"A natural amphitheatre whose mountain walls are the bodies of ancestral serpents, held by the Adnyamathanha for 50,000 years"
Wilpena Pound
Pastoral Unincorporated Area, South Australia, Australia
In the heart of South Australia's Flinders Ranges, Wilpena Pound forms a natural amphitheatre 17 kilometres long and 8 kilometres wide. The Adnyamathanha people, who have known this place as Ikara — 'the meeting place' — for 50,000 years, understand the encircling mountains as the bodies of two Akurra, giant serpents who ate so many people at a ceremony that they could no longer move and died where they lay. Their bodies became the walls.
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Quick Facts
Location
Pastoral Unincorporated Area, South Australia, Australia
Coordinates
-31.5295, 138.6029
Last Updated
Mar 9, 2026
Learn More
Ikara is a 50,000-year-old cultural landscape of the Adnyamathanha people, who understand the amphitheatre mountains as the bodies of two ancestral Akurra (serpents). Co-managed since 2011.
Origin Story
Two Akurra (giant serpents) came to Ikara for a ceremony. They consumed so many people that they became too full to move and died where they lay, their intertwined bodies forming the mountain walls of the pound. Ngarri Mudlanha (St Mary Peak) is the head of one serpent. The Dreaming journey of Yurlu the old kingfisher man to Ikara is another critically important narrative.
Spiritual Lineage
The Adnyamathanha people have maintained continuous custodianship of this landscape for 50,000 years. Recognition as Traditional Custodians in 2009 and joint management since 2011 formalised an authority that was never relinquished.
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