This week on Great Australian Walks presenter Susie Youssef visits the breathtaking Flinders Ranges in South Australia, and treks to the massive amphitheatre of mountains known as Wilpena Pound, or Ikara.
Susie starts her walk with a special stroll into a sacred canyon of rock engravings with Traditional Owner, Izzy Patterson. These engravings uncover ancient stories that Izzy deciphers for Susie. She also shows Susie some of the vandalism that has damaged the rock art, forcing National Parks to close it to the public.
Susie then continues through dry riverbeds, past stunning red gums. The landscape evokes memories in Susie of the paintings of the Australian bush that adorned her grandparents’ house.
Susie meets a former Afghan refugee who arrived in Australia in 2005 and uncovered a surprising connection to his Middle Eastern countrymen: the cameleers who rode camels through the Flinders Ranges into the arid interior to explore and supply remote stations in the desert back in the mid- 1800s
Initially concerned that his daughters may struggle to find jobs in Australia because of
their Afghani names, he’s found resolution: “I can be a proud Muslim, a proud Afghan, a proud Australian.”
7:30pm Thursday on SBS.
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