Day 17 Port Augusta to Wilpena (Flinders Ranges)

Evening viewers,
Awoke 6am to the sounds of our neighbours rushing to leave this crossroads town. By the time we left the park (9am), which had about 50 vans in overnight, it was almost empty.
We enjoyed a very pleasant drive through the countryside, past the sleepy township of Quorn, then through Hawker and onto Rawnsley Park Station near the Wilpena pound in the Flinders Ranges.
Along the way we had the fortune to race an emu. It was the first wild emu the kids had seen so we had to stop and get the obligatory photos.
Rawnsley Park is an arid park (not much grass around) about 2kms off the main drag along a dirt track. The sites, whilst being dirt and stone, are spacious and the park has very good amenities and camp kitchen. They are also very self sufficient having a very good general store, petrol bowsers and restaurant on site. There are also kms of 4WD and walking tracks through the ranges just outside the national park area.
We set up, had lunch and set off on a scenic drive into the Central Flinders Ranges National Park for the afternoon.
All I can say is thank god for the 4WD Pajero. Once off the tar the roads were dusty, full of ruts and pot holes with the occasional wash out and water feature to drive through, and that was the better parts. Maybe I'm exaggerating just a little. It was a beautiful drive full of lookout areas of the rocky escarpments, with their amazing array of colours, and rock layers which have forced over millions of years from being horizontal to vertical and all angles in between, as well as two stunning gorges, Bunyeroo and Brachina.
The wildlife was also amazing with lots of kangaroos(both grey and red), we came across a cheeky but bloody big male red standing next to the road. When we pulled he stood up to us and poked out his chest for a few seconds before easily jumping over a barbed wire fence and hopping away. We also saw some yellow footed wallabies which are a small wallaby with very long yellow and black striped tails. Drove past some emus drinking at a stream (too scared to get out of the car), and saw three wedge tailed eagles soaring above and through the ranges (such majestic birds).
We arrived back at the camp ground just before sunset with three tired kids and a very dirty Pajero.
A clear and very starry night finishes off another great day in this wonderful country of ours. (Dazza)