Planning and Tips - Gammon Ranges 3 Day Italowie Gorge Circuit Hike
We would like to acknowledge the Adnyamathanha people, the traditional owners of the land through which we walk, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are present today.
Our walk is a spectacular three day loop through classic outback South Australian country, starting at Italowie Gorge Campsite, where we leave our car. We hike north through the gorge (“Italowie Gorge Hike”) and spend our first night near Balcanoona Creek. We can’t rely on water sources until Grindell’s campsite, so it’s a two-day water carry.
The second day we take a side trip to Bunyip Chasm, before backtracking and heading east along Balcanoona Creek to Grindell’s Campground.
The last day is further east through Weetootla Gorge to Weetootla Campground, then cross country southwest across a stony plain back to Italowie Gorge.
Our walk details
Day 1: Distance 12.9 km (8.1 miles) ; Gain 350 m (1150 ft) ; Descent 275 m (900 ft)
Day 2: Distance 16.0 km (10.0 miles) ; Gain 500 m (1640 ft) ; Descent 530 m 1740 ft)
Day 3: Distance 17.9 km (11.2 miles) ; Gain 240 m (780 ft) ; Descent 280 m (920 ft)
And the Parks Map
But we are hiking in drought, there is no escaping the fact. Dead and dying trees and shrubs, mummified kangaroos and wallabies. In three days, we hear and see almost no birds: not one bird of prey, not one emu. Not one living kangaroo. No snakes, no lizards. We hear one raven and see one pair of parrots, and a tiny handful of rock wallabies at the few remaining waterholes and campsites with water. Lots of flies! The arid Australian landscape can be very harsh … but this is something different: many of the dead trees we see have survived many droughts before. In a different year, the country is teeming with wildlife.
There was no clear water. We took a cloth and our Sawyer Squeeze but the rockpools were scummy, turbid and stagnant and we were glad not to have to drink from them, filtered or boiled or not. They would likely have had a lot of mineral salts in them as well as microscopic life!
Yet there is stark beauty, too: the harshness of the landscape and its intense colours are so Australian. Deep hidden gorges glowing with colour, ancient red gums clinging to life, vast stony plains, red earth, brilliant blue skies, and sunrise setting escarpments ablaze.
With my background in botany and environmental studies, reading the language of the gasping ecosystem, I found this walk hugely confronting. Geoff was more able to focus on the aesthetics in this extreme landscape, but we still both found the walk disturbing. And it renewed our despair at our government’s inaction on climate - if only they could hear what country is telling them!
