MawsonTrail South Australia

[sue redman]

Has anyone riden the Mawson trail? We plan to ride it next April with full suspension mtb and a BOB trailer that we have modified to full suspension Fox Floart R.
We plan (hope) to camp all the way. Have you any advice regarding water and camping?

[jez_au]

Hi there. I have ridden 700km of the 900km trail, usually 2-3 days at a time, camping along the way. We have ridden with Ibex Bob trailers. I live in Adelaide, and have ridden from Adelaide to 20km north of Hawker. We have just 2-3 days left of riding to Blinman. South of Quorn water is quite easy to obtain, in towns and various campsites along the way. The campsites are marked on the official maps, some of them are Heysen Trail campsites (a 1200km walking trail that follows a similar route) - details of these can be found at Google Map of the Heysen Trail (http://www.heysentrail.asn.au/heysen_trail/googlemaps.php). North of Quorn we have had to do a water drop by car, although there was water available in a local creek and waterhole which would have been fine to drink (filtered and treated). Water is scarce north of Quorn so you need to research carefully (the only town is Hawker). There is water at a few campsites north of Quorn (Warren Gorge and Argadells, Buckaringa North) and a permanent water hole at Kanyaka ruins (Death Rock). North of Hawker water is available at these camping grounds - Mt Little station, Merna Mora Station, Rawnsley Park, Wilpena Pound, Yanyanna Hut, Middlesight Hut, Trezona and Blinman.

I have a blog at The Mawson Trail (http://jez-mawson.blogspot.com/)