To Broome and Back!: Day 11 & 12. Discovering Wilpena Pound and Rest Day. 22 & 23/05/2015

Beautiful sunshine greeted us this morning even though we shivered to an early morning 3 degrees! Did some laundry (the washing machine in the caravan works very well), then packed a picnic lunch to take along for our discovery tour of Wilpena Pound.
Wilpena Pound has a circumference of 35 km. It is 15km long and 8 km wide. It was formed by the uplifting, folding and subsequent erosion of sandstone that was laid down 600 million years ago when this area was covered by sea.
It is a very beautiful area with many walks both long and short throughout the Pound. We decided to do the hike to Hills Homestead that would take us a couple of hours. The walk was a steady climb upwards and we again were surrounded by the most awesome giant gums. A spring fed creek meandered through the walk. The walk reminded us of many we had done in Canada, the only difference being we were surround by gum trees not pine and maple trees. We reached the homestead and were glad of a rest before we had to return back to the car. The Hills Homestead was first settled in 1851 for the purpose of sheep farming. The conditions were very harsh and the Government of the time stipulated how many sheep were to be grazed per acre and it was almost impossible to meet the requirements. After the drought of the 1860's the whole sheep farming venture was doomed to failure. The stone cottage on the site was not the first dwelling as a pine and pug cottage had been built earlier.
The return journey at dusk was carefully driven because of the number of roos and emus out grazing. To see the sun go down over the Ranges was breathtaking. We thoroughly enjoyed our day in the Pound and will be telling all that the Flinders Ranges are a "must see". We finished our time here with a warming log fire.
Tomorrow will be a rest day. No blog.