Put on your walking shoes for some postcard views along the old Willunga railway line. It's Southern twenty kilometres is now a recreational trail. Before you get up too much steam on the new section starting on the city side of the river, here is your itinerary, the newly paved section climbs gently up through Seaford and then cuts back through the hills to McLaren Vale before running through the vineyards along to Willunga, This section has been established since 1986.
It takes advantage of restored railway bridges like the substantial one across the Onkaparinga and railway cuttings and embankments so that it's all fairly easy going. Up the rise, the trail meanders along a wide transport corridor through the 1990's suburb of Seaford. There are lakes and thousands of tree plantings to green the way.
The South Road to Sellick's Beach used to wind down the gully to cross Pedlar Creek, crossing the train line as it went. Traffic flies overhead now as the rail trail heads East into deep cuttings. Explosives helped open them in 1913 and then it was all pick and shovel work to make the gradient for steam locomotives. The hard yakka has opened up an easy going trail in a hidden valley for the new century. Over the next five kilometres, totally new vistas unfold, historic farms, pretty Pedlar Creek and the magnet for artists and photographers the Willunga hills face. Round a curve, there is a picturesque railway bridge crossing above the creek as it gurgles past ancient river red gums. Soon after the vines come into view. This is the small wine makers' domain, and they have transformed South Australian countryside into Tuscany.
The new ten-kilometre section of the Onkaparinga to Willunga rail trail comes close to serious traffic for one short stretch into McLaren Vale Township. It slips under the relentless speedsters to Victor Harbor via an intimate boardwalk that caresses the Pedlar Creek beneath the roadbridge and temporarily takes to the main road into town.
Just past the landmark hotel, the trail joins the original track alignment again at the old level crossing. You can see the cracks in the bitumen marking the old broad gauge lines. The train cut the corner of the old Tintara Winery in the old flour mill bought by wine pioneer Thomas Hardy, he put McLaren Vale reds and ports on the lips of London wine merchants in the late 1800's. As the trail leaves the road, a real rail memento The Almond Train sits on a few surviving metres of track. Passengers waited for fifty years for the line to open, and in less time than that, it was closed. The two carriages, genuine veterans of the Willunga line, remain in service offering all sorts of local temptations.
Through the next cutting and again the rail trail enters a world of it's own. The familiar vinescape of the vale looks strikingly fresh and attractive from this new angle. Back on the rail trail it's all vineyards, but the old steam trains thundered through hay paddocks on the eight kilometre straight stretch to Willunga. The trek or treddle is reqarded with views to Mount Lofty in the North and the enchanting enticement of the hills face rolling to the sea at Sellick's Beach.
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