After leaving Arkaroola we headed towards Wilpena Pound and used this as our base to explore the surrounding highlights. I think all the goats that escaped the heli shooters in the national park were congregated along the Blinman road, mobs of 50+ were not uncommon.
Willow Springs Station
The Reynolds family Willow Springs Station hosts a variety of accommodation and a pretty amazing self drive track called Skytrek.
I'd heard this was pretty impressive and well worth the visit so naturally I had to check it out. This 80km track consists of a series of station roads, old mining and goat shooters tracks, and a fire break. Cost is $65 per vehicle and estimated time is about 6 hours to complete.
You get a key and a map of the track, also several pages of 50 numbered points of interest along the track to check out. After signing your rights away Brendan marked three sections in red on the map and advised extreme caution, this caught my attention. All points of interest are clearly marked on the track, you reset your speedo at the start and it gives you an indication of the distance to the next point (not to accurate if running bigger tyres).
The first half of the track is fairly sedate with limited need for 4wd but has plenty of interesting sights, I've got about 400 pictures of the trip but I'll only post a couple of significant ones here. None of the pictures can really do the area justice.
There are a couple of areas that have Petroglyphs which were carved long before the Adnyamathanha inhabited the area.
Old Moxans Hut was restored by the Nissan Patrol Club of SA some time ago, one of our members Rock Trol was involved with this.
Second motorised grader in the Hawker district, used on Willow Springs Station until 1982.
The Ochre Cliffs follow the creek bed, amazing changes of colour along the way.
At the halfway mark we were well ahead of schedule, this soon changed at point 43 - Engage 4WD is quite prominent on the map.
We drop fairly steeply down to the original Willow Springs Waterhole/Spring and from here it got fairly hairy. We were the only vehicle on the track that day and I'm not used to driving on loose stone, I soon learnt.
Next was a massive climb up a barren hill of loose stone to Prominent Hill Lookout 704m above sea level, the view was impressive BUT not as impressive as the descent!
Thought I'd better give the forum a plug in the visitors book.
The next 12km was a mixture of steep ascents and descents of various lookouts, the highest being Homestead Lookout at 725m.
I learnt heaps about my cars ability and mine on this trip and must give a big shout out to my wife for not getting out an walking. Plenty will probably think it was fairly easy but I rate it as the hardest I've ever done, I'm more used to mud and the added security of trees to stop you rolling forever. Total time taken was just over 6.5 hours.
To be continued.....
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