Bushwalkers 'Getting Unstuck' in Adelaide's Peri-Urban Parks

"It gets gnarly very quickly."

This is how Walking SA director Rod Quintrell described some of Adelaide's peri-urban conservation parks where so many bushwalkers have come "unstuck" over the years.

Mostly recently, three teenagers needed rescuing from Onkaparinga River National Park on Sunday following reports they had become lost on the Sundew Track after dark.

The site adjacent to Adelaide's southern suburbs has been the location of several search and rescues over the years, including a 60-year-old rock climber injured after a 15-metre fall in October last year.

"The Onkaparinga River Recreation Park down the bottom is nice and flat. It's got the river going through, and it's all pretty and easy enough," Mr Quintrell said.

"But then you get into the national park, and it's a beautiful steep gorge, with rock climbing and all sorts of stuff, so it can be a little bit surprising."

Morialta Conservation Park to Adelaide's east is another, where a 20-year-old hiker was rescued with hypothermia after failing to return from his walk in 2021.

It has also been the site of fatal accidents, including walkers who fell from significant heights in 2022 and 2025, while a rock climber also fell in 2020 but was winched to safety.

Mr Quintrell said the park started with a children's playground where it was all "fun and games".

"Then you get to the first falls, and it's still fun and games, and then you go up," Mr Quintrell said.

Further south at Deep Creek Conservation Park, a paramedic in 2020 had to hike a seven-hour round trip into the park and camp out for the night with a group of hikers after one injured their ankle.

Just an hour and a half's drive from Adelaide, the park hosts some of the steepest, most inaccessible terrain of all the state's parks, and certainly some of its densest scrub.

"I've been a guide for years. I still do tour groups. I still do training," Mr Quintrell said.

"And the amount of people, if you ask them if they're fit, it's a sort of nebulous question.

"They'll say, 'Of course I'm fit. I can walk', and then they walk up or down a hill out here, and work out it is actually way different to what they thought they were signing themselves up for."

Mr Quintrell believed there had been a national spike in bushwalkers and hikers getting lost, or stuck. This included two hikers who recently lost their way in Kosciuszko National Park and were rescued with the assistance of an artificial-intelligence-powered drone.

He put some of it down to a renewed interest in bushwalking that occurred during COVID-19 lockdowns, when the trails were "flooded" with people.

"It was great, and those who stuck at it have gotten more ambitious and, you know, social media has pushed people to look for some beautiful spots," Mr Quintrell said.

He pointed out, too, that a lot of social media photos of people in beautiful places had probably been taken 20 minutes after they arrived because they'd waited until "their face wasn't red" from exertion anymore.

"Or they'd finally stopped crying and then said, 'Look at me up here. This is the best thing in the world, and here I am'," Mr Quintrell said.

Taking stock of physical limitations

An SA Police spokesperson said people failing to understand or take into account their personal and physical limitations were among reasons officers had been called out.

Others included:

Lack of safety and recovery equipment

Inadequate food and water for the trip

Lack of adequate communications systems

No backup GPS or paper maps

"We would recommend taking a personal EPIRB or beacon if going into unknown or unfamiliar territory and to let a friend or relative know of your intended destination and arrival times," the spokesperson said.

They also suggested checking for changing weather conditions via the Bureau of Meteorology and installing the Emergency+ or what3words apps on their smartphone.

Walkers have also been advised to think about the time of day and time of year when embarking on trails. In winter, for example, nightfall can come faster than expected — especially for hikers inside a deep gorge or valley.

A Department for Environment and Water spokesperson said even familiar parks presented changing conditions, and visitors should always know their route, carry maps, and be aware of weather conditions, park alerts, their personal equipment and capabilities.

The spokesperson said directional and information signs were displayed at the beginning of most trails, and detailed information about parks was available on the National Parks and Wildlife Service website.

'Number one' recreation activity

The state government said hundreds of thousands of people visited SA's parks and reserves each year.

Mr Quintrell believed walking to be the "number one recreation activity" in Australia, and people often came back to it perhaps after getting their first bushwalking experience during school.

He applauded the South Australian government's recent initiative to offer all public year 7 students a free three-night school camp with an onus on outdoor activities like bushwalking.

"Preventative health and the rest of it says that we have all this beautiful nature on our doorstep, we have the right weather most of the time, why not access it?" Mr Quintrell said.

"And then, if you are going to access it, what do our people need to know?"