Day 73 | doing things at Arkaroola: another night of (crummy) luxury

Unlike my good sense when I had a rest day at Wilpena and only did one thing (climb Ohlssen Bagge) that was over by lunchtime here I did things differently.

First, I went up Griselda Hill to look at the view which was well worth the Moderate Effort. It looks over the village but also pretty well the full 360° spectacular. I had left my bike near the road at the bottom which received a fair amount of attention from the 4 wheel drivers going by. Most stopped and looked up the hill but none got out. I guess once they spotted me they went on their way.

The obvious question is why bring a bike to an acclaimed ecotourism destination. I have moments of being baffled as to what exactly is ecotourism about bringing the largest overloaded four wheel drives to the edge of the map. (Normal cars do make it up here ok.) There are a few walks but everyone I met was driving their trucks as far as they could and then turning around and moving off to the next destination.

So anyway desperate not to waste my extravagant $30 a night accommodation by actually having an afternoon nap I headed off to the Arkaroola Waterhole which was a, shall we say, somewhat bumpy, 5km ride and then a 1.5km walk in. The waterhole still had water from November’s healthy rains but it looked rather juicy. By golly those gorges must fill up mighty deep, maybe 8 or 10 metres in each cataclysmic flow. There I finally managed to spot some of the rare and endangered Yellow-footed rock wallabies well camouflaged in the rocky surroundings.

On the way back I was passed by a full troop carrier load heading off on one of the guided tours.

Even the driver had the look of WTF at seeing me out there.