Aboriginal paintings at Arkaroo Rock
We left Port Augusta this morning and drove north towards Flinders Ranges National Park. The Flinders Ranges are the highest mountains in South Australia, though at only 1170 m, not really very high. Much of the drive is through pastoral land, though it is very dry by Saskatchewan standards (the annual rainfall is about the same as Southern Saskatchewan, but the high temperature makes it much more arid). The grass and shrubs along the road are very dry and crunchy. Along the way we stopped to photograph a number of things: a flock of sheep in a pasture, a large bunch of about a dozen emus, and several nice views of the mountain cliffs.
We hiked the approximately 3 km (return) to Arkaroo Rock. This is a very interesting site of Aboriginal paintings. It is a bit of a climb, about 100 m total elevation gain, but it wasn’t too hot this afternoon so the climb was ok. The rock has a broken out hollow on the side and this area is well protected from the weather. The sandstone walls of the rock are decorated with a very large number of paintings.
We then drove to the campground at Wilpena Pound. It’s a nice campground with lots of space between each site. There was a wallaby eating right behind our motorhome tonight, and a large number of bright green parrots of a kind we haven’t seen before. Overall it was a very nice day.