Flinders Ranges (Part 2)

Wilpena Pound

After my long hike the day before, I decided to have an easy day and drove for 150km in total. As you do. I was visiting the park right before the school holidays started and during the week, so the national park was very quiet. I was lucky to see another car on the road and the roads were super easy to drive. The speed limit was 100km/h but I cruised at a steady 60km/h (since I was in no rush). It actually took a lot of concentration to not go faster than 60km/h.

My little Ford Focus Hatchback.

Spot the kangaroo!

I also drove on unsealed roads (shhh despite not being covered on my rental insurance) and it was going reasonably well until I reached a point where the road dipped down and there was a large puddle in the middle of the road. This happened on two separate occasions. First when I was driving to the gorges and second when I was trying to reach Parachilna from Blinman.

It is never too cold for ice cream; it was around 12 degrees that day. A quandong ice cream. I had never heard of the fruit before but it is basically a plum that is native to Australia. 

I had to stop halfway on the unsealed road between Blinman and Parachilna which was disappointing however it was very cool to find this dry river bed. The photo doesn't show how wide the river would have been which is just crazy.

After 5hrs of driving, I was quite tired and didn't want to return back to the campsite where I had nothing to do. As mentioned before, I didn't have phone reception (so no access to Pandora) and I was sick of my music on my iPod. Thankfully, at one (and only one) of the lookouts, I had a little bit of radio reception and listened to the crackling radio playing today's popular music for 3 hours as I waited for sunset. It sounds a little silly to have travelled so far to sit in a car and listen to the radio. But it was such a cool experience sitting in the middle of nowhere and at one point, there were 15 kangaroos just chilling within close vicinity of my car.

Although I really did enjoy the solitude and serenity at Flinders Ranges, I was glad that I was leaving early the next morning (and also the final night sleeping in the car!) since I was missing civilisation. I was also starting to feel lonely. I very rarely feel lonely even if I am alone, so this was a little unusual. One night, I actually sent an SMS to my good mate via the Telstra payphone (yes really). There was also a power outage at Wilpena Pound Resort (including campgrounds) for a few hours which was a little scary. Firstly, this meant that I had no food (I had been eating at the restaurant for dinner every night) and secondly, I wasn't very keen on showering in darkness.

I'm not sure if I would return to Flinders Ranges. Admittedly, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at this national park and it is probably the craziest thing that I have done in 2015. I am actually super proud that I challenged myself. It proved quite a few things to me. Firstly, I am perfectly capable of travelling by myself. Secondly, I am reasonably capable of driving around country Australia (not confident in busy urban areas) so hello Tasmania! (I've been wanting to visit Tasmania for two years now but always put it off since I couldn't drive). Thirdly, I am capable. But like a lot of things, there is so much to see and just not enough time. One day, maybe.