Wild coast, rocky headlands, and some very thirsty times

Three hikes along the southern coast of Kangaroo Island. Two treks, a day hike. Wild coast, rocky headlands, and some very thirsty times.

Flinders Chase Coastal Trek, Hanson Bay hike and Cape Gantheaume Coastal Trek, Kangaroo Island

On the final of the three walks, the Cape Gantheaume Coastal Trek, I discovered some seven kilometres into the two day trek that I had brought along six litres of salt water for the ride. Mmm. Sure I had filled up with fresh water back at the water tanks at Vivonne Bay. Not so, clearly, as I spat out the water and contemplated my immediate future. I had even assessed the roof of the picnic shelter at Vivonne Bay to see if it looked clean, and hence the water would be good. Forgot to taste it though. It had been supplemented by water from the river outlet, very salty, much too salty to contemplate drinking.

I set the water free into the great southern ocean, and rather thirstily returned to the trailhead at Bales Bay. I sat at the bbq shelter at Bales Bay, plenty of fresh water here, but my feet would not allow me to return that seven kilometres, my day would have been some 30 kilometres long. I wouldn't be arriving at the end of the hike at the scheduled time, nothing to do but wait where I was. Safer, waiting somewhere known and easily accessible. I had phone reception the whole time, so tried calling and sent an sms to my friends. They had joined me for the first two hikes, but had piked on this one. Enough with the trail-less bush bashing.

The following day they had not shown, so I wandered up to the Seal Bay visitor centre a few kilometres up the road to discuss my quandry with the park rangers. They were stunned to hear the water I had collected from the well known spot wasn't fresh. I had seen a group of seven trek cyclists merrily refilling their water containers from the same tank. The rangers were very helpful, the duty ranger wasn't able to get out to where my friends were picking me up from to let them know, but one of the rangers asked a nearby friend if they could drop past! Excellent.

Will return to complete this walk at another time.

The Flinders Chase Coastal Trek was only open south of West Bay. We camped out here. Tim volunteered to drive the car south and ride a bike back. It was a two day hike to the Cape du Couedic lighthouse. No trail as such, following the coast. The first day was hard, we camped at Snake Lagoon, settling into our campsite after arranging for the local ranger - whom we had met on the hike - to evict the backpackers who were squatting in our booked campsite. Rocky headlands, coastal heath, the occasional beach or rock platform. Spectacular.

Also walked the Hanson Bay hike, from the free 40 Great South Australian Walks. It starts at the Kelly Hill Caves visitor centre, a return hike through scrub, past a large salt lake, beside a broad (for KI) river, and finally through sand dunes to the secluded Hanson Bay.

Download Google Earth KML file

Download kml file to view in Google Earth or adapt to use as a navigational aid in a GPS unit

Stats	Flinders Chase Coastal Trek
	Saturday	Sunday
	3/4/2010	4/4/2010
	West Bay to Snake Lagoon	Snake Lagoon to Cape de Couedic
Distance	20.9km	15.8km
Start Time	11:54am	7:57am
End Time	7:27pm	1:30pm
Moving Duration	5h35m	3h35m
Stationary Duration	1h57m	1h51m
Moving Average	3.7km/h	4.4km/h
Overall Average	2.8km/h	2.9km/h
Oodometer	20.9km	36.7km

Stats	Hanson Bay hike
	Monday
	5/4/2010
	Kelly Hill Caves to Hanson Bay
Distance	8.38km one way
Start Time	am
End Time	pm
Moving Duration	1h47m
Stationary Duration	21m
Moving Average	4.7km/h
Overall Average	3.9km/h

Mt Cavern Trek

Well two weeks ago Judith and myself found ourselves racing against the sun to return to camp before dusk fell. Today, we found ourselves wandering off the pathway and attempting to find our way safely down from Mt Cavern.

Mt Cavern trek, Mt Remarkable National Park

The second time in as many weeks we had found ourselves in a challenging situation. We needed to complete today's hike within a tight timeframe, but that mattered for nothing once we found ourselves off the pathway and lost. We backtracked a little but for a while, were certain we were still on track. Later, of course, it was obvious we had stumbled off the track, so we spent 30 minutes more or less in silence navigating our way down to the safety of the valley below.

A really fantastic hike though, despite the rain, mist and cloud on the way up to the peak of Mt Cavern, the views would be very good on a clear day. Despite what the signs said, I think there would be views from the peak. The walk down the other side of the Mount was truly breathtaking.

Mount Cavern Trek
(11 km return; 6 hours return. Or 3.6 km return; 2 hours return to Black Range Lookout only)
From Mambray Creek day visitor area, a demanding trek crosses the high ridges of the Black Range to the summit of Mount Cavern and then descends steeply into Mambray Creek. The view from Mount Cavern is restricted by tall trees but there are fine vantage points along the route. If your time is limited, an hours walk along the Mount Cavern Trek trail will lead to the Black Range Lookout. This lookout provides magnificent views of the plains and towns of upper Spencer Gulf. Return along the same route to Mambray Creek.

