The Onkaparinga Gorge
with Keith Conlon

Old man rivers red gums, ancient weathered cliffs, splendid isolation... but this river gorge is only a few minutes from the streaming Main South Road at Hackham

South Australia's longest river after the Murray, the Onkaparinga heads southward behind the Mt Lofty and finds a chink in the ranges to create a deep gorge between Clarendon and Old Noarlunga.

Heading down the old Barker's Gully Track into the eastern upstream end of the Onkaparinga River National Park, we caught a glimpse of the first forge cliffs off towards the sea. The track is for walkers only now, but it was quite a busy backroad in the horse and buggy days, with kids coming to school from the McLaren Wale side during the week and others coming back towards a lite Baker's Gully chapel on Sundays, They forded the river at the end of a long still pool reflecting a line of timeless river red gums and wound up the opposite hillside to look down on the Kangarilla Creek's tiny gum filled delta as it reached the Onkaparinga. With an angled and lined cliff on the other side, it looks very much like a nook in the Flinders Rangers.

The Baker's Gully Track cuts across the top end of the national park, linking between the two current day roads that run the ridges either side. Access gates every kilometre or so signal walk-in points. From the southern side, off Chapel Hill Road, we took the easy track from Gate 10 to be surprised and elated by the sight of the Onkaparinga a good hundred meters below sheer craggy cliffs with concreted in holding bolts at the top, for absailers to fix their ropes before dangling over an awesome cliffscape.

A couple more kilometres downstream, the Sundews Track is very steep as it finally descends to river level, and the park rangers recommend the southern side as an easier walk in and out. (On the other hand, the northern half links with bush walking trails through native scrub.)

Fat and golden gekkos sunned themselves on a spill of rocks in the rivers, some huge and rounded by millions of year of flooding, others looking like blocks split from walls now crumbled down. A rock hopper's paradise, with long pools reflecting cliffs and red gums, it's again a mini Flinders experience encased in the ranges only minutes away from the southern suburbs.

The land round the Onkaparinga Gorge was bought in the 1970's when the government realised that the suburbs would eventually roll past here on the seawards slopes.

At the picturesque Chapel Hill winery on the southern ridge of the gorge, there is a picnic area at the top of the path that follows the vineyard fence. Over the old sheep paddocks, now reseeded by the Parks service with help from the Friends of Onkaparinga Park, the gulf is a silver land in the afternoon sun. Deep down below, a long river pool shimmers between the ever accompanying gum trees. Unfortunately, feral olives dot the sides, in such numbers that they look like the spillage of a giant green marble bag rolling into the river.

Farmers' fence posts are a reminder that the Park itself is quite young. But the name Onkaparinga goes back thousands of years.

Captain Collett Barker picked up the Kaurna aboriginal name "Ponkepuringa" for his map of the estuary area in 1831, five years before the first official European settlement. Another version is "Nankiparinga", meaning women's river, and a third version "Unkaparinga" became the Onkaparinga River on European maps.

At the downstream end of the ten kilometre gorge, historic Noarlunga township is almost encircled by a horseshoe bend as the rivers emerges from the gorge, and later opens onto the floodplain lower section (a recreation park) and enters Gulf St Vincent at Port Noarlunga.

At the back of the town's now derelick Horseshoe Inn, the old coach road to Willinga crossed the river, and the ford is still in place. The Onkaparinga is still tidal back to the mouth of the gorge, but on our Postcards day with the river, it tasted only slightly brackish. There's a picturesque footbridge downstream, built in 1991 to commemorate the century of South Australia's first national park at Belair.

As the sunset coloured to beautiful Willunga hills beyond the gorge, the Postcards crew headed into the gorge from the northern ridge at Gate 6 to round off our story with a lost late light look at the spectacular vista from the best lookout in the park. There are dark pools far below, and more ancient sedimentary cliffs upstream. The lookout track is easy, and so it's a good way of beginning your acquaintance with this walk-in, no cars park that brings a little bit of Flinders Ranges majesty and beauty into our southern suburbs backyard.

Details:

Onkaparinga River National Park
35 kilometres south of central Adelaide, between Piggott Range Road on the northern side and Chapel Hill Road on the southern (McLaren Vale) side.

Park guide brochures and contact details for the Friends of Onkaparinga Park available from:

Sturt District Office, NPWS
Belair National Park
Ph. (08) 82785477

Or Information Centre
Department of Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs
77 Grenfell Street
Adelaide SA 5000

Ph. 08 8204 1910
Fax. 08 8204 1919