An aerial view of Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges National Park.Credit:Shutterstock
"The trick is not to think too much before you do it,"my travelling companion instructs me. And so,taking a brisk run-up along the dusty track,I grab the top of the four-foot iron gate and with all the strength I can muster,toss myself feet over head to the other side. I land,stunned but exhilarated,to the sound of my friend's surprised applause.
She dared me to try this"gate vault"(an essential rural manoeuvre,apparently) but never expected me to do it. Neither did I actually. Glancing around,I quickly place the blame for my uncharacteristically perilous behaviour on the raw,half-a-billion-year-old landscape surrounding me.
The Flinders Ranges,I decide,is a place that makes you go a bit wild.
Luxury Eco-villas Rawnsley Park Station Flinders Ranges.
Not that sipping South Australian sparkling wine and nibbling canapes while watching the sunset is exactly wild. But that's just what we find ourselves doing an hour later,having been driven by 4WD through Rawnsley Park,the 12,000-hectare working sheep station we're staying at for the next two nights,to a hilltop vantage point overlooking the copper-hued Chase Range.
Before coming here I had assumed,being an outback neophyte,that the landscape would be desolate. Looking at it now,though,I see it's very much alive. A wattle bursts forth with golden flower to my left. A duo of burly red kangaroos bound by below. Ancient gums whisper all around,while the setting sun sets the rose,red and grey layers of the awesome natural amphitheatre of Wilpena Pound behind us ablaze. We are bewitched,and lift our glasses to toast our host Tony Smith,whose family has owned Rawnsley Park since 1953.
The accommodation here is truly lovely. We're staying in rose-coloured eco villas overlooking the south side of Wilpena Pound,which have glass panels set into the ceilings so guests can stargaze from bed. As charming as they are though,the real stars of this slice of the Australian outback await outside.
An emu in Flinders Ranges National Park.Credit:Shutterstock
The following morning,we wake at sunrise for a bushwalk through the property with Smith. As we tramp along in the soft morning light a bracing breeze whips through the native pines and prickly acacias,as Smith points out wild peach trees,stubby yakkas and a family of emus bobbing by in the distance.