Kinchina Conservation Park and Rocky Gully Wetland – Murray Bridge – Day 299 (Pt 1.)

This morning, we decided to go for a walk in Kinchina Conservation Park, less than five kilometres from the centre of Murray Bridge. The park map shows a plethora of marked walks covering both the northern and southern sections of the 414-hectare park. Instead of following any these walks, we decided to explore the park more extensively with a concocted route that covered about 70% of the marked walks in terms of distance, including both the northern and southern sections of the park.

As we made our way around we decided, pleasant though the walk was, to shorten it and focus on the northern section only. In so doing we walked a circular loop of around 3.5 kms, either side of Maurice Road. We cut down our planned walk as we felt the southern section would be more of the same and doing the full 9.5kms, as originally planned, would have cut too much into our day which had started later than we had anticipated.

Our walk route and a prison to the right which I will refer to later

The paths in the park were a mix of dirt and gravel and were at times a little uneven though, that said, the route we walked would be classified as easy, as are all the marked walks within the park.

Signage throughout the northern section was overly abundant to the point of being a tad confusing if you didn’t focus strongly on exactly where you were aiming to get to. I have read that signage in the southern part of the park is not as copious. When walking we had to remain vigilant as the often narrow tracks are all combined walking/cycling tracks though we only met one cyclist and no other walkers during our walk.

The park, though not on the late morning we were there, is a popular spot for birdwatchers with approximately 110 species of birds identified therein including Crested Shrike Tits, Restless Flycatchers, Diamond Firetail Finches, Australian Golden Whistlers and the Hooded Robin. While I did see a few birds I will admit to having no idea what they were.

In addition to protecting threatened bird species some of which are noted above, the park also pro­tects a grassy wood­land flora, a declin­ing bird habi­tat in the area.

There are a number of threat­ened plant species, such as Monar­to mint­bush (Prostan­thera eury­bioides) and Menzel’s wat­tle (Aca­ci­a­men­zelii) in the park. In fact, this park is the only area where Menzel’s Wat­tle is for­mal­ly pro­tect­ed, with over 4,000 plants in the park.

Menzel’s wat­tle (Aca­ci­a­men­zelii) in full bloom

While I was there at the wrong time of year to see wild orchids and a few other springtime blooms there was still lots of other flora to admire.

One thing I noticed was that about half of the walks which were amalgamated into our circular route were named “Jailhouse Rock Loop”, “Jailbreak Trail”, and “Getaway Car Loop.” This, to me, didn’t speak highly of the security measures in place at the prison bordering the park in its northwest corner. That being said, the resting place of the ‘getaway car’ driven up an exitless dry creek bed also didn’t speak highly of the intelligence of the would-be escapees.

View towards Murray Bridge with a glimpse of the prison perimeter fence in the centre picture.

The ‘Getaway Car” on the “Getaway Car Loop”

Close to where the Rocky Gully Link walk and the Getaway Car Loop walks intersect I came across the ruins of an old dwelling and what looked like a water collection facility. Alas, I could find no further details on these structures.

In just over an hour we had finished an enjoyable walk in the Kinchina Conservation Park. En route back into town we stopped off at the Rocky Gully Wetland for a short visit.

Rocky Gully Wetland is the ‘love child’ of former local councillor Fred Sanders who with a team of volunteers spent over a decade converting what was a salt crusted mud flap on the outskirts of Murray Bridge into the vibrant and thriving wetland it is today. What a splendid job they did.

Rocky Gully Wetland

What Fred Saunders didn’t live to see (d. 2013), probably thankfully, was the opening of a foul-smelling meat processing plant across the road from the Wetland. The stench when we were there was nauseating and put us off lingering longer than we did in an otherwise peaceful and pleasant little park. In any event we had some shopping to do and lunch to eat before heading out for a look around Murray Bridge itself in the afternoon. More about the latter in the next part of today’s entry. I will assume you do not want a blow by blow, or aisle by aisle, account of our visit to Coles’ supermarket!

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The next review from my Adelaide to Canberra road trip can be found HERE.

Should you wish to follow this road trip from the beginning please start HERE.

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