Friends of Flinders Ranges National Park

Early in 2007 two quite different projects were put to us for consideration, and both have turned out to be quite interesting: Building of an enclosure around yard for old farm equipment inside Wilpena Pound (May 2007), and the restoration of a 19th Century Shepherd's Hut, Guide Hut (started July 2007).

The first was at the Hill’s Homestead inside Wilpena Pound. The collection of agricultural machinery scattered around the site had come to be recognised as a public risk problem. We were asked if we would like to develop a plan to bring all of the pieces into one area on the site, and to fence them in with ‘heritage-style’ fencing – such as we did a couple of years ago around two small historical sites near the Wilpena Shearing Shed.

The second project was to be long-term, and is making for a very interesting program of work and will be for quite a long time. Guide Hut is a pine hut near the Park’s northern boundary – at the top of the Pantapinna Plain. It is somewhat younger than most of the buildings we have worked on as it was built in the late 1880s or early 1890s. Much of the material came from the ruins near the car park at Youngoona. The building was still ‘standing’, but only in defiance of gravity. We have been able to restore it to a state where it has a roof and rainwater tank.

Guide Hut came on to the radar because it is on the route of a proposed ‘adventure cycling trail’ being considered by several of the Park’s neighbours – including Rawnsley Park, Willow Springs and Gum Creek. One particular advantage to us of such a project was the possibility of doing some longer-term work with our park neighbours – and fellow Friends of the Park.

In March 2007 we travelled out to the Guide Hut to what was to be our next great restoration project. Rangers Darren and Gordon who had not previously visited the Hut came with us. On the way there we assessed the suitability of the track for caravans and trailers for those members who planned to camp on site when working on Guide Hut restoration.

At the Hut, measurements, photographs and material estimates were made so that planning could proceed to enable us to start work on the Hut in September 2007.

The project, w

ill be over a reasonably long term and has taken a fair amount of planning. Tom told us that Heritage were supportive of the project, with the proviso that the roof was to be o

f galvanized iron, not zincalume. In preparation for restoring Guide Hut we looked at McAlpine’s Hut on Willow Springs, and at Gum Creek we looked at the stone walls of Cousins’ Hut, as well as the site of George Glass’ hut at Yeltapina Spring from where he was a shepherd on Oraparinna. The purpose of our visit to Gum Creek was to look at the way in which Bill McIntosh had restored Mogg’s Hut – a hut of very similar design and age to Guide Hut. We were able to learn a lot about construction methods from looking at Bill’s work, and had a good look at Bill’s innovative methods for making pine-log walls more resistant to rotting and white-ant attack. Thanks Bill!