Australian_Geographic_-_October_2015_

84 Australian Geographic

I

F AUSTRALIA HAD its own seven wonders of the natural

world, Wilpena Pound would surely be near the top of

the list. It would vie with such luminaries as Kata

Tjuta, the Twelve Apostles and of course Uluru, which,

astonishingly, would fit within Wilpena’s walls six times

over. But it’s surprising how many Australians have never

heard of, let alone visited, this unique geological spectacle in

South Australia’s Flinders Ranges National Park.

In fact, visitor numbers to the region have fallen since they

peaked in the 1970s, but the Flinders still hold a special place

in the hearts of South Australians. Holiday-makers first began

coming to Wilpena Pound after it was declared a National

Pleasure Resort in 1945. Over subsequent decades, a family

camping trip, school excursion or holiday break at ‘The Chalet’,

now part of Wilpena Pound Resort, became an annual rite of

passage for many.

I first set eyes on the Pound back in 1999, when I was organ-

ising photos for AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC’s guide book to

the Flinders Ranges. Initially I thought I was looking at aerial

images of a massive meteorite crater – the scene of some ancient

cataclysm, the indelible imprint of which aeons of weathering

had failed to erase. But the origins of this natural amphitheatre

were a less violent and much more drawn-out affair.

Geologists describe the feature as a ‘remnant elevated

synclinal basin’, and it was once enclosed by far higher moun-

tains. Its steep walls and shallow inner bowl are made of thick

layers of super-hard quartzite that have been squeezed along

both east–west and north–south axes, forcing the strata upwards

and creating the teardrop-shaped 17 x 7km structure. Although

time has whittled away several thousand metres from the top

of those rippled ramparts, the Pound is the highest section of

the Flinders Ranges.

The broader Flinders landscape is the result of uneven

weathering of alternately hard and soft sections of rocks, with

quartzite forming the high peaks and hogback ridges, while

softer materials, such as mudstone, siltstone and shale, have

been worn away to form valleys and gorges.

In between stand limestone hills striped with darker bands

of hard dolomite. Iron oxide lends the rocks a pinkish glow in

the half-light of dusk or dawn, and the vegetation here emits

terpenes, plant compounds that combine with ozone in the

atmosphere to give a blueish tinge to distant vistas.

This vibrant palette of form and colour endows the Flinders

with a beauty and splendour that’s drawn generations of pho-

tographers and painters, most notably artist Hans Heysen and

photographer Harold Cazneaux (see Spirit of Endurance, AG 127).

Long before Europeans

arrived, Wilpena Pound had

profound cultural and

spiritual significance.