Walking the Heysen Trail, South Australia: Episode 1.

The Heysen Trail winds between Cape Jervis at the southern end of the Fleurieu Peninsula and Parachilna Gorge, 1,200 kilometres to the north. The trail traverses beaches, sea cliffs, national parks, rural landscapes, historic towns and the ancient, rugged peaks of South Australia’s largest mountain range. It is named for the artist Hans Heysen, renowned for his paintings of majestic gum trees and the arid, beautiful Flinders Ranges.

We plan to walk the Heysen Trail in two episodes; the first and much shorter four-day episode with our walking companions Marcus and Miranda and the second and much longer two-month episode largely by ourselves.

A day in Adelaide, with its dry heat, stone houses and concrete electricity poles. Moon grapes, Christmas melons and eastern European food on tasting at the Central Market. An afternoon at the Art Gallery of South Australia, immersing ourselves in the beautifully curated Versus Rodin exhibition that includes a live performance by the Australian Dance Company.

The next morning we drive northwards, into pink salt lake country, the plains sun-bleached, the stubble burnt black, the water of the Spencer Gulf a ribbon of silver. On through the hot afternoon until the flat, shimmering horizon gives way to red ochre ranges, native pine trees and a pale waxing moon. Farms long abandoned, sandstone homesteads left bereft in dry paddocks, tumbleweeds caught in broken fences. Kangaroos moving through the landscape, emus grazing.

Day 1: Parachilna Gorge to Aroona Campsite (19 km)

We wake at Wilpena Pound to a sky full of shrieking corellas. En route to the trailhead our driver Sally tells us stories of the country we are passing through; its creation myths, its changing fortunes from drought-ravaged to sustaining communities and families to once more being drought threatened. Mobs of red kangaroos, emus, wild goats, rock wallabies and perhaps even quolls out there somewhere in the ranges. We stop at the Blinman Store for a famed quandong tart and then press on to the Parachilna Trailhead, the northernmost point of the Heysen Trail. Sally recalls driving two German walkers out here and they being reluctant to get out of the car, so dismayed were they by its remoteness and the sinking realisation that they may not see another person for days.

‘If you can’t have rain, then you might as well have a beautiful sunny day such as this,’ Sally says as she waves us off. In the gathering heat, we walk down the dry rocky bed of Wild Dog Creek, between the folded red rocks of the Heysen Range and the ABC Range, before climbing gently up through native pine woodlands to Taringa Saddle. For the next few hours, the temperature hovers in the mid-30s. The sky is cloudless and the only relief is the hint of a breeze and the shade of the magnificent river red gums lining the creeks we cross.

Just as we are steeling ourselves for an estimated last tough hour of walking we arrive at Aroona Ruins and within welcome sight of our campsite. There is a spring with a small rock slab perfect for standing on and washing away the dust and sweat of the day. An unexpected pleasure; the bliss of bathing outside on such a warm, dark evening.

Day 2: Aroona Campsite to Trezona Campsite (15 km)

At dawn, an ancient spirit passes through the campsite, its presence palpable on the wind. At first light the great wall of rock glows luminous orange as the sun lights up the ranges. 

We explore the ruins of the Aroona homestead. The pine and pug shepherd’s hut, the remnants of the orchard planted by the spring and Heysen’s hut where he stayed when he came here to work. At Heysen’s Viewpoint, we look out over the Three Sisters of Aroona, the long line of hills that ‘quivered in the morning light’ as he painted them. Remarkable eucalypts, some with chalk-white trunks, some smeared with silver and gold leaf. Coolibah trees with their grey bark and distinctly swollen base. Orb-weaver spiders, their golden webs spun splendidly from tree to tree. Silver eyes, honeyeaters and glossy black ravens. Wedgetail eagles so low in the sky above us we can see the fine detail of their feathers.

Cyprus pines with fragrant saltbush growing at their base. We follow Yuluna Creek as it cuts through the ABC range, walking on rocks rippled by the waves of a long-extinct inland sea. Along low rolling hills up to Brachina Lookout with views to the peaks of St Mary, Mount Sunderland, Mount Haywood and Heysen Hill. Mount Burns a black Marrukurdi, a feared creature whose blood became the red ochre of the Flinders Ranges when it was slaughtered by lizards.

Down through pine woodland with an understorey of silver wattle and hop bush to Brachina Creek, lemon-scented with grasses. One of its tributaries shelters stromatolites, their layered mounds and sheet-like sedimentary rocks containing ancient cyanobacteria, some of the earliest life on earth and one of the first photosynthetic organisms able to produce oxygen. (Up until then the earth’s atmosphere contained no oxygen.)

The haunting 640 million-year-old Trezona Range with its large, dark coloured rocks is the backdrop of our evening. At sunset, there is the drumming of emus, the territorial laughter of kookaburras and the loud alarm calls of yellow ringneck parrots.

Day 3: Trezona Campsite to Yanyanna Hut (12 km)

Red hills dotted with pale green plants. The sun lighting up Wilpena Pound two days walk to the south. Emus wary but foraging around our campsite nevertheless. A walk of only 12 kilometres today, to Yanyanna Hut via Middlesight Hut, past the defunct Elatina Mine and Pandittawotty Hill. The rugged ABC Range is our steadying landmark.

A hill that was once an island in a lake. A lake that filled the valley where diprotodon and giant kangaroos roamed. Glaciated remnants of the last ice age. More stromatolites in this worn and weathered landscape, this ancient place.

