Rawnsley Park Station, Wilpena Pound & Blinman

On Monday the 17th April, we left Hawker to head for Rawnsley Park Station in the heart of the Flinders Ranges. There was no rush as we could not check in to the van park till 11am and we only had about 35km to drive. So we had a relaxed drive and stopped off on the way to snap a photo of the some beautiful ranges.

Rawnsley Station sits at the base of Rawnsley Bluff. This bluff forms the southern part of Wilpena Pound. The Station is beautifully situated with Rawnsley Bluff on its northern edge, The Chase Range on its eastern side and The Elder Range on its southern side. The whole place, here at Rawnsley Park, Wilpena Pound, up to Blinman, Arkaroola and through Bunyeroo Valley and Branchina Gorge is just spectacular. It is right up there as one of my top three places in Australia. It is that good and I hope to demonstrate to you in this post why that is so. We walked through the door of the Rawnsley Park Office about 10:58am. We did not waist anytime setting up and having a bite of lunch. This is where we were situated.

Because we could not arrive till 11am and then set up there was limited activities we could do in terms of major walks and drives so it was a perfect opportunity to relax for the afternoon and have a camp oven cook. So that is exactly what we did. We had bought a 2 kilo piece of blade for the purpose. For keen readers of the blog this will sound very familiar with our stay on the Murray River at Cobram. We had a great camp oven cook there and did so here at Rawnsley. So Ross and I got the fire going and got into it, the camp oven cooking I mean. We did a roast.

Listen for the sizzling going on in the camp oven. It turned out wonderfully. Not perfect. The meat was on for three hours, but still moist, and the vegies for 1 hour and needed more caramelising. We could have done with the meat being on for 2.5 hours and the vegies for 1.5 hours. Sorry for indulging myself but those are notes for future reference. But if you are considering a similar cook I hope that helps. I failed to get some photos of the splendid results on our plates but the happy faces at the dinner table tells a story of a successful night and a successful cook.

I will now show two photos of our dining at our Cobram camp oven cook. We did not have power at Cobram so we were a bit deficient in the lighting department. That is OK and we were very happy but it shows there are a few advantages to having power when camping.

Compare that to our powered dining experience at Rawnsley.

As you may have read in the initial post in this blog I had two goals I wanted to achieve by returning to Wilpena Pound/Rawnsely Park Station. Firstly there was the St Marys Peak walk and secondly was the Rawnsley Bluff walk. So next morning, Tuesday the 18th April, I headed off to Wilpena Pound to do the St Marys Peak walk. There are two ways of walking/climbing to St Marys Peak. One is the inside track and the other is the outside track. The inside track is 21.5km return and the outside track is 14 km return. The inside track is a gentler walk and climb but much longer and the outside track is much shorter but a lot more strenuous in terms of climbing. When we did the walk/climb in 2015 we took the outside track option but had no idea how tough it was. I was with Linda, Jan & Ross and they were not able to get to the ‘Saddle’ before the final ascent to St Marys Peak. So on that occasion I went on ahead to the ‘Saddle’ and got some photos. Here is a photo to show how young and handsome I looked eight years earlier. Actually the main reason for showing that photo is to illustrate that you do not get a full view of Wilpena Pound from the ‘Saddle’.

I did not go on to St Marys Peak that day because I knew the others were waiting for me. I then returned to meet up with them and head back. So maybe you can see now why I had the desire to return to get to St Marys Peak. On this occasion I decided to go via the inside track as it was a gentler climb, albeit longer, but then I was eight years older. With that decided I set out on the inside track about 8.30am. There was a school group of about 50 or 60 kids ahead of me and they stopped for a first aid issue so I got around them at that time. I did not know how far they were going but if they were going to St Mary’s Peak I did not want their noise accompanying me all the way so I tried to put some distance between them and me. Immediately after passing the school group I came to the old Hills Homestead. I have seen it before so I did not stick around to check it out again.

Apparently the kids also did not bother checking it out as they weren’t far behind. I was outpacing them for a while but stopped to take photos of the various peaks of Wilpena Pound. The inside track is a walk through the inside of Wilpena Pound as the name implies. So these are photos taken from the inside of the Pound.

I took a video of the inside. The track is gentle for the first couple of hours and then starts to climb to gradually ascend the peak. I had been keeping a strong pace up to outpace the kids but I did not realise that I was pushing to hard. I got to a point where I was getting a bit dizzy and knew I had to stop and let these kids go by. I was probably about 30 minutes from reaching the saddle which is prior to ascending the peak. Bloody kids. So I stopped and had a sandwich and drink and rested. After they had gone by and I had rested for about 15 minutes I moved on. I still did not feel right and it was not long before I was dizzy again. O, Oh. I knew again I had to stop and lay down. I guess my heart was racing. So I did exactly that for about 20 minutes. Some people walking down the track asked if I was alright. There is good camaraderie between bush walkers, obviously. It was becoming abundantly clear to me that I was not as young as I used to be. I was also not at all sure that I was going to be able to complete this walk. What had I done to myself by trying to outpace these kids?

I finally pushed on and got to the saddle. I was feeling better than I had been earlier but still not great. From the saddle there was another 1.6km to reach the top, St Marys Peak. I had come 12km to reach this point.

