Day 5 – Hawker to Wilpena (Dingley Dell Campground)

Day 5 started at 7AM where some council workers decided to dig a hole in the road just outside the front entry to the caravan park. I got up anyway to beautiful sunshine so I packed up and was on my way. I made a coffee and put it into a thermos I had purchased especially for this trip (More on this later) I left the van park just after 8AM. It was only a short drive today, so fist thing I did was to go into Hawker town to have a look at the petrol station come general store come museum come seismology centre (that’s right, there was a machine measuring seismic activity 20km from Hawker connected via radio link.) – There is a good reason I was so interested in this. Can anyone guess? Anyway, there was a massive roll of paper on the machine which apparently gets changed every 24 hours!! There was also a printout from the Boxing day tsunami in 2008, very impressive. Pictures of the machine to come.

Now it was time to head for Wilpena, not before stopping at a few cache locations on the way.  First was an impressive building that used to be the Arkaba School. It looked from a distance that it was still in use, no real sign of wear and tear. Good 1800’s workmanship I guess. Next two stops were a couple of roadside caches with beautiful views. After that, just short of Wilpena was Rawnsley Park, a “Top tourist” caravan park, it was huge, and I had read there was a nice walk and a cache. On the way in, I saw my first “In the wild” emu. The walk was excellent, a ~3km round trip, it had a bit of everything.

Next I stopped at the National park entry where I thought I was paying for two nights at Wilpena campsite, but no!! a combination of confusing instructions had me paying for any campsite EXCEPT the Wilpena site. Damn It!!! Anyway, I went for a walk out into the Pound to Wangara Lookout via the Hills Homestead. It was a beautiful walk where the true character of Wilpena Pound shone through. It is a shame when I arrived at the top lookout, it had clouded over and it has been raining on and off ever since. Thankfully only short showers.

After my walk, I headed the ~25-30Km up the road to Dingley Dell campsite where I will stay tonight. No Phone or internet here, so I have typed it into word and will paste it into the blog at my next opportunity.

Oh, and re the coffee, I totally forgot I had made it until I arrived at camp, opened it at 4.30 and it was still hot, not bad for a $6 thermos.

Distance Driven: 101.00km  (1626.8km Total)
Geocaches Found: 6 (5 Traditional, 1 Earth)
Accommodation Rating: 8/10 (Beautiful Sunset, fantastic setting, what more could you ask)