Wilpena Homestead: Wilpena Pound Resort

Travelling through the Flinders Ranges you soon get a sense of the toughness and resilience needed to make a go of it out here.

Many have tried and failed. The story of Wilpena Homestead....situated about five kilometres from the entrance to Wilpena Pound, sums up the tenacity of those first settlers. In the early years...good winter rains...held the promise of bumper crops and soon native timbers were felled for pug and pine cottages like the old Book Keepers' hut....built in 1853.

"You can clearly see the split pine on a bit of a lean and the pug blocking up the gaps".

"And the herringbone floor?"

"Yer, it's a really intriguing one. I certainly haven't seen that anywhere else in the Flinders Ranges. The local legend is that there was a young sailor who jumped ship in Port Adelaide and did a runner to the Flinders Ranges and he actually built the floor here...and again that's made out of split native pine."

Wilpena Pound was first discovered by European settlers in 1850 and within a year, William Price had established Wilpena Station.

"It included Wilpena Pound and was quite a big run in those days...it went out to Martins Well...you're probably talking four hundred square miles - something like that".

"And the Pound was seen as a natural amphitheatre that kept the animals in...?"

"Yer, hence the name that the word Pound as in we use Dog Pound today. The Pound was an enclosure and they figured they'd be able to use that as a yard".

The stone buildings scattered throughout the grounds point to an early confidence.

"After getting their foot in the country in the 1850's...the 1860s came and they were making a few quid and suddenly places like this went up...and this is the store building where basically it was the shop which supplied the entire Wilpena Station".

"With a big pastoral lease like Wilpena you basically were running like a small town, and this store had to provide all of your flour, leather, tobacco....all the rations that were needed to keep your workmen happy."

The Homestead itself is a statement of optimism and hope built by pioneers who saw the plough as the ultimate civilising influence...converting native grassland and forest into golden fields of wheat.

In fact, the Hill family had some initial success when they took over the Pound section of the Wilpena lease.

"They actually had great vision of growing wheat inside Wilpena Pound and they did well for a few years around the turn of the century. They built a little two bedroom cottage in there, which is still there today."

The old roller....used to clear native scrub....is a silent reminder of dreams which now seem fanciful in hindsight.

A succession of savage droughts would teach weary farmers that cropping this far north was doomed to failure.

Even the Pound itself...once seen as the ideal sheep and cattle pen, proved less than ideal.

"It's not until you get above the Pound that you realise what a natural enclosure it really is. That's why the early settlers used this to corral their animals. It seemed like a good idea at the time....but getting animals in here was one thing...getting them out was quite another."

On board a thirty minute charter flight from nearby Wilpena Resort, you get a real sense of just how difficult it must have been for those trying to track down runaway stock inside the Pound.

"The two major exits or drainage points are the Edwowie Gorge or the Wilpena Creek which back the Pound Gap."

Come mustering time, even the best horsemen would have his work cut out rounding up cattle in Edwowie Gorge.

As you fly over the pound you can still see the clearings where various settlers tried to make a go of cropping in this remote and rugged place.

"That's St Mary's peak on your right there....just in front of the right wing. That's the tallest peak in the Flinders Ranges.....just under four thousand feet .....and you get a good view of the Elder Range in the background there".

And you also get a real insight into the courage and tenacity of those who first settled this region.

For a bird's eye view of the Pound, take one of the regular flights leaving from the Wilpena Airstrip. Bookings can be made through the Wilpena Pound Resort on 8648-0048. A half hour flight costs

$65.00 per person. And for a stroll through the past in and around Wilpena Homestead check in at the Wilpena Visitor Centre and collect a self guided walking trail brochure.

Entry into the Flinders Ranges National Park is $5.00 per vehicle.

For more information you can email info@postcards-sa.com.au