Para Wirra - Ruins track

Introduction

We headed north for this week's walk, returning to the Para Wirra Recreation Park, and in particular, that part of the park that does not charge an entrance fee. This time we did a 2.5 hour loop walk through the southern end of the park over gentle hills.

I would rate this walk as easy and suitable for families. All the tracks were wide, so well suited for walkers who are novices in picking out tracks in the bush. There is one moderately steep section (section 6 on the map).

The park is full of flowering bushes and birds. If you have a small pair of field glasses/binoculars, bring them along, as this will help with watching the parrots popping in and out of the holes in the big old trees and the finches and robins in the bushes. In late August - September there are orchids near the dam (the turn-off for the dam is fat Mark 2 on the map).

Para Wirra - Gold Diggers tells the story of our last visit to this park in April.

How to get there ...

From the city take Main North Road past the Old Spot Hotel until you get to Black top road (for us lucky Semaphore people the new Port expressway makes getting to Main North Road a breeze).

Turn right onto Black Top Road and head to One Tree Hill. Shortly after the One Tree Hill township you come to a T junction. Turn left and stay on this road (Humbug Scrub Road).
When you see the entrance to the Para Wirra Park, drive past it and take the road that runs along side of the park instead. About 3 km on there is a T junction with Bassnet Road. Turn right and park in the car park in front of the Mt Crawford pine plantation. Enter the park (on foot) at this corner (Mark 1 on the map) and turn left (heading South).

What happened ...

A lovely bright winters day. The golden wattle was flowering making the air quite scented. Along the path were small flowering bushes of purple, blue, red, white, pink - very pretty.

We took the opportunity to do some bird-watching. If you stay still and quiet the birds seemed to get used to you and would start going through their daily business which was nice to watch. We saw many different types of parrots and particularly enjoyed watching the antics of a pair of musk lorikeets popping in and out of a nesting hole. We also found evidence of emus but no sightings. If you would like more information about birdwatching in SA then there is this information-rich web site that has a section about different parks, including the Para Wirra park, or the Birds Australia web site (or nest). But I think the hikers need to invest in a field guide of Australian birds soon... and perhaps even a camera with a zoom lens :-)

Dan says ...

Hello readers,

Para Wirra was a good walk, but last time we went I thought I sprained my ankle (I hadn't - it was only twisted). This time I didn't twist my ankle but I still used a walking stick to get around. The stick was a dead flower from a yacca bush. They are very light and strong. Do you remember what yaccas contain? PICRIC acid - it is like an explosive and it will blast into giant fireballs if it is on fire. Do you know why it contains picric acid? Because it

Golden wattle
The park was full of flowering golden wattle

needs to blast it's seeds far away and the hot flames ignite the picric acid which launches them and cracks open the seed pod.

We saw all sorts of things that we didn't see the last time - that because this is winter and we went in autumn last time. For example the sundew flowers were out and I haven't seen them since last year. We also took a different track - the Ruins track. On this track we saw a big old tree that had fallen down. I climbed on top to impress Mum.

We saw emu tracks - but I thought Dad was playing a trick on me by making the tracks with his walking stick.

This week's joke:

Doctor! Doctor! I keep getting a pain in my eye when I drink coffee!
Have you tried taking the spoon out of the cup before you drink?

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