Happy Wandering

The Heysen Trail is  a 1200 long hiking track that winds from Cape Jervis at the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula and heads north through South Australia to end in the Flinders Ranges. Over the years since we moved to SA we've done most of the trail in our area in short half- or full-day trips. Some of the trail is on tracks in national parks or conservation areas, some goes through private property and there's even some on roads. Of course, we've only done a handful of the entire trail, but I thought I'd explored all the bits we could find here. I say 'find' because, unless you have a detailed map, it's not easy to see where the trail is, as you often have to cross a road and search for the small Heysen Trail sign to locate the next bit.

So it was quite exciting to discover a section we had not done before. I set off (minus Steve who decided to test his camera at Granite Island instead).  

[An aside: The title for this post comes from a song we had to learn in high school when we had music lessons once a week, learning songs that were popular for children's choirs - something I quite enjoyed. This song was called 'The Happy Wanderer' and was very popular in the 1950s and 60s. I don't remember anything about it except that it conjures up images of people hiking in the Alps, whistling, laughing and singing as they go - the opening lines being 'I love to go a wandering along the mountain track, and as I go I love to sing, my knapsack on my back'. Of course, as I was walking, I couldn't help but sing a few verses, the words of which I still recall. Thank goodness Steve was not with me.] 

The first section of the walk was through a typical bush setting along a wide road-less-travelled track, with glimpses of lush farmland. No-one about. Sun shining. A coolish breeze. Birdsong.

The sun meanwhile decided to disappear but it was an easy walk and at least the rain was holding off.

After about half an hour walking, the road ended at the main road that eventually leads to Cape Jervis. I dithered, looking left and right, but couldn't see the Heysen sign. I crossed the road, peering intently, until I spotted the tiny tell-tale marker on a small hillock. This proved to be a successful move as I then saw the stile and another sign. Phew. 

I have to say that this section of the walk was not as spectacular as some parts. It was a narrow, sandy track hugging a fence and winding through scrubby bushland. However, it was well-maintained, and the spring wildflowers a bonus. 

And clearly signposted.

As I said, the wildflowers were out.

I was watching out for snakes as there have been a few reports of sightings recently. But all was clear, though this deep hole gave me the shivers.

Through the bush ...

... and along a fence.

More flowers.

Then a lovely view of distant hills and farmland. 

I decided that was as far as I wanted to go, so retraced my steps.

And to prove I was actually there, I decided to take a selfie when I returned to the stile (something I have never done before - so this was an absolute first). You can see how skilful I am. 

Selfie and Stile

I had two lovely encounters on the way back to my car. One was chatting to this rider I encountered on the road.

And the other was this bee who obligingly stayed still for me! 

Another bit of the Heysen Trail done. Definitely a happy wander.

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Ever since we visited Scott Conservation Park last winter I've been looking forward to going back there. We had done the short one-hour walk which I had enjoyed immensely, but there was a longer one which advertised itself as 'the orchid walk', best seen in spring. Every time we decided to go for a walk I'd suggest this one, but Steve always had other suggestions. But after last week's bush walk in the Hindmarsh Valley where we had spotted a couple of orchids, I was fired up to see more of these lovely wildflowers. After persuading Steve that it would be a wonderful day out, my wish came true and we arrived at the start of the walk, around 30 kms from home north of Currency Creek. 

Hmmm. The first thing we noticed were the mosquitos buzzing around. It'll be ok once we start walking I thought. A few strides later and we were confronted by a set of steep wooden steps that led down to a very muddy creek. I remember this from our previous walk, but that time, the creek had been dry so we merely walked across the dried-up bed. Now we could see there were half a dozen rocks thoughtfully spaced out across the water but seemingly put there by someone who didn't realise that a rock for walking precariously over water should be flat and smooth with a uniform round shape. I just couldn't face falling into the water, especially if I couldn't get a good grounding on any of the rocks. Annoyed, we retraced our steps and decided to start the loop walk from the other end. We got back in the car and drove to the second entrance. 

The walk was through scrubby bush and nothing like I remembered from the last visit. Perhaps it was the sunny day that rendered everything brittle and faded like an overexposed photo. 

And those pesky mosquitos returned.  We were forever batting them away and stopping for photos was a precarious exercise. I was scouring the track for orchids but none was to be seen, although I did rather like the vivid blues and yellows of the tiny flowers that spread across the forest floor. Because of the sun these flowers look very washed out. 

I tried to take some in the shade which was a little better.

And I did like this lovely pale green flower.

Steve spotted a bright yellow one.

On we trudged. It was not turning out to be a very pleasant walk at all. We couldn't see any orchids and now huge black ants scurried across the path for a few metres. It was difficult to avoid them so we hurried on hoping none decided to hitch a ride on our trousers. 

I was only halfheartedly checking the undergrowth when I though I spotted an orchid. It was so tiny.

And then I saw some more.

That was the last I saw.  The bush then gave way to sunny open expanses but then the track narrowed back to where there was a bit of shade and greenery - but no orchids.

We crossed another creek but this time, thankfully, there was a proper concrete bridge. But we were so disgruntled by now as the track just went on and on through nondescript bush; it seemed nothing like the previous visit and there were more mosquitos than orchids. So we turned around, retraced our steps ... and drove home, wondering why a place could be so inviting at one time and rather ordinary another time. 

Oops

Back home I did what I should have done before we set off - check what wildflowers we might see. By looking at the photos on the very informative site showing native orchids of the Adelaide Hills region, I was able to identify that we had spotted the wallflower donkey orchid (the one with the yellow 'donkey ears' sticking up). The swathes of those tiny blue and yellow flowers that to me did not look like a traditional orchid turned out to be varieties of sun orchids. So it really was 'an orchid walk' after all. I'll have to return to my previous blog now to identify all the orchids we really did see on our Mount Billy walk that I dismissed so readily as 'only wildflowers'.