Capping off a year of coastal hikes, I’m returning to Australia to Walk the Yorke.
My partner, CareFree, and I are returning to Australia for our fourth coastal trail of the year. We started with the Great South West Walk and Great Ocean Walk in Victoria, Australia, in January. In June, we traveled to Newfoundland, Canada, for the East Coast Trail. Now, we’re wrapping up the year with Walk the Yorke.
Located on the leg-and-foot-shaped Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, near Adelaide, Walk the Yorke is a 490-km (304-mile) hiking and biking trail along the coast, from Port Wakefield in the east to Moonta Bay in the west. We’ll be taking the trail counterclockwise, starting in Moonta Bay.
This will be our first long hike in South Australia, though the Great South West Walk took us through the state for about an hour and a half at its westernmost extent.
Walk the Yorke is exceptionally flat. While we’ve had long flat sections of trail before (such as the many beach sections on Te Araroa), This will be the flattest trail we’ve hiked so far. Generally fairly close to sea level, with hardly any steep climbs, over its length, Walk the Yorke has a grand total of 3,425 meters (11,200 feet) of elevation gain (and loss), for a whopping 14 m/km (74 ft/mile) of elevation change.
While we’re looking forward to the scenery, we’re also hoping to see more of Australia’s unique wildlife. We don’t expect to see koalas on this trail, since it’s too far west of their natural habitat. But, we’ll probably see emus, kangaroos, wallabies, and maybe even platypus, if we’re lucky.
As always, feel free to follow along, as we continue our adventures on long-distance hiking trails.