Heysen trail - Warren Consersvation Park

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Introduction

It is with much pleasure that I share with you our visit to a great bush walk situated near Williamstown in SA called Warren Conservation Park. It is a 9km walk - up hill and down with fabulous views, interesting rocks and very serene bush land. It is part of the Heysen trail but this is a well-marked loop trail. You will need to have a reasonable level of fitness, although there are no horrendous steep sections, and if you are taking children they will need to be able to walk for up to four hours.

There are many interesting rock formations in this park - many containing mica which reflects brightly in the sun - so remember to wear your sunnies on this walk.

There is a little bit of information about Warren on the Parks SA web site - annoyingly only as a pdf document.

How to get there

From the CBD take Main North road to the Black top road turn-off that goes through One tree hill. After the township of One tree hill there is a T junction, turn left and follow the signs to Kersbrook. Travel through Kersbrook (last chance for public toilets - located on the left behind the hall which is near the general store) and continue on the road to Williamstown. About 5 km out of Williamstown there is a turn off to the right which is hard to spot as it is just after a hill crest. It is called Watts Gully Road and it has a Brown park sign indicating Warren Conservation Park is about 1 km further down this dirt road.

What happened ...

We have been to this park twice before - in March 2005 Warren Conservation Park and Sept 2005 Father's Day at Warren, but it has never been this dry. Today was no different - we had a bright sunny winter's morning of about 18 degrees for this walk with cloud developing in the afternnon.

We were treated to an amazing wildflower display, particularly on those parts of the walk with northerly perspectives. I have worked out a way how I might be able to identify these plants using the flora list in the Parks sa web site and Google image search on the scientific name - just need to find some time to do the hunting .... I will update the images with names as I do.

There were many birds - mostly New Holland honey eaters and wattle birds - which sort of makes sense when you consider the flowers. We also identified some Adelaide rosellas and met up with a group of kangaroos (one of which I was able to photograph).

Dan says ...

Hello readers!

One of the games that I am playing on my Playstation at the moment is Ty3 - the attack of the Quinkan. It is a story about a Tasmanian tiger, called Ty who works for Bush Rescue. He is trying to save his home town, Burramudgie, and his girlfriend, Shazza, from the evil Quinkan.

While I was on this walk I decided to pretend I was in a virtual reality machine and I was Ty going on a journey to save Shazza. I brought my boomerang along - just like Ty has in the game. I needed to be careful as I walked to look out for Quinkan or other dangerous creatures, like drop bears, wanting to stop me in my tracks.

There are plenty of cool rocks to collect on this walk - but don't pick them up until you get to the end of the walk, otherwise you have to carry them all the way around - unless of course, if you can convince someone else to carry it in their backpack!

Now for this week's joke

Q: What do you call a blind reindeer?
A: No idea (no eye deer)

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Photos

Gully trail
Along the Heysen trail to the gully (section 5-6)

Loop trail
This is the path we took - I've added some numbers so you can match where the photos came from.

Bush path
section 2 - plenty of wildflowers

Yellow buttercuplike flowers
section 2

Balls of white flowers
section 2

Prickly wattle
section 2

Bitter pea - Danesia
section 2

Purple bells
section 2

white spider flowers
section 2

split in path
section 2 - wildflowers, good map, heysen trail, upper track

Detail of eroded rock
Section 2

View west
Section 2

Termite tree stump
This looks a bit like Pikachu to me (a Pokemon)

Detail of termite work
How an why do those little guys do it this way?

Puff balls
Dan had fun stomping on these fungal fruiting bodies - causing a spray of yellow-brown spores into the air.

Top of the climb
My boys and the view West

Detail of rock erosion - mica
Rock containing layers of mica has interesting erosion patterns

Roadside walk
Section 3 - the path goes along a fence line that borders a dirt road

Next to the fire tower
Looking west - weather changing - beginning section 4

Dam
Our picnic lunch was taken with a view overlooking a dam (section 4). Do be careful about swooping magpies in this section of the walk!!!

Comments

[Nanna Rosemary Quinn]

Wild Flowers.
The dry season has obviously not detered the proliferation of the native vegetation in Warren Conservation Park. It is also good to know that the kangaroos and native birds are still there.Some of the species are different to those in the Southern Flinders others similar.Keep walking.

[SA hiker]

Wild flowers
Hi Nanna Great to hear you on the blog. I agree wildflowers are a great thing to see - they are God's own paintings. We have found wildflowers and animals are diferent on hills that are quite close to each other. The soil, rocks and water are different. I think humidity is important too. By the way Nanna, you should keep walking too - you will never know what you will find. Love Dan xxx