While you’ll probably pass this vantage point on the bushwalk to Rawnsley Bluff, Lone Pine Lookout makes a great destination in its own right if you don’t have time for the full 11km return bushwalk.
From just below the top of the Rawnsley Bluff ridge is a view across the 7453 acres of the Rawnsley Park Station. Below are the Arkaba Hills and behind them the Elder Range.
Further out to the south-west is Wonoka Hill and Yappala Hill near Hawker.
A signpost provides some background on the Lone Pine Lookout
The lookout was named Lone Pine by Clem Smith who bought the 6253-acre Ulowdna Station in 1953 (the name was changed to Rawnsley Park Station in 1961).
The climb to Lone Pine Lookout commemorates the Australian soldiers who landed at Anzac Cove on April 25, 1915. Concerted but unsuccesful Allied attempts to break through in August of that year included the Australian attacks at Lone Pine and the Nek.
The pine trees at the lookout are the native pine Callitris glaucophylla. Timber from the tree was widely-used by early settlers for station homesteads and outbuildings, stockyards and fences as the wood is terminate resistant.
The Adnyamathanha (rock people) of the Flinders used resin from the tree, which they called Vinba, as an adhesive for attaching axe heads to handles and barbs and tips to spears.
The lookout offers expansive views over Rawnsley Park Station to the Elder Ranges on Arkaba Station to the west.
Getting to Lone Pine Lookout
The 6km return walk to Lone Pine Lookout starts from the well-signposted Rawnsley Bluff walk on the Rawnsley Park Station, about a 5min drive from the Flinders Way Road (and about 38km / 30min drive from Hawker or 26min / 25min from the Wilpena Pound Visitor Centre).
Most of the bushwalk is a gradual ascent (or descent), with a steep climb for the last 750m to the lookout.
More information
- Rawnsley Park Station – Walking and Cycling Trails [PDF]
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