We were only going to stay one night at Wilpena Pound Resort Campground. It had been raining on and off for the day. We pulled into the powered site set up camp had lunch and then set of to look for a bush campsite. With a 23-foot caravan following you, you do think twice about taking some roads.  

Wilpena Pound Resort is $39 per night, the bush camping were only $15 a night. The nature park has about 10 different spots to park up at. Some have toilets and bins some don’t. All have great views so we went looking for that perfect bush camp.

It wasn’t long before we saw out first kangaroo on the road. It had come to drink the rainwater from the road surface. It was within seconds Adrian and I started to play “spot the Kangaroo.” Not because we wanted to see anymore. It was because we didn’t want to hit them. They were everywhere, not just two or three at a time it was more like 10 to 20. Most would bounce away at you came close but some would sit and watch you then at the last minute they would move. You didn’t know which way they would go. It took both of us to watch out for them. There were a few cars on the road; we all averaged about 40 k’s. It was like peek hour traffic with roos and if that wasn’t bad enough if it wasn’t the roos it was the emus. The emus would run along beside the car then dash in front of the vehicle. Sometimes even 40 seemed too fast.

We picked out the bush camp we liked. It was only about 10 k of gravel road and set beside a dry riverbed. Our poor GPS system had a problem with the riverbed. It kept telling us we were driving though water.

It wasn’t the best road but if we took it slow we would give the van in with no problems.   Over night the rain picked up along with the wind. We decided to stay another night where we were.

We still like the idea of bush camping but when we left the safety of the campground we changed our mind to where we would stay. We picked the first campsite (“Dingy Dell”) we saw as it was close to the main road and no gravel to get there. It was a good choice as the campgrounds was very central and it offered its own charms.

We took a look at the Wills Homestead. Built in 1859 the house had thatched roof and flagstone floors. It would have been pretty flash for its time having 4 rooms with a 5^th they think, as guest accommodation, (as it had its own fireplace and attached to the side of the main building.) The kitchen was built earlier in 1856. It was built away from the homestead to reduce the risk of fire. The owner, Will rented the land and after a dispute with miner over water he sold everything and left in 1871 leaving the building to slowly decay. The harshness of the land made an impact on us as we saw a dead kangaroo in the fireplace of the house. To start with it looked like it was asleep.