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Published: August 9th 2006
Climbing the Mount
Peter and Dan making their way up the eastern slope of Mt Bryan, SA's third highest peak.Introduction
This week's walk was a long, hard but very rewarding one. We walked a part of the Heysen trail that starts on the Mount Bryan East road, goes up and over the highest peak in the Mount Lofty Ranges and then down into the town of Hallet. It look us 4 1/2 hours with several breaks.
This one is for fit and experienced walkers.
How to get there
Mount Bryan is North of Burra, which is about 2 hours North of Adelaide. Take highway 32 towards Broken Hill. About 10 km south of the town of Hallett (just after the H 10 sign) there is a cross road at which you make a right hand turn. Follow this road about half way round the mountain until you see a sign on the fence on the left indicating the start of the Heysen trail on Private property. Park (or get dropped off) here.
What happened ...
We had a perfect still winter's day for the climb. We were dropped off by Peter's mother and took only 70 minutes to make it to the summit for our picnic. On the way up we saw
several pairs of ringneck parrots as
Dan getting a head start
The entrance to private property to cross Mt Bryan from the Mount Bryan East road along the Heysen trail well as kangaroos.
At the summit was a visitor's book, cairn, a stone chair, radio repeaters and communication towers. The highest point was marked by the blue trig markers - and right in the middle was a big sleepy lizard sunning itself. The highest lizard in the Mount Lofty Ranges!
We worked our way down seeing more parrots, kangaroos and sleepy lizards. The down trail took about 3 hours and we telephoned Peter's Mum to come and pick us up.
Dan says ...
Hello readers
Guess what, I climbed to the top of the 3rd highest mountain in S.A., Mount Bryan, in 1.2 hours. When Mr Bryan, a member of Sturt's crew died walking around that area, I think he wasn't prepared, but we were.
Mount Bryan was easy-peasy-japanesy-lemon-squeezy! Got you. It was really hard. I was puffed out and I fell asleep in the car on the way home. When I was sitting in the throne of God at the top of Mt Bryan it felt like everything was standing still and I was watching everything and making sure nothing was wrong.
Anyway, have you ever heard of paddy-melons? They are poisonous fruit that were growing by the creek. They are round and can float as if they are filled with air. Want to hear the science of it? Okay then. A paddy melon skin is just like the skin of a lemon. Here is a little trick that you can play on someone - tell them that if things are lighter they will float better. Get two lemons, one that has no skin on it and one with skin on it. Tell your victim to choose the lemon that they think will float. What ever you do, do not pick the skinned one as it sinks. The reason is that inside the skin are air pockets that act as if it was a life vest for the lemon - so it floats. The paddy melon does the same.
This week's joke is on the lizard theme
Q: What do you call a lizard that sings?
A: A rap-tile!
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Ian
non-member comment
return to Mt Bryan
I enjoyed your stories of Mt Bryan. I remember going there when I was about 10 to visit a family on a farm there. Strangely enough, about 20 years later I taught in a school with a daughter of the family! (She was studying in Adelaide when I had visited, so I didn't meet her then) Nice memories ... :)