The Fire Danger Season has finished in the Flinders (north of Wirrabara and the trail is open. Elsewhere the trail remains closed. Read more
The origin of the Pathfinders Walking Program and its connection to The Friends.
Saturday night, about ten years ago and all is well and peaceful at the Edwards household. The phone rang, “it’s George here. I think I have sussed out a walking route from Seacliffe to Mount Lofty without very much road walking. Would you and Marlene like to do a reccy with me tomorrow?”
Finally we have completed it with our final day’s walk into the car park at Cape Jervis. It was a journey that started years ago, but became a project when, one hot Australian Day, Marie and I were walking along Semaphore beach to the breakwater at North Haven and it occurred to me that, with a little extra effort, we could walk along the coast to the Murray Mouth.
After completing the Heysen Trail a group of eight walkers continued beyond Parachilna Gorge. We walked through the upper Flinders along Warrawena, Hamilton Creek to Terrapina water hole, climbed over Mt Babbage, across the Stony Dessert plains to Mt Hopeless.
The history of the Heysen trail begins in 1932, according to an article written by Warren Bonython in the Trailwalker in 1989.
I remember viewing the reptile exhibit of the Detroit Zoo shortly before coming to Australia. Essential ‘snake facts’ reminded me that the greatest population and variety of poisonous snakes on earth could be found in Australia. OK...let’s rethink this plan. Sure, we have bears and mountain lions around the place, but I’ve managed to live a relatively active outdoor life for 35 years without so much as a claw mark.
The plan was simple enough. Check out a circuit at Deep Creek for the purpose of printing a map showing all the relevant features to enable anyone to be able to do the walk. Simple plans have this strange habit of not remaining true to form.
Fifty years ago this May, three of us walked along the south coast of Fleurieu Peninsula between the old Talisker mine and Victor Harbour. I recently came across my diary for this journey, and reproduce an edited version here so that those who know the Heysen Trail in this area can make a few comparisons. It may also stimulate nostalgia among those old enough to remember.
Finishing off the Heysen Trail by walking from Yudnamutana Gorge to Mt Hopeless.
In 2002 David Beaton and I decided to walk the entire Heysen Trail – and to walk it from north to south.