Oz Trip - Day 9

Day 9 – 10/5/2012 – Penrose Park to Wilpena

An early start as we were heading to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Rangers. We were up at 6 and packed up by 7:30. We topped up the water tanks from a rain water tank on one of the sheds and was on the road by 8:15. We were a bit sad to leave as we really liked the peace and quite of the place.

At Yunta we turned off the main highway and hit the dirt minor road once again. The roads were open but there was warnings for sections of bull dust. It was a very scenic route despite the fact that it was slower than the sealed way. 

Airing down for the dirt road

We stopped for lunch beside the side of the road at a turn off that was marked as a 4WD track to Martins Well on the HEMA maps

Lunch stop in the middle of no where!

It was a bit of a short cut so we though we would take it and see how far we could get and were willing double back and take the longer path if needed. The bush started closing in on the track to pretty much only one vehicle width. The track wound it way through the Wilpena Creek bed. We were also dodging sheep and emus that were trying to just in front us all of the time.

Dodging the sheep

There were some great views of the Flinders Rangers as we approached. It was so different to the landscape when we first turned off. All up it was about 250km of dirt roads with bull dust sections.

Flinders Ranges in the distance

We finally got there!

We checked into Wilpena Pound Resort. The had very large unpowered camping areas but most were sheltered by trees so they weren't any good for the solar panels. We eventually found a nice quite spot away from the crowds where we would be able to get some good sun. I did however have to set the second set of panels up to make sure that we were getting maximum charge into the batteries.

Campsite at Wilpena