Mount Lofty Summit

Mount Lofty reaches 710 metres in the Adelaide Hills and gives the definitive view of the city: the grid of Adelaide laid out below, the parklands, the coast and the Gulf St Vincent beyond, with the Barossa hills visible north on clear days. An obelisk built in 1885 stands at the summit alongside a visitor centre and café. The mountain was at the centre of the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983, which destroyed the original summit buildings and much of the surrounding forest, and the regrowth is visible on the slopes. A well-used walking track climbs about four kilometres from Waterfall Gully at the bottom, gaining some five hundred metres, a standard local training route.

History

To the Kaurna, Mount Lofty and Mount Bonython are Yuridla, two ears, part of the body of the ancestral being Nganu, a name kept in the town of Uraidla. Matthew Flinders named the mountain on 23 March 1802, and the explorer Collet Barker was the first European to climb it, in April 1831, almost six years before Adelaide was settled. An obelisk replaced the summit cairn in 1885 as the reference point for surveying Adelaide and was renamed the Flinders Column in 1902, and in the Second World War the public was kept off the summit, where the obelisk served as a navigation aid (Wikipedia, Mount Lofty).

The main sights

• The city panorama - Adelaide, the plains and the gulf laid out below.
• The 1885 obelisk - the summit marker beside the visitor centre.
• The Waterfall Gully track - the steep climb from the base through regrown forest.
• The fire regrowth - forest recovering from the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires.

When to go

March to November for comfortable walking; summer is hot on the exposed track and brings fire danger closures. Evenings give the city lights, which is when the summit is busiest. Winter fog often hides the view entirely.

What to expect

Summit parking is charged and fills at sunset. The Waterfall Gully climb is steeper and longer than many expect, taking around ninety minutes up. Cloud and haze frequently reduce the view.

Nearby

Cleland Wildlife Park is on the slope below; Hahndorf and the Hills wineries lie east.

Key facts