Day 18 - Wilpena Pound, SA to Peterborough, SA

We headed off to Peterborough today, leaving Wilpena Pound Resort early. 
We stopped at The Woolshed Restaurant at Rawnsley Station, not far from Wilpena Pound, for a bite to eat.  Mum and I had a lemon delicious pudding for breakfast, very healthy haha! It was absolutely delicious too!

We continued on to Hawker, SA.  It was a small nothing sort of town but quite nice and pleasant.  We had lunch at a lovely little cafe - Sightseer's Cafe.  The two owners, husband and wife, seemed kind of sour when we first arrived but looks can be deceiving!  They were really friendly and funny.  They were quite the characters actually hehe :-)
We tried another Quandong Pie which was tasty as well.  The Wild Lime Cafe one in Blinman is still the best though!

Just out of Hawker, there was some aboriginal cave paintings which we decided to have a look at.  There were three caves we could have seen but we only had time to see one of them.  It was a bit of a hike to reach the first cave and then you had to climb these ladders to reach the cave in the cliff.  It was quite high up and Dad (who has a fear of heights) was completely scared climbing the ladders haha! He managed it though :-)  I wasn't too helpful to him, I was too busy laughing!

You can hardly see the cars in the distance!

 After the caves we continued on to Carrieton (going along R.M. Williams Way!).  Dad wanted to see the mosaic mural on the public toilet wall!  The mural is made up of 900 painted squares and it actually was quite cool (even though it was on the public toilet wall - at least it was on the outside ;-)).

We did a detour to see Johnburg, an almost deserted town.  There are only two people living in Johnburg and all the other buildings are in ruins.  It was quite interesting to look at and we stopped at a few different ruins to have a closer look.

We continued on to Orroroo.  We went to have a look at the 500 year old red gum tree that has a circumference of 10m!  It was massive.

Afterwards we headed to the local pub and had a drink.

We were originally planning to stay in Orroroo but couldn't find any suitable accommodation, so we pushed on to Peterborough.
Before leaving Orroroo we went to Magnetic Hill.  An optical illusion where, at the bottom of the hill, you put your car in neutral and it appears to roll back up the hill!  It was very cool.  We did it a few times.

Rolling towards the giant magnet

We finally arrived in Peterborough, just in time to go to the Steamtown Sound and Light Show.  Peterborough used to be the hub of the railway in the steam train era.  We sat in an old railway car and watched a documentary on Peterborough and the steam train era that was projected onto a screen outside.  It wasn't at all what I expected but I really enjoyed it.  It is sad to see how much work and effort people put in creating these railways and then they are just ripped up and forgotten.  I definitely recommend the sound and light show, if anything it gives you a very interesting history of the town and trains.

Next stop tomorrow, Clare, SA!
  

Day 17 - Wilpena Pound, SA

We had an early start today, trying to fit in a few walks.  The main walk we wanted to do took you into the actual pound.  A pound is a range of mountains that create an area that is almost like a basin.  There is usually no entrance or exit and the only way into a pound is by scaling the rocky cliffs.  At Wilpena Pound though, there is an entrance along a creek that leads into a pound.

Wilpena Pound

 James and I headed out to the pound while Mum and Dad caught a shuttle bus to the start of the pound that cut off about 30 minutes of the 3 hour return walk. 

We caught up to Mum and Dad at the shuttle bus drop off and headed into Wilpena Pound.  The walk was really pleasant, we stopped at the old Hills Homestead and read the story of the Hills family and the hard life they had farming in Wilpena Pound. 
Afterwards we all headed to the Wangara Lookout, a lookout up one near the top of one of the surround mountains/hills.  we stopped at the halfway point lookout and left Mum and Dad there while James and I continued on (Mum still isn't over her cold).

The trek to the top lookout was quite hard. It was very steep, rocky and quite tiring.  It took awhile to get there. 

Finally James and I made it to the top and posed for a picture before heading back down. We ran into Mum and Dad on the way down who had decided that they wanted to get to the lookout too. 

We headed back to our room and had a quick rest before decided to visit Sacred Canyon to see some aboriginal carvings.

This little guy came over to say hi while we were heading back to our room :-)

We had to drive to the Sacred Canyon because it was a little out of Wilpena.  We stopped for lunch on the side of the road and cooked up some tin spaghetti.
We continued on to the Sacred Canyon.  We had to walk for a bit through a creekbed.  The canyon was pretty however the cravings were a little underwhelming.  Well the first set were. 

 
We continued walking and had to do a bit of rock climbing which was really fun! We found a wall of carvings, very interesting to study. 

Isn't the canyon stunning?  I really enjoyed climbing over all the boulders to get to the carvings, it was quite challenging to climb one handed and not drop the camera! But I managed well :-P
On the way back to Wilpena, we stopped an old tree.  This tree was captured on camera about 100 years ago.  Since then everyone tries to re-create the old photograph.   There is a plaque there describing the original photographer and why he took the photo of the tree.

Overall today was really interesting and fun. 
Next stop tomorrow, Peterborough, SA!

Day 16 - Blinman, SA to Wilpena Pound, SA

We packed up and were ready to leave Blinman early.  Just before leaving, James and Dad checked the water in the cars and James found a leak in the radiator hose. 
They spent about an hour fixing the leak but finally they fixed it and we were able to leave the old police house accommodation. 

First stop of the day was to the Blinman General Store.  It was a tiny store with a small stock of food supplies.  We bought some souvenirs then headed next door to the Wild Lime Cafe and Gallery.
We all decided to try a Quandong Pie which we had seen advertised everywhere throughout the desert.  A Quandong is an Australian native fruit.  It is known as the wild desert peach.  Anyway the pie was absolutely delicious! It tasted a bit like an apple pie but not quite as sweet.  It was one of the nicest pies I've had in a long time!
At the Wild Lime Cafe and Gallery Mum and James also bought a aboriginal painting each.  They display artwork from aboriginal painters across Australia.  It was quite interesting to have a look at all the different paintings in the gallery.

After filling our stomachs, we started heading towards Wilpena Pound.  We stopped not far from Blinman to do a geocache at a viewing area for the 'Great Wall of China'.  It is a formation of rocks along the top of a mountain that looks like a giant wall.  It was quite impressive.

We decided to take the scenic route to Wilpena Pound through Bunyeroo Gorge on a tiny little twisty dirt road.  The drive took us through a lot of different areas.  We went up and down valleys and even drove along a creek bed.

We stopped for lunch (and a pee break!) at Bunyeroo Lookout. It was a stunning place to eat our cheese and biscuits hehe.

We had a visitor come and clean up after us :-)

After driving a bit longer, we finally arrived at Wilpena Pound.  We were originally going to camp but we got a good deal for one of the resort rooms so we took that instead :-)

We had a look at the souvenir shop where Dad bought a new hat because his looks a bit stupid on him ;-)  and then we went to the Poddy Dodgers Bar and had a drink followed by dinner.  Mum and I decided to try a quandong crumble with lemon myrtle ice-cream which was very tasty although not quite as good as the Wild Lime Cafe one in Blinman.
We are staying another night in Wilpena and tomorrow we are going to go on one of the many walks around the area.