Walking up Mount Lofty from Waterfall Gully

The walk

The walk to Mount Lofty Summit sets off from the Waterfall Gully car park and climbs through steep hills, native vegetation and stringybark forest, with wide views back over the city as it rises. The parks service's page for Waterfall Gully calls it a popular and strenuous trail, and its page for Cleland National Park notes that many of the park's trails are steep with loose ground underfoot.

Waterfall Gully holds the largest of the seven waterfalls in the park. A 300-metre bitumen path leads from the car park up to the pool at First Falls and back, for anyone who wants to see the falls without the climb.

About half way up, the trail passes Wilsons Bog, which the parks service describes as the most accessible perched swamp in the park. Higher again are the ruins of Chinaman's Hut, which stand on this trail.

The park groups its walks under the Australian Walking Track Grading System, the national standard its pages use to describe what a walk asks of a person, and it lists the Waterfall Gully to Mount Lofty hike in its Grade 4 group.

How far it is

The parks service gives the distance in two ways, and both are worth keeping. Its walking list for Cleland National Park carries the Waterfall Gully to Mount Lofty hike at 2 hours 30 minutes and 4.5 km one way. In the same list it names the walk as Adelaide's most popular hike, and gives the return trip from Waterfall Gully up to Mount Lofty Summit as 7.5 km on a sealed trail that is very steep, passing waterfalls and a range of native plants. The park's Waterfall Gully page repeats the 4.5 km one-way figure.

Both figures come from the parks service's own pages, and each is given here as its page gives it: 4.5 km one way, and a 7.5 km return trail.

There are other ways to the same summit. The Steub trail runs 7 km return from Cleland Wildlife Park to Mount Lofty Summit, takes about 3 hours, and the park's page puts it forward as the gentler alternative to the Waterfall Gully hike; it is named for Ludwig Reinwald Steub, a benefactor of the park.

From Crafers, the Crafers to Mount Lofty link trail is 4.5 km and about 2 hours 30 minutes, and gives a way up that keeps off the busy roads. It starts opposite the Crafers bus stop and runs through Cleland National Park.

Before you set out

Dogs are not permitted in Cleland National Park. Assistance dogs are permitted in most public places and are welcome in South Australia's parks and reserves, where they must be restrained on a lead and remain under the handler's effective control at all times.

The park closes on days of Catastrophic Fire Danger and may also close on days of Extreme Fire Danger. In the Mount Lofty Ranges fire ban district the fire danger season for 2025/26 ran from 1 December 2025 to 30 April 2026, which is how the Country Fire Service published those dates; its fire danger season dates page carries the season in force now, with the permits that go with it. Most of the Heysen Trail shuts for the fire danger season, and the environment department's Heysen Trail facts page notes that the cooler months are generally kinder for walking it.

Collecting firewood is prohibited in a national park. Cycling is not allowed in the Waterfall Gully area of the park, though other parts of Cleland are open to bikes, and on shared ground riders give way to walkers.

At the summit the walk can join the Heysen Trail, drop back down the popular way to Waterfall Gully, or continue on foot through native bushland to Cleland Wildlife Park. The Heysen runs 1,200 km from Cape Jervis, on the end of the Fleurieu Peninsula, to Parachilna Gorge in the Flinders Ranges, and a stretch of it crosses Cleland National Park. The trail's page asks walkers to remember that it runs on the goodwill of many landholders, and to leave no trace.

Cleland National Park and Mount Osmond Reserve close at various times through 2026 and 2027 while pest animal control is carried out, so a walk up the face is worth checking against the park page first.

Getting there and back

Waterfall Gully is 8 km east of Adelaide and is reached along Waterfall Gully Road. The parks service warns that parking may not be available at weekends because the site is so popular, and its page for the gully notes that car parking can be limited on a busy weekend.

Public transport runs from the Adelaide city centre to the park, and the parks service notes that it serves the Mount Lofty Summit area and Cleland Wildlife Park only.

Mount Lofty Summit is 15 km east of Adelaide. Its car park gates open from 6am to 11pm between October and March, and from 6am to 9pm between April and September. The Mount Lofty Summit Road gate, the road through to Cleland Wildlife Park, opens from 7:30am to 5pm. The summit lookout is accessible, with accessible parking spaces and accessible toilets.

By bike, part of the old Mount Barker Road became a path to Mount Lofty once the Princes Highway moved onto the freeway, and riders heading for the summit use it.

The weather guide gives the rain that falls on this face, station by station, and the hills face guide follows the slope the walk climbs.