SUNDAY 9 MAY     WILPENA

As we had arranged yesterday, J and U arrived at our camp about 9.30. They inspected the van and we had a cuppa.

We then went in their Nissan onto nearby Willow Springs property, to drive part of the Sky Trek track there. They had been unable to contact the owners, who are their friends, to get the keys to do the full track.

Sky Trek is a drive for 4WD vehicles that these people have developed on their property, following station tracks, those made in earlier times by miners, and goat shooters, and tracks they have formed to link them up. It has been open for about four years. It is something different and hence J and U wanted us to see it.

Although, without the gate key, we could not drive the full Skytrek circuit, we were still able to go a long way on the station tracks that J and U know.

The scenery was brilliant – creek lines, gorges, great old river red gum trees, and the rugged, photogenic Bunkers Range as backdrop.

We had a BBQ lunch in a dry creek bed, near an old shepherd’s hut. Both the setting and the meal were great. My meal contributions were steaks and salad. J bought some home made bread, a cake, and red wine. It was quite a party, in a superb setting, and with only us there.

 

fter lunch we drove some more tracks, including up a hill that gave an excellent lookout over the ranges.

As a finale, they drove us to Skull Rock – up an old barites mine track, which was steep and rough, with some decent drops in places – not my favourite sort of road! We walked for ten minutes from where U parked, to get to where we could see the Skull. It was a very different landform – a “flow” of calcium carbonate through a narrow gap in the normal rocks of the area. It has been weathered and the colour and hollows on the surface do rather suggest a skull.

It was dark by the time we got back to Wilpena, after a great day out.

We promised to stay in touch. U and I had done some reminiscing, while we were going along, about the Tasmanian trip we’d done in 1969/70, with J and B. U suggested we should have a reunion with them and a showing of all of our slides from that trip – sometime in the future – at Loxton, maybe, as it is central to us all.

After the substantial lunch, we only needed a light tea: a tin of soup, toasted cheese.

Today was such a great day that we decided to buy a Sky Trek pass and drive the full route, ourselves, before we leave here.