Black Hill - Ghosts and Amber

Introduction

This blog covers our last 2 weeks of walks in Black Hill Conservation Park - the Ghost Gum gully last week and Amber's gully this week.

You can find out more about Black Hill at the Postcards web site as well as the Parks web. Both of the walks made loop tracks of sections of the Yurrabilla trail. A printable map of the park is available.

Both walks are 2-3 hours and require moderate climbs - so fit 7-8 year olds should be okay.
A shorter walk in Amber gully, just to the rock waterfall area, would take under an hour and be suitable for the first walk for young families. There is a gentle rise only.

How to get there ...

The park can be accessed from Gorge road.
For the Ghost walk we turned early and parked in a side street - Everest Avenue.
For the Amber gully walk we drove a little further down Gorge Road and parked at Gate 6 (on the right hand side not long after Cohen Road. The From the GPO map will help you find the 2 start points.

From Everest Avenue Head along the path on the left towards Ghost Tree Gully. I was relieved that they have fixed the sign at the junction - it sent us in the wrong direction last time! The deep gully is named because of the Ghost gums. After 30 mins or so the path splits and you need to turn right along a smaller path to the summit. It is a steady climb with lovely views. You will come to another junction, take the smaller path on the left continuing up along a stair-like path of clay and rock up to the top. Turn left and park yourself on a log off the path and have something yummy to eat as you watch the clouds roll in over the Adelaide plains.
Once refreshed head north along the Black hill track until you get to a junction with a tank, turn left and head down the Three Sugar loaves trail. There is a turn off that was marked as dangerous that we took - land slides had occurred along this path. We took this down, back into the gully and then followed our way back out to Everest Avenue.

The next walk starts on Gorge road. You walk for a bit, past Yurabilla signs and alongside houses until you get to an Amber's gully sign and a gate. Go through and follow the creek. Next you will see the ruins of a house. Continue along the path and follow the marked Nature trail. Along the way a shower of rain came over and we had to seek shelter under a rock and took the opportunity to have lunch. The SA_hiker family will have to invest in some wet weather gear soon...

The next surprise was the waterfall made of rock and adjacent caves. The path split and we took the smaller Sugar Loaves trail across the creek and then steadily up and up. The walk up was pleasant after the shower with lovely smells and sparkling bush. We finally arrived at a clearing and took a break by a large log and took in the view. But we were not alone, a koala was there too. We then continued until the trail junction and turned right and headed down. There has been some water flow, obscured with debris - probably as they didn't want people to walk down it, but we had no choice but to continue down.

Dan says...

Hello readers - it is me, Dan!

Do you know how good it is for farmers to get rain after that long drought? Well, we like the rain too. Near the end of the Amber's gully walk, it started raining and pouring, I could hear the old man snoring, he must have went to bed and bumped his head, and couldn't get up in the morning. It was pretty good to walk in the rain after having a hot walk.

Have you ever heard the South American tale of El Niño and La Niña? El Niño was looking around, asking for some maize flour so his mother could bake cakes and bread. The villagers said no as they couldn't get any maize flour. Then El Niño saw some white puffy things in the sky - he thought that could be a place for the maize flour to be kept (as he was a little child he didn't know that is was clouds). Also he was a very good climber and at night he climbed up on the stars and waited for the sun to rise. He leapt on to the

Tree in the creek
There has been some water flow

sun and gathered all the clouds together and stuffed them in his dilly bag. He then swam home through the sea scaring all the fish away and bringing the clouds with him to a big dry land and met up with the gnomes that came from the Inca territory. He decided to share the "flour" between the gnomes and his sister, La Niña. La Niña was a very smart and pretty girl and when El Niño got the flour out of his dilly bag, she slapped him and said - that is not flour, they're clouds. She got out her dilly bag and put them back - and scared all the fish back to South America. And the cycle has been going on for years.

Last year's drought was a big El Niño - the fish were scared away and the clouds with rain were gone - perhaps now is La Niña?

And now for a joke ..

Noah sent the animals from the ark with the command "Go forth and multiply!"
The snakes objected and said
"we can't, we're adders".



We hoped you enjoyed this blog entry. Please leave us a comment. If this activity wasn't the right one for you then remember you can visit our Complete index of our walks/activities by location to find other walks and things to do in SA.
Yours,
SA-Hikers (aka Diana Peter and Dan)

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Videos from "Black Hill - Ghosts and Amber":

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