of 8 Emus.
After lunch we decided to have a walk along one of the many walking tracks the station had to offer. We chose a 2 hour one, which took us in a big loop, up onto a low range of hills running alongside the caravan park. On the way we came across another couple of bunches of Emus. From the top we had great views across to the southern flanks of Wilpena Pound. For the first day in a long time, there is no wind, a beautiful blue sky, and temperatures in the mid to high 20s.
After we got back from our walk we all took a lovely refreshing dip in the park’s pool, before settling back with a cold beer. Besides the Emus, there is a huge amount of bird life around here. Hundreds of galahs, as well as beautifully coloured ring necked parrots, and corellas, just to name a few. It’s great to watch them flying around displaying all their colours.
Just on sunset, we took another short walk to watch the sun set against the ranges around Wilpena Pound. It wasn’t very impressive, but we did see 5 Euro’s (kind of kangaroo), watching us through the trees and long grass. They were pretty timid and didn’t allow us to get much closer than about 50 meters, before they quickly bounded off. Besides the Euros, there are apparently also Red and grey kangaroos about.
Tomorrow we will take a fairly long drive, first of all to Wilpena Pound, and then further north to view some gorges and whatever else we come across.
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