The thought had crossed my mind a few times that maybe I should give it up and head back. I was probably to stupid to do that, ie, the wise thing. I considered that I had come all this way to achieve this walk, not just the 12km so far on this day, but the whole trip of one and a half thousand kilometres to get there. I knew that if I did not complete the walk then it would never happen. Another consideration, to make matters worse, was that I was running low on water. On any other walk I have been on I never needed anymore than what I brought. I underestimated the length of time for this walk and by going the inside track I had chosen the long one. It was also quite a warm day and I had been seating profusely. So with all that said, one should really turn back. But I have always been keen to pursue those goals that are close to my heart and I admit that I threw caution to the wind. So I set off for the final 1.6km Peak. I was actually feeling better by then. But the water shortage did worry me. On the way up I met a couple coming down. I swallowed some pride and asked them if they had any spare water. It turned out they did and they gave me 600mls of water and a couple of sugar lollies to suck and promote saliva to fight off dehydration. They were a little worried about me. God bless them. Then just before getting to the top I met two sweet girls who were on their way down. They asked me some questions about the track I came up on and I gave them some tips. They then saw my empty bottle of water and offered me some water. I did not knock it back. My confidence was now growing that I would not die. And then I reached the top of St Marys Peak. Halleluiah!

I did not have my mobile phone with me so I don’t have a pano and I also did not think to take a video. These next photos in succession shows Wilpena Pound in sections from left to right.

Then these photos are looking over the back of the Peak to the north east and east and then to south east.

I was elated to have achieved this goal and not dying was a bonus. There was one more goal I wanted to achieve for another day and that was the walk up Rawnsley Bluff. I walked back down the 1.6km to the saddle. On the way down I took a couple of photos of the landscapes from that angle.

I chose to take the shorter 6km outside track back to the Wilpena Pound Visitor Centre. As I said earlier I have walked that track before and knew it was much more doable than the inside track. It was very steep and a strenuous climb down but I could handle that much easier than twice the length walking back via the inside track. Another photo while on the way down.

Even with the extra water I received I was dry in the mouth. The whole way down I was thinking of the cold water I could get at the Visitor Centre. As tough as that was it was a nice walk through the bush and I ran into a few goats and wallabies. I finally reached the Visitor Centre and Oh that cold water was good!!! On the way back to camp I had to stop and take a photo of the sun on the Chase Ranges.

That night I definitely enjoyed a couple of cold beers around the camp fire. But more importantly, before the beers I made sure I filled up with water. After a couple of anti-inflammatories and a good night sleep I took a walk with Linda, Jan & Ross up to the dam at Rawnsley. It was now Wednesday.

We decided to take a drive up to Blinman. It is a historical town in the north of the Flinders and the drive up there is spectacular. Here are some photos of Blinman’s main street.

We had lunch at the Blinman Hotel, ‘The Pub in the Scrub’. It was a great meal. Some photos of the history in the pub on the wall were great but I don’t have a record of those.

On the way back to camp we stopped at the Stokes Hill Lookout which gives spectacular views all around including a view of the western external walls of Wilpena Pound. Last time we were here we saw a most magnificent sunset from this spot.

Back at camp we had another fire and did toasted sandwiches in jaffle irons and on the fry pan. As the sun was going down we took a short walk across the creek from the van park and checked out the sun on the Grace Ranges and Rawnsley Bluff. Another great day.

The next day which was now Thursday the 20th April I drove out to the Rawnsley Park car park to tackle that walk. I had been stiff in the legs and hip the day before because of the St Mary’s Peak walk and they had been getting sorer all day. I was thinking there was a chance that I could wake up pretty lame which would cause me to cancel this walk. However, anti inflammatories and a good nights sleep must have done the trick. I felt pretty good so off I went. This is a photo from the car park looking up to the top of the ridge which leads to the Wilpena Lookout and the Bluff.

After the lead up walk along the creek you reach the climb up and it is very steep. It is more of a climb than a walk in many spots.

I reached the 2.1km mark which is the ridge but there was still a ways to go but I did it with ease. The old Pete was back. I couldn’t believe the difference from two days earlier. It just shows that I had simply just pushed myself to hard by trying to outpace those kids.

So I went on to the Wilpena Pound Lookout. This gave a different perspective of the Pound.

This time I did have my phone with me so I got a pano as well.

I remembered to take a video as well. I think that was because I wasn’t fatigued. This one has a bit of audio. Time to move on to the Bluff. There was a large ‘Cairn’ there.

The views were magnificent. The first photo looks north east, to the right of Wilpena Pound.

These photos look out to the Chase Ranges.

I started heading back and got to a spot at the top of the ridge where you have views to Rawnsley Park Station, the ridge at the back and out to the Elder Ranges.

Somewhere along that creek line, roughly in the centre of the photo is the car park but it is so far you cannot see with the naked eye. I zoomed in and got a photo.

You can see into one corner of the Pound if you look hard right from that position.

I got a video of that as well. I was very pleased again to have completed my second goal. On the way down from the ridge I ran into the lovely couple who had given me water. They were on the way up and I was pleased to inform them that I was alive and survived the St Mary’s Peak walk. They were pleased to see that I was alive and that I was now completing the Bluff walk. I definitely informed them that I had taken with me twice as much water as I had taken on the Peak walk. Because the Bluff walk was so much shorter I didn’t actually drink anymore than what I had taken on the Peak walk. Before coming down from the Bluff Linda rang me. I knew that she, Jan & Ross were planning on doing a walk up the ridge behind the van park. I didn’t want to miss out on doing that walk with them so I asked them to wait and do the walk after lunch. So I got back to camp, had some lunch and we then set off to do the Clem Corner walk. The plaque tells you what view it is you are looking at in the following photos.

On the track we came across a family of emus that were in a clump of trees.

At the end of the walk we followed the creek back into the van park and were impressed by these beautiful red river gums.

Later in the afternoon we went for a drive to a lookout at Rawnsley to again check out the setting sun on the ranges. These photos are of the Chase Ranges again. There is an explanatory note about the ranges this time.