Early on a Saturday morning, I met up with a group of friends and we drove just over ninety minutes south of Adelaide to the coastal town of Cape Jervis. Our plan was to walk the first section of the Heysen Trail, a long distance hiking trail named in honour of Hans Heysen, a famous German-born South Australian artist. Leaving one car at the Kangaroo Island ferry terminal, we drove the other into Deep Creek conservation park to the Cobbler Hill campground so that we could walk from the fifteen kilometres from the campground to Cape Jervis, and then drive back to collect the other car.
As we left the Cobbler Hill Campground, signs warned of a steep descent, and it wasn’t long before we told ourselves we had made the right decision to walk to Cape Jervis instead of beginning there and walking towards Cobbler Hill Campground. The ground sloped sharply downwards, and when we came across some stairs, we had enough trouble walking down them – climbing up when going the other way would have been an exhausting way to end the walk!
The landscape soon took its revenge on us, however, as we climbed up and down a series of rolling hills. The scenery was spectacular though – the deep blue waters of the Backstairs Passage with Kangaroo Island hazy in the distance was our constant view as we walked through farmland past grazing sheep and cattle.
Both Blowhole Beach and Fishery Beach were opportunities for us to catch our breath and gaze at the white sands, turquoise water and rugged cliff faces that formed the coastline. We were lucky enough to see a dolphin as well as a pod of seals!
By the end of the walk I was exhausted – we had underestimated how long the walk was going to take! What we had originally envisaged as being a two to three hour walk ended up being a six hour trek. I kept my eye out for the Sealink ferry as it made its way back and forth between Cape Jervis on the mainland and Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island, knowing that the bigger the ferry appeared to be the closer I was getting to the end of the walk. It kept my motivation up for the final three kilometres of the walk as we trudged through sandhills, the harsh rays of the afternoon sun beating down on us.
Since we had done the walk in reverse (it’s intended for people to begin at Cape Jervis and finish at Cobbler Hill), it wasn’t until we saw the Trail sign at the very end that we realised how far we had actually walked.
On the way back to Adelaide we stopped in at Yankalilla Bakery to re-fuelWe managed to recover by stopping in at the Yankalilla Bakery for Cornish pasties and chocolate donuts to re-fuel before making our way back to Adelaide.
Open from April to October the Heysen Trail covers 1200 kilometres in total, making our sixteen kilometres seem insignificant! Though if the rest of the scenery along the trail is as picturesque as the walk from Cobbler Hill to Cape Jervis was, then it might be worth the effort to explore a few more sections of it.