Water flowing from a spring in Elatina Creek attracts a myriad of small songbirds including reed warblers. Majestic river red gums, twisted and shaped by droughts, big rains and the occasional great rush of water down normally dry rivers. An eagle’s nest high up in a dead gum tree. Across Brachina Creek and through Brachina Gorge, the place where the emu got its forked feet. A kestrel on the hunt causing an uprising of florescent green parrots. 

We while away the warm, slow afternoon reading and exploring Elatina Creek. There are red kangaroos and euros about but the endangered rock wallaby proves elusive. An evening of night geckoes, microbats and a vast, star-studded indigo sky.

Day 4: Yanyanna Hut to Wilpena Pound (22 km)

Up before dawn, the earth still, its shadow a smudge of Matisse blue above the horizon. Kangaroos moving through the landscape, clouds hanging low over the Pound. The dry red hills with their yellow tufts, bright green shrubs and spaced cypress pines like a Tuscan landscape. A fishhook cloud. The surprisingly soft hues of the ranges in the early morning light all lilac, mauve and purple, a watercolour that Heysen might have painted.

Walking through iron-red rocky gorges, along dry creek beds and up into the pine woodland. Amongst the boulders of Wilcolo Creek, we happen upon two male yellow-footed rock wallabies sparring intently. We stand transfixed by the power and agility on display and the rareness of the sighting. 

Looking south from Bunyeroo Lookout, we can see Mt Ohlssen-Bagge, St Mary’s Peak, Mt Abrupt and the Heysen Range, guardian to the ancient spirits of the land on which we walk. There is water in Bunyeroo Creek and a lovely camping spot on a hill above the creek but we press on towards Wilpena Pound and its creature comforts. 

There are a small number of mountain bikers out and about but in four days of walking the Heysen Trail, we don’t meet any other through-walkers and only two day-walkers, out hiking the Trezona circuit. 

On towards the Pound, sections of flat open country still bare and eroded where sheep and rabbits once grazed. St Mary’s Peak close now, kangaroos aplenty and birds, including flocks of beautiful blue-green parrots. A hot shower, a meal at the pub shared unexpectedly and pleasurably with the brother of an old friend and his wife. The moon full and bright. 

Although not officially part of the Heysen Trail, two of the peaks of the South Flinders Ranges still beckon.

Day 5: Mt Ohlssen-Bagge

A perfect day for a walk. A cerulean blue sky, a breeze and a forecast of 25 degrees. Emus grazing as we set off through she-oak and fragrant wattle woodlands and climb to rock gardens of spiking grass trees and white rice flowers. Then higher and steeper over scarred, red boulders to the summit of Mt Ohlssen-Bagge. Views out across the Pound to Akurra Yardli and St Mary’s Peak, with the Heysen Range and the ABC Range snaking like a serpent away to the north.

Tawny dragons and dragons splattered yellow, blue and red. Termite nests scratched at their base by echidnas. Eagles soaring. The breeze through the she-oaks an aria; a melody of small songbirds. 

We meet some French walkers and exchange pleasantries: Bonjour, c’est bon, il y a un lézard. We enjoy a long leisurely lunch in a shady glade at the summit before climbing back down the way we came, air running for part of it, exhilarated by the country itself and the joy of the descent.

Day 6: St Mary’s Loop

Dingoes howling and owls calling all night. Up while the sky is still aglitter with stars, the pointers of the southern cross directly above the crux at this time of the morning. Euros and roos grazing in the half-light of dawn, emus trailing down the creek. A careening flock of corellas, a vivid-white pixelated cloud against the dark green of the trees. Later on, we see a swirling pink and grey cloud of galahs.

We set out to walk the St Mary’s Peak loop trail, up out of the Pound then back inside, across the flat plain. Out of river red gum country and into wilder, harsher country, boulder scrambling up to Tanderra Saddle, though not up to the Peak, the highest in the Flinders Ranges, as the traditional owners prefer that people don’t climb this sacred mountain. We enjoy spectacular views of the South Flinders Ranges and trace our four-day walk on the Heysen Trail, following the curve of the valley between the Heysen Range and the ABC Range to where we crossed the range to come out onto the head of the creation serpent. We gaze out on the glistening expanse of salt that is the ephemeral Lake Torrens, Australia’s second-largest lake (when filled with water) and watch two eagles gliding.

Grass trees, dragons and lizards. Then down through fragrant acacias on a sandy track to the valley floor where pines and eucalyptus grow. Young euros with a skip in their hop, a big mob of emus, golden dragonflies hovering at the edge of a reed-fringed billabong. Past the old Wilpena Homestead where hard lives were lived trying to farm this arid country, a litany of now-extinct native animals part of the legacy of these times.

Our six days of walking in the Flinders Ranges are a remarkable journey for the four of us and the beginning of a much longer journey for the two of us intent on walking the Heysen Trail in its 1,200-kilometre entirety.

We press the pause button for a few days and return to Melbourne for an unmissable Patti Smith concert. One wondrous experience wandering through beautiful and remote country followed by an exhilarating evening in a stately theatre in the heart of the city. Patti Smith at 70 is inspirational. Her voice is rich and powerful, her poetry compelling, her performance exquisite; a fierce and tender rage against the machine, against the dying of the light. 

You can read an account of the much longer Episode 2 of our Heysen Trail, from Cape Jervis to Wilpena Pound, here.