Walking & Hiking
Trails Along the Edge
The best walking & hiking in Gawler Ranges
Walk the granite-cliffed coastline of Whalers Way, the dunes and bays of Coffin Bay National Park, or the rugged headlands of Lincoln National Park. Short clifftop strolls and full-day coastal treks reward you with sea-lion colonies, wildflowers and endless ocean horizons.
Walking the Eyre Peninsula means trading crowds for clifftops, granite domes and empty beaches. The trails here run from short, family-friendly foreshore strolls to rugged coastal hikes inside the national parks, almost always with the ocean or a sweeping inland horizon for company.
In the south, Lincoln National Park and Coffin Bay lace together lookouts, headlands and dune walks, with the climb to Stamford Hill rewarding effort with panoramic coastal views. Inland, the Gawler Ranges open up ancient volcanic country, waterfalls and the towering Organ Pipes, while granite monoliths like Mount Wudinna and Pildappa Rock offer easy scrambles to big views.
Many walks double as wildlife outings — you'll pass nesting ospreys, grazing emus and wildflowers in spring. Carry water, sun protection and a map, as remote trails have no facilities and patchy phone signal. Autumn through spring brings the most comfortable walking weather, with wildflowers peaking after winter rains.
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5 places
Gawler Ranges National Park
An ancient volcanic wilderness of ochre rhyolite domes, organ-pipe rock formations and arid-zone wildlife on the northern edge of the peninsula.
Kolay Mirica Falls
A series of stepped rock pools and seasonal cascades over volcanic rock in the Gawler Ranges, ringed by ancient ironbark.
Lake Gairdner National Park
A salt lake the size of a small country
Australia's third-largest salt lake — 160 km of blinding white salt ringed by red dunes north of the Gawler Ranges, and the venue for Speed Week land-speed racing.
Old Paney Homestead
Station life, preserved in stone
A restored stone homestead in Gawler Ranges National Park telling the story of pastoral settlement, police camps and hard seasons in the granite outback.
Organ Pipes Lookout
A wall of ancient volcanic rhyolite columns in Gawler Ranges National Park, formed over 1.5 billion years ago.