Mount Crawford Forest Reserve

Mount Crawford Forest spreads across 12,367 hectares of the northern Mount Lofty Ranges, from its information centre on Warren Road near Williamstown south toward Cudlee Creek and east to Pewsey Vale. Managed by ForestrySA, it mixes working pine plantation with substantial tracts of native forest on Kaurna and Peramangk country - and it is gloriously open to visitors.

The Heysen Trail winds straight through, and a popular loop links native ridgeline forest near Little Mount Crawford with the open plantation country between Rocky Paddock and Chalks campgrounds. Beyond walking, the forest's shared trail network welcomes cyclists and horse riders, and its campgrounds and rustic cabins make it the cheapest night's sleep in the Barossa - under tall pines, with kangaroos for neighbours.

It sits minutes from the southern valley's other big drawcards: combine a forest morning with the Whispering Wall and a wander around Williamstown for a day that costs almost nothing.