Day Two - Heading Bush

Flinders Range
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Our first morning was spent trying to figure out how to roll up our swags when our sleeping bags were inside of them. It's a tricky thing that I'm hoping will take me a lot less time the more I do it. The sun was shining and after packing up, or I should say learning how to pack up camp, we headed off for our first hike, a relatively short drive away at Arkaroo Rock.

On our way up the trail we encountered a rescue crew heading down and they warned us to be careful. I was a bit alarmed at what kind of hike we were getting into but we read in the paper the next day that a couple of rock climbers who were inexperienced had tried to climb and one of them had fallen and broke his leg. We had a slight climb but nothing extreme to get to the cave drawings. These drawings are used to educate the boys who are about to make their journeys to manhood through the pass into Wilpena Pound. They are kind of like chalkboards except nothing gets erased and the Aborigines don't share what all of the symbols mean that are drawn as these things are sacred to them. The Aborigines are also very segregated by sex, the boys spend time learning things from the men and the girls spend time learning things from the women and it isn't acceptable for boys to know about girls things or vice versa. The whole idea of a boy not being able to be called a man until he has complete this rite of passage is interesting to me, especially since the ceremony is only held when conditions are deemed appropriate by the elders, so a boy can be stuck being a boy until he is in his 20's! I should also note that it is not acceptable for a boy to marry, he has to be a man in order to take a wife.

Aboriginal Cave Drawings at Arkaroo Rock
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After our brief lesson on Aboriginal culture we hiked back to the car and headed to Wilpena Pound, a very large area that used to be a volcanic crater, hard to explain but try google earth to see what it looks like from above! We hiked into the pound and then up a more challenging trail to a lookout. You can see the opening where the crater is missing a section where there Aborigines would have to had passed through from Arkaroo. After leaving this area we drove through a series of canyons that, although they were beautiful, would have been a lot more so if the sun had been out. It was our first bumpy ride and I was in the front with Stuart. It was not very comfortable being in the front seat as two of you have to fit and the person in the middle has absolutely no leg room due to the gearshift.

Wilpena Pound
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So after a long afternoon of driving (at which point my left side of my butt became quite numb)we had a quick stop at Copley and then headed to Iga Warta, an Aboriginal Community where we had a dinner performance (we all had to sing solo, how come I sound so much better when I'm in a car by myself?) and we learned how they make damper, a bread that they cook by digging a hole in the fire and covering the mix with coals. We learned a catchy song that involved eating tasty emu stew and wriggling witchitee grubs. After singing Heidy had the honors of whacking the damper when it came out of the fire to clear it of any sand, they use a fragrant twig to do this but I can't remember what kind of plant it was at this point - sorry. bad memory. The damper was really tasty!

The path through the canyons
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I was happy to see that this place had a really nice shower and bathroom. After spending the day hiking around and not having had the chance to shower the previous night I was looking forward to getting clean! When I settled into my swag I was surprised to see that the moon had a halo around it, a very  big halo. I've never seen anything like that before. After watching this for some time I finally fell asleep only to wake up in the middle of the night because I had stupidly placed my swag on a hill and I was slowing sliding out of it! After moving to more flat ground I was shocked to hear a very loud rooster crowing (is that what roosters do?). It must have been a very confused rooster as it was 3 in the morning and the only light that was being provided was by the very full moon. Regardless, it woke up it's neighboring rooster and they then had a crowing competition that woke everyone up. What fun! I learned my lesson though, always check the slope of the ground before laying out your swag for the evening!