DAY 12 WILPENA-ARKAROOLA

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As promised, it was an early departure. Headed to the Arkaroola dirt turn-off just before Blinman and headed out on the 60 odd kms for Chambers Gorge. The dirt road throughout the day was reasonably smooth, windy and with many dips, but extremely enjoyable to drive. We encountered many wild goats, emus, birdlife, sheep and station homesteads.

Mount Chambers or Wadna Yaldha dominated the landscape. It has a round mesa sitting on top of the range like a giant flat pimple. The Indigenous people say it sits like a wise old man, keeping a close watch over country … a country alive with ancestors and dreaming spirits. A spiritual place. The signs explain how this is an engraving site and give lots of interesting detail on how to interpret the meaning of these engravings. Most of the symbols were referring to initiation ceremonies.The Adnyamathanha people have a creation story explaining how Wadna Yaldha came to be. A purple-backed wren threw a boomerang at the northern end of the mountain, creating a fracture. He wasn’t satisfied, so he threw it again. This time the boomerang cut a chasm through the mountain, circled back and formed a knob at the top of the mountain.

We drove slowly along a dry riverbed, parked, had a coffee, prepared ourselves and walked the gorge for approximately 3km return.

Onto our next destination, Arkaroola, a privately owned 610 sq km wilderness sanctuary at the far northern tip of the Flinders Ranges. It features rugged mountains, soaring granite peaks, deep gorges and waterholes. This area is more to our liking than the Wilpena area.

After setting up camp, Jane prepared a better than restaurant dinner of chicken curry with vegetables. It goes without saying that all her meals are better than restaurant meals. While we enjoyed a wine, we marvelled at the magnificent scenery of granite peaks before us and the reddish orange sunset behind us.

As another couple from Victoria had set up camp in an Ultimate camper such as ours, we made our way across to them with our coffees, homemade fruit cake to share, chairs and sat around a warming fire sharing outback routes and our lives in general.

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