We bit the bullet and went to Mount Lofty on a 24 degree day thinking this would be a good temp for a walk. The mountain has spectacular views over Adelaide and many walk tracks. The track I wanted to trek was called the waterfall path because it has 3 waterfalls on it. (We took the arrow pointing left marked 4km-thats 4km down and 4km back up) We walk a lot and had our good walking shoes on so thought this would be a nice bit of exercise, perhaps stretching our abilities a little but nothing too hard....ha ha ha
At the top we happily headed off down the path to the biggest waterfall which was, of course, at the very bottom. These signposts are all along the path to guide your way, they weren't as comforting as you might think because the emergency numbers on them just acted like a big warning telling me that they don't expect everyone will make it back!!
THE MARKER PEG AT THE TOP OF THE WALK.....NOTE THAT IT HAS AN EMERGENCY NUMBER 19 ON IT-SO THE EMERGENCY CREW KNOW WHERE TO PICK UP YOUR DEAD/DYING BODY.
THE TRACK AT OUR LUNCH STOP
The track above was one of the flattest parts, even though I knew that the facts were that this was a 4km track with a 710mtr drop, the reality was far steeper than we imagined and most of the track was very steep, so steep that it took us the same amount of time to walk back up as it did down.
A SECTION OF TRACK WITH A FERN WALL UP ONE SIDE, THE OTHER SIDE WAS A STEEP DROP
The further down we walked the moister it got. The first waterfall we came to (waterfall 3) was dry, but we had already learnt that from other walkers we had spoken to.
WATERFALL 2
We kept on trekking (a lot of it was straight down) and eventually came across Waterfall 2 which was set back into a cove and looking gorgeous. The signpost said we were only 600mtrs from Waterfall 1.
WATERFALL 1
Waterfall 1 was a nice one, I am sure had we come in winter it would have had a much bigger flow but I wasn't complaining. If you look closely you can see people at the top (left side) of the waterfall......this is the path we had just come down. It was here that Les realised there was in fact a carpark here and we could have just driven....he wasn't happy to learn this.
Note that in these photos we are still smiling...this is because we had only come down and still had the upward climb to come. There are 3 reasons why there are no photos of us trekking back up:
1 I looked like I was dying
2 I didn't have the energy to get the camera out of my backpack
3 I had to reserve all of my dwindling stamina to try to get back to the top
I will admit that it was a hard slog getting back to the top though the fit looking people who were also struggling to get back up did help me feel less pathetic. It took 4 hours in total and I am soooo glad we did it!
Comment of the day came from Les when we were driving home and saw an ambulance "They must be going to Mt Lofty" he said.
The next day we were catching the bus into Adelaide !!!! I woke up a little sore but a hot shower and the walk to the bus stop loosened me up! The 1 hour ride was great as it went through tiny towns we had not seen before and we were soon in the city, by which time I had seized up and was barely able to get off the bus :(
The boxing day sales were still on and it was pretty busy, we methodically walked both sides of the Rundle Mall, stopping for food and coffee as required.
THIS HOUSE AND ITS DECORATIONS ARE ENTIRELY MADE FROM BISCUITS AND LOLLIES/CHOCOLATES
Found this house, really wanted to nick some of the choccies but realised that hundreds of kids would have been touching them, though I notice some of the chocolate path and gold Ferrere Roche tree were missing.
It has been a big week and I am still pretty thrilled that I made the Mt Lofty/Waterfall walk, even the locals are impressed!! We might go back again but this time to have a relaxed lunch in the cafe and feel smug with ourselves that we completed the 8km walk.
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