LONG distance trails attract walkers with the promise of challenge and discovery. The Heysen Trail, Australia’s longest dedicated walking trail, delivers on many levels through its diversity. It runs from the Southern Ocean to the arid north, following the Mount Lofty and Flinders Ranges for nearly 1200km. It skirts spectacular coastal cliffs, winds along glacial valleys, through forests, rolling vineyards, cereal heartlands, ancient flood plains, and quartzite gorges to the iconic outback landscape of the Flinders Ranges.
The Heysen Trail was built from 1978 to 1992 along the most scenic route from Cape Jervis on the southern tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula to Parachilna Gorge in the northern Flinders Ranges. There was good reason to name the trail after Australia’s most successful 20th Century landscape painter, Sir Hans Heysen. He
