Willunga Basin Trail

The Willunga Basin Trail is a signed walking network of 11 linear sections, between 8.4 and 16.2 kilometres each, circling the Willunga Basin clockwise through vineyard country, the hills south of Adelaide and the coast around Port Willunga, Aldinga and Moana. Dogs can join for much of it, but the rules change section by section, so the section page decides your walk before the weather does.

Leash status

Where dogs are allowed they are on lead, and several stretches are outright no-dog: the Onkaparinga River National Park including Hardy's Scrub, the leg between the national park and Brooks Road at Kangarilla, Aldinga Conservation Park, Hart Road Wetlands, and parts of sections 2, 9 and 10 crossing private land. On the beach sections (3, 4 and 5, roughly 5 kilometres of sand between Aldinga and Moana) dogs are on lead, and council rules put dogs on leads between 10am and 8pm during daylight saving. Hooded plover protection adds a further layer: on lead within 100 metres of a plover sign, and no dogs within 100 metres of a fenced nest, generally through spring and summer.

Max: the rules genuinely change at a section post. We read the trail website the night before, pick the leg, and only then load the car.

The walk

Surfaces range from vineyard tracks and quiet rural back roads to clifftop paths above Gulf St Vincent, and most sections are point-to-point, so plan a car shuffle or an out-and-back. The whole trail takes five or six days if you walk it end to end, but individual sections work as day walks from Willunga, McLaren Vale or the coast. There is little water on the trail, so carry enough for the dog, plus bags, because bins are scarce outside the towns.

Getting there

Willunga is about 45 minutes south of Adelaide. Park in Willunga or Aldinga and join from town, or use the small trailhead parking marked on the section maps. By public transport, take the Seaford train and connect to the 750 bus to Willunga.

While you're out there

Bean Loved and Willa Coffee Shop cover the post-walk coffee on Willunga's main street, and Port Willy Kiosk sits at the beach end. Symonds Reserve Fenced Dog Park at Aldinga Beach is the off-lead complement if the dog has been on lead all day.

More routes are on the SA dog walks guide and the Willunga destination page.