Showcasing a Walking Club: WEA Ramblers

The WEA Ramblers is the oldest walking club in South Australia. In 2020 they celebrated the 95th anniversary of the club’s first walk at Hallett Cove in August 1925.

For most of those years Ramblers has conducted day walks of between 12 to 18 km fortnightly on Sundays throughout the year. This year, half day walks are also being included in the program. These will be from 6 to 9km, once a month on a Tuesday.

Day walks are held in Conservation Parks and reserves up to 70km from Adelaide. Summer walks and half day walks are closer to the City.

On the June and October long weekends, trips are made to more distant locations in South Australia with accommodation, from Friday to Monday, organized in holiday houses or hostels. Day walks are conducted on the Saturday and Sunday, and a half day walk on the Monday morning, before the trip home.

The membership fee is $20 per year. A charge of $5 per walk applies for Sunday walks, but there is no charge for Tuesday walks. After three walks, new walkers become eligible to join as members. Currently the club has 25 members.

You can find out more, including the walk program and guidelines for walkers on their website at sites.google.com/view/wea-ramblers-sa. Photos and maps of recent walks are displayed on the Photo Gallery page.

You can find a walking club at walkingsa.org.au/walk/list-of-walking-clubs-south-australia.

Walking SA welcomes new Board Member Daniel Bennett

We’ve welcomed Daniel Bennett as our newest Board Member.

Daniel is a registered landscape architect with over 20 years’ experience asking questions, developing ideas, testing scenarios, working through them and shaping projects across all scales of strategy and design.

His expertise in understanding cities, movement, place and green infrastructure has helped shaped many projects in both the private and public sector, most recently in his role as Associate Director of Strategy and Design at the City of Adelaide, and prior to that as a Principal at Hassell.

At the City of Adelaide he developed the award winning Adelaide Design Manual, the city’s guide to creating great public spaces and streets, as well as developing c$65m of initiatives and projects delivering on the city’s Transport Strategy, Smart Move, and the Adelaide Park Lands Management Strategy.

This included the City Bikeways project (Adelaide’s first separated bike lane network), the City Laneways project and Park Lands park upgrades – all developed in partnership with the State Government.

He is currently shaping several projects across Australia – including an urban design strategy for Melbourne’s $10b Airport Rail link with Aurecon and Architectus, and an urban design and landscape strategy for the Snowy Mountains Special Activation Precinct with Jensen Plus.

Daniel is an active advocate within industry bodies, and is the Australian Institute of Landscape Architect’s State President in South Australia, chairs AILA’s National Advocacy Committee, is an independent member of the Premiers Climate Change Council and a past National President of AILA.

Daniel lives in the lower Adelaide Hills and is an avid bushwalker and has, amongst his achievements, walked Tasmania’s Western Arthurs and South Coast Track…packhauling at one point and determined to do it again one day.

Being naturally curious, he has a creative and innovative belief in strategy and design, and can synthesise ideas into things…he prefers to challenge defining a problem, not solving a perceived one.