Sonny Vandevelde
Fashion should be fun and with my photography I love to create those fun moments.
Travel
Wilpena Pound Scenic Flight
While staying at Arkaba, one of the things you can do besides Derek's 4WD tours, bushwalking, relaxing, is to go on a scenic flight around the geographically amazing Wilpena Pound. So I thought it would be a good idea for the story to get a picture of the plane with the mountain in the background, and the pilot getting the plane ready for take off. So Pat, the Arkaba manager took me down there, and this is Georgina Paterson , originally from Armidale, now captain of the plane
Captain, fule station, plane and Wilpena pound
I get her to show me the plane, and ask her, as she is about to do a scenic flight, where would be a good spot for me to get a shot of the plane taking off and the moutain in the background
Near the wind sock she says
But then she invited me to come on board for the ride, woudl I be interested ? Hello, is the pope a catholic ?
So here's me on take off . I gave Pat my other camera so he took the take off picture
ok.... woauw
the wilpena pound looking west
closer
The dry arid country side, only made worse by decades of grazing sheep, they eat everything, including tree seedling, and their hoofs trampling the top layer , so when it rains ( and when it does it's more like a flood ) it gouges through the the now loosened top layer of soil, make the country more barren
But the most fascinating part still remains the "rubbing" of teutonic plates millions of years ago, causing these mountains to "pop " up from the earth, clearly dispalying the different layers of millions of layers, keeping in mind , that this area has been through several ice ages, and once this was part of a vast ocean. Even not so long ago , they found evidence of a coral reef, fossilised in rock formations, and now it is the driest state
St Mary's peak, the highest point of the southern side of the wilpena pound, and here, the Arkaba property extends to in the north of their property. Inside the pound is national park, and the border is the ridge of the mountain range
Can you see the S
This is about 15-20 min later into the flight and we are now on the very southern end of the pound with the "Aligator's back ridge " aka Aroona Valley
Just makes me want to go and do some more exploring down there
The faint white patch you can see blending in with the horizon is Lake Torrens, which is a salt lake, I'm sure, bigger than the country Luxembourg
Bridle gap going into the center of the pound, with Wilpena resort, but the reason I took this photo is because of the 4.5 million dollar solar panels ( the bright reflection in the middle of the photo ) which supplies about 40 % of the energy to the resort.
safely landed
That was fun and informative, plus visually , a delight. Highly recommended at 130 dollars per person, for half an hour, well worth it.
Now for more information on Wilpena pound, you can try Wikepedia , or maybe Eva will now correct me ona few things or add some more info