Australian Hiker | Day -7 A week to go

2026 Heysen Trail

Day -7

Day -7 A week to go

Heysen Trail Map

This time next week I will be leaving Port Augusta in the early afternoon on a private shuttle and arriving at the Heysen Trail northern trailhead at Parachilna at around 3:30 pm before walking the 500 metres to the hikers campground. At this stage, the adventure becomes real!

Over the next seven days I am completing work around the house that needs to be done, putting together food for my trip, double checking all my gear, and setting up templates and systems to help make things easy on-trail as well as keeping the lights on with Australian Hiker.

Compared to my 2018 journey on the Bibbulmun Track I have certainly scaled back the distances I will be covering on a daily basis on this trip and I’m not planning on doing the extremes I did in the past, at least until I know exactly what I can handle. I have allowed plenty of rest days of the planned 52 days on-trail to ensure my body holds up and to provide enough time to compile, edit and release regular podcast episodes. Internet access on the northern end of the trail is looking a bit sketchy so there may be radio silence from my end until I get closer to Qorn about 12 days in but I’ll need to play it by ear on that front.

This has been a trip long in the making and one I am really looking forward to sharing with you.

Previous Post This time next week I will be leaving Port Augusta in the early afternoon on a private shuttle and arriving at the Heysen Trail northern trailhead at Parachilna at around 3:30 pm before walking the 500 metres to the hikers campground. At this stage, the adventure becomes real! Over the next seven days […]