6 of South Australia’s Best Multi-Day Hikes

With South Australia’s bountiful coastline and wide open spaces, there’s plenty of room for long-distance walking. Here are our favourite multi-day hikes South Australia has to offer.

We Are Explorers acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the Countries on which these adventures take place, who have occupied and cared for these lands, waters, and their inhabitants for thousands of years. We pay our respects to them and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.

South Australia isn’t often at the top of people’s multi-day hiking lists (unless they’re planning to traverse the 1200km Heysen Trail!), which means that from Kangaroo Island to the Flinders Ranges, trails are often pretty damn empty.

Away from Adelaide, South Australia is pretty remote and wild, so make sure you’ve packed the essentials like a PLB and first aid kit and are experienced enough for the journey. But most of all, get out there!

Read more: Remember to leave no trace

6 of the Best Multi-Day Hikes South Australia

1. Wild South Coast Way

Walked and written by Emily Scott

Please note! Unfortunately due to recent bushfires, part of the Wild South Coast Way from Cape Jervis to Tunkalil­la Beach is closed until further notice. You can still hike from Tunkalil­la Beach to Victor Harbour, but please check South Australia National Parks for updates before heading out.

Distance: 75km
Duration: 5 days
Elevation gain: 2500m

The Wild South Coast Way offers a stunning coastal walk along the Heysen Trail. It’s a point-to-point walk that can be hiked in either direction between Cape Jervis and Victor Harbour in South Australia.

The Wild South Coast Way offers a teaser of the Heysen Trail, a snippet if you like, of what is part of a 1200km journey.

@dallasfly

2. Walk the Yorke 

Walked and written by Taylor Bell

Distance: 155km (this section)
Duration: 7 days
Elevation Gain: 1310m
Nearest Town: Edithburgh

The Walk the Yorke is a 500km walking track that circumnavigates the entirety of the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.

It was officially completed in 2015 by connecting newly-cut tracks with unsealed roads, beach walks, and pre-existing footpaths.

This 155km section of the Yorke hike between Edithburgh and Gleeson’s Landing covers the highlights: whimsical tracks through rolling emerald farmland, desolate expanses of un-beheld beach, knife-edge cliff walks, and dense mallee forest meanderings.

Did I mention the creepy haunted ghost town and a couple of stoic old shipwrecks?! It’s half Turner painting, half Scooby Doo episode. You’re in for a treat.

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@disco_steww

3. Mount Remarkable Multi-Day Loop

Walked and written by Emily Scott

Distance: 66km
Duration: 4 days
Elevation Gain: 2630m
Nearest town: Melrose (20km away)

Sitting at the southern tip of the Flinders Ranges, Wangyarra (Mount Remarkable) National Park offers an array of trails to choose from, with multiple routes, but no established multi-day loop. 

I took an extra long weekend recently and pieced together a multi-day loop within the park to satisfy that urge both to carry everything I need on my back, and avoid doubling back. I ended up on a 65km hike spread across four days.

The trailhead for my loop hike is at Alligator Gorge, on the north-eastern side of Mount Remarkable National Park. It has toilets, information boards, a picnic area, and multiple short walks to lookouts.

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@dallasfly

4. The Investigator Trail

Walked and written by Taylor Bell

Distance: 89km
Duration: 3-6 days
Elevation gain: 1058m
Nearest town: Port Lincoln is just 15 minutes outside the national park

The Investigator Trail is an 89km figure-eight circuit hike that’s located in Lincoln National Park, South Australia. It can be roughly broken down into two loops, and is best done as a pair of overnighters, or in a 4-6 day traverse (which is my recommendation).

Perhaps it’s the lack of guaranteed water. Perhaps it’s the distance from cities that keeps most hikers away from this trail. Your reward for sallying out this far, as well as carrying a few extra liquid litres, will be immense. Revel in it.

The limestone that undercuts this coastline means that pristine beach after pristine beach rolls in like gentle breakers. Long, shallow bays make for unbelievable snorkelling stops.

We lunched on cliffs and beaches with Osprey and sea eagles. The Wanna Dunes felt like they could’ve been the Sahara Desert. We saw a dang goanna. An octopus stared at us. It was crazy.

The dunes and the beaches are naturally the highlight of this hike, and I could go on about them all day. But it’s worth mentioning that there’s also a fair amount of traipsing across dry, open woodlands and old powerline roads. It’s always easy underfoot, but some sections of the trail do feel a bit more like simple connectors between the highlights.

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@disco_steww

5. Kangaroo Island Wilderness Hike

Walked and written by Saphira Bloom-Quinn

Distance: 60km (up to 70km with side trips)
Duration: 3-5 days

Totalling around 70km, the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail was nominated one of Lonely Planet’s best new openings when it opened in 2016. It’s remote but well maintained and with comfortable campsites; combined with its minimal elevation changes, making the walk ideal for hikers of most abilities.

Photo by Saphira Bloom-Quinn

6. Heysen Trail

Walked and written by Elisha Donkin

Distance: 1200km
Duration: 7-9 weeks
Start point: Parachilna
End point: Cape Jervis

The Heysen Trail is a 1200km walk in South Australia running from the northern trailhead at Parachilna in the Flinders Ranges to the southern trailhead at Cape Jervis on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The trail crosses some of the state’s most varied and challenging terrain, while taking you on a journey through several national parks and conservation areas.

It’s considered one of three long distance walking trails in Australia, with the other two being the Bibbulmun Track in WA (1000km) and the Australian Alps Walking Track through Victoria, NSW and the ACT (650 km).

To complete a full thru-hike of the Heysen Trail, the average time is somewhere between 50-65 days. But this wildly differs between hikers. There are varying degrees of trail closures during the Fire Danger Season from 1st November until mid-April each year, so most end to end journeys are planned for sometime between April and November.

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@elishadonkin

FAQs Multi-Day Hikes South Australia

What is the longest hike in South Australia?

The longest hike in South Australia is also one of the longest trails in the entire country! It’s the 1200km Heysen Trail from the Flinders Ranges to the South Coast.

What is the prettiest place in South Australia?

Hard to say! It depends what kind of scenery you like. The three main peninsulas – Fleurieu, Yorke, and Eyre – all have stunning remote coastlines. The Flinders Ranges offer dramatic outback gorges, and the Adelaide Hills are full of quintessential Aussie bush.

Feature photo by @disco_steww

Tables of contents photo by @trekkingwest

Keep Exploring South Australia

• This Flinders Ranges Road Trip Lets You Explore South Australia’s Outback in a Long Weekend
• Road Tripping South Australia’s Coast & Wine Country (With 2 Dogs in Tow)
• 8 Adventures That Prove South Australia is the Most Underrated State
• Is Rapid Bay the Best Campground in South Australia?