Jill Pengelley: You never know what you’ll see in Hawker

Hawker has some terrific things to enjoy, and a sense of freedom you simply can’t get anywhere else, writes Jill Pengelley

You go to Sydney to see the Opera House and to Disneyland to see Mickey.

Go to Hawker for what you don’t know you’re going to see.

After 17 years of repeating the four-hour drive north, I know now that I go for the wedge-tailed eagle perched on the fencepost out of town.

I go for the bearded dragon posing on the kerb; for the dry creek that suddenly turns into a torrent and for the family of emus strutting down the main street.

I go for the stars that shoot across the night sky. I’d have Buckley’s of seeing them in the city. But I also go for what I know I’m not going to see – a parking inspector, a traffic jam, a traffic light or a Mc-anything.

We gave our children a tremendous gift by taking them to Hawker, sometimes three times a year, while they were growing up.

Before they had their own phones, they didn’t care there was no internet or Foxtel where we stayed. In Hawker, they had the kind of freedom we didn’t give them in Adelaide.

A gum tree beside a dirt road in the Flinders Ranges, just out of Hawker. Picture: Jill Pengelley

The town of about 250 people consists of a grid of four streets by five, surrounded by scrubby parklands.

Our children roamed the town on their bikes and would come home if they got hungry.

At first, home was a caravan park for a week, followed by a cabin another time, but we ultimately decided to buy a house and become semi-local.

The only traffic in the town is tourists stopping for fuel on their way to and from points north, including Wilpena Pound and Blinman.

I’d encourage them to stretch their legs and take the Hawker heritage walk, which includes buildings dating back to 1880, the year the town was established.

Within the grid are the Adelaide Bank building of 1880, the old Methodist church of 1884 and the 1882 post office. There are 34 points on the walk, which includes a wood-and-iron house, with pressed-tin panelling around the veranda.

The town proper is as flat as can be but there are hills and rocky outcrops all around that make for easy climbing and striking views.

Jarvis Hill lookout, 6km west of Hawker, has a 20-minute walk to an obelisk which is 510m above sea level in an incredibly peaceful setting.

In the centre of town, artist Jeff Morgan also offers breathtaking vistas – on canvas and gyprock, with a series of panoramas. They include a circular view of the Pound from St Mary Peak.

A population sign on the Cradock Rd entrance to Hawker. Picture: Jill Pengelley

Morgan took 600 overlapping photographs to capture the view and painted directly on the walls of his purpose-built gallery.

Just out from the town is the cemetery where Nicholas Bannon is buried.

The younger brother of former premier John Bannon was just 10 when he went missing in Wilpena Pound in 1959. His body was discovered in 1961 and his artist father Charles Bannon designed a sculptured headstone thanking the people of Hawker who helped in the search.

Parachilna, Blinman, Brachina Gorge, Wilpena Pound Resort and Angorichina are within easy striking distance, using Hawker as a base. In the opposite direction, about 13km south, are the Yourambulla Caves. Kanyaka homestead, the most extensive ruins in the Flinders, lies a further 12km south.

A wedge-tailed eagle on a fence in the Flinders Ranges, just north of Hawker. Picture: Jill Pengelley

A bearded dragon on a kerb in Hawker. Picture: Jill Pengelley