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Published: March 21st 2006
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Introduction
Today's walk was a stunning one and a memorable one - the Yulti Conservation Park.
This walk was chosen by Peter and was planned to be three and half an hour walk along the Heysen Trail near Myponga (found in George Driscoll’s book). The Heysen trail itself is beautiful and I would recommend people visit this park if they are in the area allowing about two hours to traverse the park and return. The views are spectacular: to the west you will see the
Myponga reservoir and the ocean, and on a clear day, Kangaroo Island. You will need proper walking shoes as the slopes are steep and slippery in parts. I would say children would need to be reasonably fit - about eight to ten years old would be okay.
To get there - take the Southern Expressway and continue towards Yankalilla and Cape Jarvis until you get to Myponga. At Myponga there is a church on the left-hand side of the main street. This is where you will turn left (East) to get to the park, however you may want to turn west and use the public toilets near the reservoir before you head off. The
Jewel spider
These spiders were out and about in considerable numbers. park is basically a rectangle shape that runs from north to south on the western face of the ranges that run parallel to the ocean.
As you travel east you will get to a T-junction very soon. Turn left and then right pretty soon after onto the road labelled to Inman Valley. About 2 km on this road there is a sharp right-hand turn ignore this and travel easterly on the small dirt road. Soon you will reach a gate that crosses the road. Park your car outside this gate. From here you walk through private property on the Heysen Trail to the entrance of the Yunti Conservation Park in its South western corner. Follow the Heysen markers through the park -basically they follow along the western border of the park and about halfway through head out to the eastern border of the park and then back down to the north-western corner. There are many gullies to pass (most with a small wooden bridges) and hills to climb (some with stairs) and of course, spectacular scenery with views to the Myponga reservoir, the ocean and Kangaroo Island.
What happened
We got sidetracked! It was only a matter of
three or four of the Heysen Trail markers into the park, when we took a wrong turn and headed up the hill instead of down the hill. We went high beyond the park and on to the private property to the top of the hills and then walked north, until we had reached the northern edge of the park and then headed west to meet the Heysen Trail at its North Western exit at the corner of the park. It took four hours to do this as there were many sections of path that we needed to fight our way through (bush bash) along what can only be described as 'wallaby trails'. There were tiger snakes, spiders, and very nasty barbed wire fences as well as electric fences to cross. Many webs crossed the path so we had to use a stick to clear the way to make sure we didn't end up with spider faces. Obviously Peter didn't get them all - as a spider did drop-down from the brim of his hat at one stage to say hello. Some of the gully crossings we did was so dense we did fear for our lives. At one point Dan
View looking west
Myponga, Myponga reservoir and the sea. promised to lead us in the prayer of thanks to God at dinner if we ever got home. Thankfully he did get this opportunity.
When we finally got back onto the Heysen Trail it only took 45 minutes to go from the north-western corner of the park back to the start. It was gorgeous and enjoyable in the late afternoon sun. The walk ended up being 5 hours long and although we had plenty of food, we were down to our last litre of fluids, which was a bit scary (we carried about 4.5 litres for the planned 3.5 hour walk). Unfortunately, my trousers did not survive - they were ripped to shreds due to multiple crossing of barbed wire fences (ouch) and crawling through animal tunnels in the bush.
Dan says ...
I am glad we survived everyone.
I had to hold onto Mum's backpack like a train to go safely through the bush.
I think that it is definitely not a good walk for a starter because if you take the wrong way you will have to go through the exact same stuff we did. Your pants might get ripped like Mum's did, you could get brutal cuts, like me, or you could get very stressed, like Dad (not that that would matter if you are really tough). If you take the right way the walk is very short.
This week's joke ...
Q:What do you call a snake that lays bricks?
A: A boa constructor
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ken mccarthy
non-member comment
i love the view looking west