Hike Map
Description
A high fitness hike, if you want it to be, with hundreds of steps going up and down the sides of the amphitheatre! Or perhaps just a leisurely stroll along the boardwalk - but there are still a few stairs along the way. Hallet Cove Conservation Park provides walks for all fitness levels amongst scenery from bushland to open coastal views. Fascinating signs along the way depict millions of years of history embedded in the soil and rocks, most notably, how things changed and shifted throughout the iceage. A thoroughly stimulating hike!
From Australian Explorer website
"Hallett Cove is one of Australia's most outstanding geological and archaeological sites, recording evidence of an Australian ice age some 280 million years ago and providing a treasure chest of more than 1,700 Aboriginal artefacts. Magnificently developed glacial pavements along the northern cliff tops are recognised as the best record of Permian glaciation in Australia and have international significance. The park also conserves native flora and fauna and has a beach for swimming and fishing.
Hallett Cove Conservation Park is just 22 kilometres south of the Adelaide city centre."
Details
Starting Point: The end of Cove Rd., Hallet Cove
Tracks: Trails are not named with the exception of the coastal trail which is the boardwalk.
Grade: Medium
Time: 1.25 Hours
Length: 6 km
Map: http://www.environment.sa.gov.au/parks/pdfs/BROCHURE_HALLETT_COVE.PDF
Our Story
With Hallet Cove only being a 10 minute drive from our home, this is a walk we have done many times now and I know the layout and the tracks well. But even still, we managed to discover a new little offshoot track to explore which took us into different vegetation again!
I've started taking photos of the information signs around the parks. Those at Hallet Cove are fascinating with facts on the iceage as well as about the flora and fauna. They are all in the slideshow at the bottom if you wish to read them. There are also quite a few sites with information on this historically significant piece of land. One is from the Marion City Council - http://www.marion.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=200 - it also includes a YouTube video from a TV feature done on the park.
We started this walk in the northern end of the park, then on to the boardwalk that is the Coastal Trail, finishing with going down the amphitheatre steps, up to Sugarloaf, down to Hallet Cove beach and then back through and up the amphitheatre steps before heading back to the car.
One of the coastal views from the boardwalk
We found a new program which we downloaded onto Dave's phone. Nokia Sports Tracker. It uses the GPS on his phone to map the route that we take. Fantastic piece of technology! It was exciting to see how fast we were walked, the distance, and also the altitudes, the highest point and the lowest point. And while it was great to see the route we took, it wasn't completely accurate as Dave's phone is only accurate to 3 metres. So, the path we took looked rather drunken, and not along the straight lines and curves of the trails. It took some time to fix it up - more time than it would have to map it in the first place! So, next time, we will try to find a program for the TomTom which should be more accurate.
We didn't see a lot of bird life today and it was all a bit gloomy for photos, so I've included a slideshow to a handful of other photos from walks at Hallet Cove when the weather was better! One interesting spot was seeing, what we assumed was probably a fox, who had dug a ditch under the fence line so he could get through. Nothing stops them!
The fresh sea air, the magnificent coastal views, the wonderful steps and the outstanding scientific and historical features make the Hallet Cove Conservation Park a truly invigorating walk!
Fox dig
Sugarloaf
Slideshow of more photos
Slideshow of photos from a previous walk
1 comment:
Thanks guys. This was wonderful to go through before actually going there!
Cham
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