Situated on the eastern edge of Wilpena Pound lies Wilpena Chalet, the Wilpena Pound Tourist Resort, consisting of a motel with good restaurant and bar facilities, a small store and a caravan park. Since the caravan park has no on-site vans I somehow drifted towards taking up a motel- room. Getting up early this morning and putting my nose outside the front door, quickly confirmed that the decision in favour of decadent comfort had not been such a bad choice after all: the air was more than crisp and the grass shining white with ground frost. Quickly retreating inside, indulging in the comfort of flicking a switch and hearing the kettle boil in no time, I felt sympathy for all those who were still huddled up in their sleeping bags and tents. Last night, the eager campers had beleaguered the fire place in the bar, reluctant to return to their frosty accommodation. This morning, they would probably wait till the sun had risen a bit higher before crawling outside to light a fire and boil their billycans.
“We camped for two nights at Wilpena Pound, making bonfires and throwing ourselves into all the other attendant rituals with as much gusto, I am ashamed to say, as the psychomotor retarded axemen in the tents around us. Except that because l had no axe to call my own, … I had to rip dead trees apart for firewood with my bare hands.”
Jacobson, H., “In the land of Oz” , p. 222
Passing the camping ground around half past seven on my way towards St. Mary’s Peak, l failed to witness any .”earliest risers returning from their tree-hacking expeditions with armloads of firewood …” (ibid,p. 220). The absence of such crude behaviour could have been due to a combination of the frost and the early morning hour, but it was actually due to a strict, and relatively new, regulation on the camping grounds. While campfires are still legal between 1st May and l4th November (from mid-November to April the risk of accidental bush fires is too high), the wood for such campfires can no longer be freely collected in the surrounding bush. It has to be bought. This total stop on “psychomotor axemen’s activities” has a very simple reason: mass tourism. Due to the large number of tourists visiting Wilpena Pound annually, the uncontrolled continuation of previous activities would eventually strip the ground bare of any leaves, sticks and dead branches, thus depriving many species of natural wildlife of their deserved, traditional home. Of course, an unthinkable process in a National Park! Maybe it is only a question of time, before all Australian national parks have to adopt a policy of actually restricting the number of tourists coming in each day. Uluru, Ayers Rock, seems to be suffering from an increasing number of tourists, and Hinchinbrook Island in Queensland already has implemented a policy of controlling the numbers of tourists visiting the National Park.
Freed from infamous tree-hackers, the Wilpena Pound had regained not only a better ecological balance, but also its peaceful morning atmosphere. A thick cover of eucalypts, melaleuca and acacia still protected me from the cold morning wind whose steady rustling through the hard eucalypt leaves was about the only sound I could hear. Not too long after I had left the pleasant cover of trees and bushes, had the sun risen high enough to provide gentle warmth. Eventually, just under Tandera Saddle, I found a sheltered spot, from where I enjoyed a stunning view towards the east. Suddenly, from somewhere down below in the creek bed, a pair of eagles rose. Initially, they were well below me. Circling continuously, they gradually climbed higher and higher until eventually they were well clear of St. Mary’s Peak and disappeared across the mountain ridge towards the southwest, flying either into the Pound or crossing it towards the Elder Range.
With a wingspan of up to 2,5 m, the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax ) is Australia’s largest bird of prey. Since the introduction of the infamous rabbit to the continent, that animal seems to score favourite marks on the eagles menu. Having caused the extinction of many smaller mammals on which eagle’s preyed previously, and despite the horrendous damage that rabbits caused and still cause all over Australia, white man’s introduction of the rabbit to Australia seems to score highly on the eagle’s menu. This will be partly due to dramatic changes on that menu following the extinction of many of the smaller mammals. Although I do not necessarily want to save the rabbit, I wonder whether anybody has studied the possible effects on the population of eagles, if one were to succeed in ridding Australia of the rabbit problem altogether. Have enough small mammals survived and are their numbers big enough to sustain their own species’ and the eagle’s survival, too? These are mere questions, of course and should in no way be understood as a suggestion that rabbits should be left on their own!
Nowadays it appears to be generally accepted that eagles do not prey on sheep or lamb, unless an animal were sick or disabled. However, I have often heard people discuss, whether Australian eagles actually attack large animals.
