Flinders Ranges National Park
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2007
1
185
326
Trip End
May 13, 2009
Flinders Ranges National Park,
South Australia,
Australia
Monday, September 1, 2008
Flinders Ranges National Park was a fair old drive from Handcocks lookout. It was a very long but very green and beautiful drive if the weather was any good.
We arived in in the early afternoon and cruised up to the visitors centre for a dose of bad fortune. The roads are all closed in the park and all along the route we plan to take, the trecking is not good at the moment and all is bad! OTHER THAN THE FACT in a day or 2 the sun should be out and everything open and good again. So we went back to the van, back to a free campsite just out of the part to avoid paing the national park fees and sulked, for many hours as it was still 4 hours before dark - it was horrible, just sitting there in the rain.
Wilpena Pound
just to cap it off, for the 2nd time today Fabrice managed to leave the lights of the van on (oops). Low and behold when we want to listen to some music to cheer us up eveything is dead! So he heads up to the road and flags down a few vehicles, the one that pulled over was 4 old guys coming from a weading in a really nice BMW. We got them to drive down to the dodgy park we were sleeping in, to our dodgy van in their suits and jump start our car. They were worried about it blowing their computers chip but it all went smoothly and they were really good people to help us out in our hour of need.
So we slept - try and get rid of this shitty, shitty day - I hope tomorrow will bring better news.
1/9/08
GOOD NEWS!
Great weather today, all roads open all is great!
So we headed out for a mamouth treck, I managed to peusuade Fabrice to do an8 hour treck instead of a 4 hour number he had lined up
1-Wilpena Pound
. The views were amazing of the Wilpena Pound which is basically a massive mountain formation which is one of the oldest in the world - it is almost like a huge crater in the middle and looks great from the uppermost point of the treck. It is great to get ouside and walk, climbing over some seriously steep points. Fabrice struggled for energy at points in his full on trecking gear while I jumped over the rocks in my battered $10 S American shoes and jeans - it was great.We got up in 2 hours and down in 4 in a big circuit and on the wad down it was pretty boring but we got to get really close to Wallabies - rare yelow tail ones and the standard ones. They were really not bothered by our presance as you can see by the photos - it was very cool!
The walk had amazing weather, it was very windy on top but the sun has lifted my spirits and my illness and so I feel great - having a great shower (illegfally) iun the campsite after was wonderful as well, so much so we went back to our free campsite (without shower) and then drove back for another shower in the morning, we filled up with water to prepare us for the outback and headded off, from the lush green of the Flinders to the hot dry arid outback!
