The River Torrens Linear Trail is a 33km walking and cycling trail across Adelaide that follows the River Torrens from the coast at Henley Beach to the edge of the Adelaide Hills at Athelstone. The trail passes just north of Adelaide CBD – which is slightly closer to the coast (about 14km) than to the hills (about 19km). The trail goes entirely through parklands that have been created around the river.

We decided that we would walk the entire trail – but not in a single day. We also decided that we didn’t want to carry any food or drink and that we would eat and drink ‘on the road’. Because the trail passed about 4km north of where we were staying in Parkside, we also decided that it would be nice to start from our house when possible.

All of these arbitrary and stringent conditions meant that we didn’t walk all of the trail in the same direction (but we did walk every kilometre of the trail). So our walking days were decided as:

Day 1: Our house to Henley Beach (19km)
Day 2: Our house to Paradise Interchange (17km)
Day 3: Paradise Interchange to Athelstone Bus Stop Number 38 (8km)

Having already dispensed with Day 1 to Henley Beach, we set about completing the walk and went as follows:

On day 2 we walked from our house to join the trail north of the CBD (with a coffee stop on the way), and then we walked east towards the Adelaide Hills (stopping for lunch of course) to reach Paradise Interchange (yes, that’s the actual name of a bus station).

On day 3 we took the bus to Paradise Interchange (after having coffee at home), and then walked east to finish the walk at the edge of the Adelaide Hills (obviously with lunch on the way). From the end of the walk it was a further 1.5km to get to the nearest bus stop (Athelstone Bus Stop Number 38).