Heysen Trail

Walking the Heysen Trail is best described as unfathomable. The Trail does a 1100km transect of South Australia , exposing the heart and soul of South Australia in slow motion. One is both inspired by the beauty of Wilpena Pound and the Flinders Ranges, dwarfed by the scale of the agri-industrial landscape, buffeted by extremes of weather and warmed by the kindness of her people.

In April - June 2011 Rob and I travelled the Heysen Trail, covering the 1100km & 30,000m ascent over 63 days (58 days of walking). We were joined by other walkers of the CBC on the first 3 and final weeks of the walk. We walked from north to south: Parachilna Gorge to Cape Jervis.

The information provided below is meant to augment the extensive information available on the fabulous website maintained by the Friends of the Heysen Trail (http://www.heysentrail.asn.au/heysen_trail/) and in the Northern and Southern Trail Guides released by the SA Department for Environment and Heritage, which have detailed 1:50k topographic maps and profiles. As such, my contribution is to provide:

• • a suggested itenerary for a through walker (we couldn't find one anywhere)

  • a slideshow of the scenery encountered on each day (so you can decide which sections you want to do)

  • contact details for businesses who held our resupplies and transport providers

  • information on available facilities at each camp, and

  • a presentation I gave to the Canberra Bushwalking Club which provides some insight on logistics and what it feels like to walk such an indescribeable distance.

Just a cautionary note on small isolated towns: while the people we encountered really went out of the way to help us on our travels, facilities were limited....I had to wear a pair of worn out leaky shoes for at least 2 weeks. With continuing wet cold days the soles of my feet were starting to peel. Unfortunately, while there were plenty of grog, hardware and even furniture shops along the way...there were no shoe stores! It wasn't until Hahndorf that I was able to find a pair of shoes that fit me and that were unexpectedly waterproof as well! If you are thinking of buying your food as you go, bear in mind that in the more isolated towns the food stores seem to specialize solely in lollies and beer.