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The weather forecast for today was fine and sunny, so we planned to complete the last section of the Yurrebilla trail.

Slogging back up the hill to Deep View Lookout.

View of Adelaide from high in Morialta.

The previous section, Section 4 finishes at Morialta, Deep View lookout, so we had to walk back up to the lookout before we could properly start the trail again. From there the trail winds up around the ranges and drops down to Montacute Road before entering Black hill Conservation Park, climbing to Black Hill Summit, and then back down to the end at Gorge Road and the Torrens River via Ambers Gully.

Walking on one of the open tracks in the sunshine.

Ambers Gully trail

Ambers Ruin


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The red marker shows the end of the trail.

Some 13km not including the initial climb up to Deep View lookout. It’s a good section of the trail with some challenging steep sections, a small amount of narrow trail, and a lot of open track and ridge walking.

At the end of our Yurrebilla series, we’ve learnt a lot about the hills and parks of the Mt Lofty Ranges close to Adelaide. It’s been a good time for both of us, and we have enjoyed the walking and the peaceful environment so close to home. Now we are challenged to keep it up. We’re still over a month away from the ski trip, so we’re on the lookout for interesting places to walk.

I know this isn’t exciting news for most people, but if you had spent much time around our place you might be a little bit interested to know that the rank smells that used to emanate from the vicinity of the septic treatment plant should now be a thing of the past.

Our previous system and it’s local agent had both gotten past their use-by date. We have had an alarm light ‘on’ inside the house continuously for the last year, and once I decided in about June that neither the unit nor the service agent was going to be in our long term future, research began into what we might replace the old plant with. The old unit was a pretty typical ‘tertiary’ treatment plant with anaerobic, aerobic, settling and chlorination systems that claimed (when it was installed about 12 years ago) to deliver odor-free water. In reality, it did that sometimes, but mostly when the wind was blowing the other way…

We considered newer versions of what we already had, in various brands, configurations and specifications. We also had a good look at the Biolitix wormfarm septic filter system, but in the end there was one product that stood out because of it’s extraordinary effluent water quality. I could find no other system that had approval for spray distribution of it’s effluent, and if you search on youtube, you will find movies of people actually drinking it!. The outgoing water is rated A+ in Qld from where the unit originates. Reading the marketing speak on most systems, I came to realise that their odor guarantees were based on subsurface irrigation hiding the reality that even a good wastewater plant using conventional processes is going to make some smells…

This system uses an aerobic process and teams it with a low-pressure membrane filter system. It uses some economical pumps for normal operation and the treated effluent gets pumped out by a good submersible pump in 200L batches. We use that water on a surface dripline area of the garden:

It’s early days to claim success or otherwise, but we do have high hopes. Econova state on their website that they work closely with 3 Qld Universities: UQ, Griffith, and Sunshine Coast Uni. I have a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter on the way, and I intend to regularly monitor the effluent water with it to see where it’s at. You can read more about the treatment plant here: Econova Wish us luck for pleasant air quality and no-hassle operations!

We have a roof!

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