We had camped at Mambray Creek campground on Friday night, a stop-over for our drive up to Parachilna. Saturday afternoon, after our Mt Cavern trek, we drove up to Parachilna for the Shorts Outback film festival, held at the Prairie Hotel. Ideally, it is held under the stars with a gourmet feast, but due to heavy rains and wind over much of the state over the last couple of days, they went to plan b, using a marquee.

On Sunday we explored Blinman a little. This cute little one flew over the car almost immediately fluttering between each of the side mirrors in a seemingly unending obsession. Name it? Narcissus perhaps. Very cute.

Download Google Earth KML file of Mt Cavern Trek

Download kml file to view in Google Earth or adapt to use as a navigational aid in a GPS unit

Stats	Mt Remarkable National Park
	Saturday
	25/04/2009
	Mt Cavern Trek
Distance	12.3km
Start Time	10.51am
End Time	3.07pm
Moving Duration	3h19m
Stationary Duration	55m
Moving Average	3.7km/h
Overall Average	2.9km/h

Perfect Beaches, Perfect Campsite

It was Jude who gave us the tip. Butlers Beach. A privately owned campsite offering bush camping along 7km of spectacular coastline.

Hillocks Drive bush camping, Yorke Peninsula, Australia Day
Friday 23 January to Monday 26 January 2009
Alex, Bec and myself

After some google efforts we had it tracked down, Hillock Drive at Butlers Beach. We drove down after work on Friday night, Alex bought me tea to make up for the $9 I wasted on parking my car in the multi-level next to work to save time, I had return home to get something he couldn't bring from his camping list.

Having found the key that was left out for us, we explored what campsites we could easily see in the 10 o'clock darkness. We shortlisted, and settled on one behind a huge sand dune with small trees sheltering and shading the site. It was a winner. The next day when we spoke to the woman in the shop to pay our camp fees, she declared it was probably one of the best campsites. Yeah! And it was, lots of shade,
plenty of shelter from the wind.

On Saturday morning we explored and walked through the sand dunes down to the beach. It ended up being quite a walk as we tried to make a path through the dunes. Eventually, having given up on following others' footsteps, we found Salmon Beach. We had camped behind a headland, so from what we could see there was no easy route to the beach. The water was wild, but warm, so we decided to strip down to our underwear and go for a swim. It was really really good. Bec decided not to join us, but filmed us, then wandered off for a walk as we dried off.


Saturday afternoon we explored the coastline of Hillocks, there were a number of really cool beaches. We drove all the way to the end, only to discover later that beyond Gartrells Rocks it was 4WD only, yeah sure, it had been sandy and a challenge to drive through, but really, it was a private road. At Flat Rocks we discovered a series of shallow warm rockpools, and as we stood near the sea edge we were soaked by the extensive spray from crashing enormous waves.


Sunday we headed over to Edithburgh, going via a wind farm to see how huge those beasts really are. We found a sweet spot near Edithburgh that Alex had snorkelled at during a recent Easter family camping trip. It was low tide though, so we snorkelled under the Edithburgh jetty which was good. A cool breeze and deeper water meant the wetties were welcome. Some stuff to see, and other snorkelers too. Once we were out though, we saw a huge manta ray over a metre wide, if not one and a half metres wide.

After a woeful lunch in Edithburgh, we drove to Point Gilbert near Port Moorowie, which was very seaweedy. We had a discussion about the name Periwinkle Reef, Alex argued it was mentioned in the SA Tourism guide, a reckoned it wasn't. A bet was made, an Ice Coffee in it. I won, claiming my prize on Monday in Moonta.

With all the seaweed and yellow water, we decided to check out the third spot mentioned in the guide, Parsons Beach, north of Hardwicke Bay. Nope, looked the same. With all this dirt road driving, we had been around for long enough for the tide to change, so back to our initial spot that was no longer just ankle deep. Saw little, and it was cool, except one small and remarkably stationary ray thing, and
Alex allegedly saw a Guitar Shark.

After our swim Monday morning, we made pancakes, of which predictably the first didn't work, then packed up before heading out at 12noon to drive listening to the Hottest 100 up to Moonta Bay where we swam. The days had got hotter over the weekend, now for Aussie Day it was 35 degrees. Lots of people at Moonta Bay, a shallow but warm sea, in which the three of us played frisbee. Upon returning to our bag and towel, which we had left at a safe distance from the water's edge, or so we thought, they were about to be inundated. Listening to the countdown to 1 on the Hottest 100 we arrived back home at 6pm.

A top weekend, pity Jude couldn't make it down as she got into her Groupie thing for Tour Down Under, but still a fab weekend. Not enough photos perhaps, but that was cos so much of the stuff we did was in the water, so not a bad weekend at all.