Up early again so we could drive to the Wilpena Pound Information centre to catch the first shuttle bus up through the trees towards the Hills homestead in the shadow of the Pound. The Pound is a vast plateau within a circular range of hills that was first turned into pasture and then wheat until it ultimately failed in the early 1920's. After the bus dropped us off we still had a 1k walk through the woods,across waterlogged areas to the original homestead which never had a usable road. A further walk up to the top of the hills gave us a wonderful view of the whole pound now completely reforested. After a coffee and custard tart at the centre we drove back to the main road where just on our left stands one of Australia's most famous trees,The Cazneaux Tree.Photographed in 1937 to great acclaim.
Next up was a drive along some more unsealed roads to Arkaroo rock,600m up on mountain side . On the way we saw more emus and kangaroos. The rock contains some very old aboriginal paintings detailing the local dreamtime story with an obvious picture of a giant snake meant to represent the hill around the Wilpena pound. It was a fairly steep but rewarding hike through the bush to get there. Our last trip was down Sacred Canyon road to the Sacred Canyon,a site of interest due to its aboriginal rock carvings. We had to scramble over rocks to reach the site as the recent rain had caused the river to start to run slightly. Another tourist said he'd never seen water in the canyon before. The carvings were not as impressive as the paintings we had seen earlier but the drive through the trees with the kangaroos starting to become active was lovely. As the sun started to set the ranges turned a lovely red colour as did the sky. As we walked to the restaurant the stars shone brilliantly. The lack of cloud cover also meant that the temperature dropped and we were glad that the restaurant had a log fire. The Australian winter is on its way!