“Most of the ‘Aquila’ eagles prey on species very much smaller than themselves, so in taking very large prey, the Australian eagle is an exception. … While studying the behaviour of yellow-footed rock wallabies at my Research Unit in the North Flinders Ranges, I frequently saw them being attacked by wedge tailed eagles. At the same time, the eagles were faring much better with far bigger prey, in the form of euros and kangaroos. ”
Hornsby, P. “Eagle Eyes and Brownies’ Toes”, p. 1
While, so far, I have not witnessed any of such attacks myself, one thing, stuns me every time I observe it: an eagle being harassed by crows. Not an uncommon sight, yet so strange to watch a jumbo of a bird being pestered by a couple of little, shrieking black crows. The Adnyamathanha people have this to say about the reason for the crows’ behaviour:
THE EAGLE AND THE CROWS
“A long time ago there lived an eagle called Wildu who had two nephews called Wakarla. Wildu was always telling the Wakarla what they could do and could not do, and they did not like it. He told them which tucker they could eat, and which tucker only the elders could eat. For instance, they were not allowed to eat goanna tail or emu fat, but instead were given only the really tough meat to eat. …
These two nephews were angry with there uncle because he had wives who were both Ararru, like himself, and this was against tribal law. The Wakarla nephews, on the other hand, were Mathari, and according to the law they were to have Ararru wives. They had their eyes on Wildu’s wives, but they could not have wives yet….”(Tunbridge,”Flinders Dreaming, p. 24)
In the unfolding drama the two nephews plan a plot against their uncle which they carry out, hurting him severely. Then they invite all the other animals to join them in a party, because old Wildu might die. This he does, but is resurrected by his two mourning wives. After coming back to life again, Wildu swears that he will eat all the old women and children (apparently without explaining what they had to do with the whole affair).When he hears the dancing crows mocking him, he promises to burn them. A storm blows up and all the animals seek shelter in a cave, his wives, upon his instructions, sit near the entrance.
“Then Wildu got a big fire going in the cave. It was such a big fire that those rocks are still black today. The two wives escaped, and so did the animals, but the rest of the birds were trapped.
The first birds to get out of the caves were the cockatoos. They were able to keep away from the smoke, so they are still white. … A long time after the big fire and smoke, the crows got out. They were black all over. Before all this happened, they were white.
You can see that big cave there today. It is called Wakarla Adpaindanha, which means ‘the painting of the crows’. …
After this the eagle flew off by himself. … He kept muttering that he would eat all old women and children up in the pine trees. This is why no one trusts the eagle, and when he flies over, children must be hidden. Nor do the crows trust the eagle; they go around with him to make sure he kills only in order to eat.”
ibid, pp. 28-29
In another story, the eagle is held responsible for taking away the spirits of children thereby causing illness and death, unless the individual spirit is regained by a Wilyaru, a fully initiated man. Despite my respect for and possible fear of the majestic wedge-tailed eagle, I think the bird deserves a more positive image than the one portrayed in those stories. Nevertheless, the pair that I had been watching this morning, had obviously been “allowed” to rise in the wind and fly over St. Mary’s Peak without any suspicious crows spying on them.
Although the very last section of the track to St. Mary’s Peak is a real scramble, I regard it as an absolute must for anybody only half as fit as myself. Apart from actually flying over the pound, it is only from this magnificent peak that one can fully comprehend the vastness of the crater-like oval. To the east, and presumably all around, the outside walls of the pound drop sharply towards the surrounding, much flatter country. In some places, they appear to be cut vertically by a giant’s knife and very often one can witness the layers and layers of sediments, all tilting inwards towards the middle of the ‘bowl’, from where they presumably rise again to form the opposite rim. In sharp contrast to the steep, vertical drops along the outer edge of the pound, the inside presents gentle downhill slopes which gradually even out into a huge, horizontal, flat bottom of the dish. On the outside, precarious ledges provide tiny homes to individual grasstrees and small bushes. On the inside, the slopes are covered in thick spinifex (Trioda sp.), acacias, cassias and, along the lines of creekbeds, eucalyptus trees. Much of the inside is open country, once the grazing grounds of cattle. Wilpena Homestead inside the pound was abandoned when the only road into the pound was washed away in a flood.
Immediately underneath me, a very green Wilcolo Creek followed the outer rim of the pound northwestwards and, near Mt. Abrupt, turned abruptly at a 90-degree-angle, to follow a section of the ranges, bearing the name ‘Heysen Range’. To the west, the country was flat, revealing a slim, white line at the horizon, the salt pan of Lake Torrens.
“I have seen it <the desert> on calm days of crystalline purity when the eye could trace, as it were, to the end of the world, bringing with it that wonderful sense of infinity that a land of moist atmosphere could never give.”
Painter Hans Heysen, in: Lyon, E., “The Australian Landscape and its Artists”, p. 80
It had been worthwhile to leave the hotel early for I had ample time to take in that “crystalline purity” and “wonderful sense of infinity” on my own. I was well on my descend into the pound, when I met the first couple of people coming up. Later on, while strolling comfortably along the easy path right through the pound, returning to the motel via a ring-route, I met the occasional group of people, but quite clearly, this time of the year was the quiet season. Unfortunately, many people seemed to be satisfied observing the pound from a lookout spot close to the motel. This, I thought was a shame, for the sense of wonder increases with the height to which one scrambles.
View Larger Map
