Mark Oliphant Conservation Park

Open dai­ly.

Clo­sures and safety

This park is closed on days of Cat­a­stroph­ic Fire Dan­ger and may also be closed on days of Extreme Fire Danger.

You can deter­mine the cur­rent fire dan­ger rat­ing by check­ing the Fire Ban Dis­trict map on the CFS website.

Check the CFS web­site or call the CFS Bush­fire Infor­ma­tion Hot­line 1800 362 361 for:

• Infor­ma­tion on fire bans and cur­rent fire conditions
• Cur­rent CFS warn­ings and incidents
• Infor­ma­tion on what to do in the event of a fire.

Lis­ten to your local area radio sta­tion for the lat­est updates and infor­ma­tion on fire safety.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSCentralLofty@​sa.​gov.​au

Emer­gency contacts:

Med­ical, fire (includ­ing bush­fire) and police emer­gency sit­u­a­tions
Phone: Triple Zero (000)

Police Assis­tance
Phone: 131 444 for non-urgent police assistance

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice SA – Emer­gency After Hours Duty Offi­cer (voice mes­sages only, text mes­sages are unavail­able to be received)
Phone: 0427 556 676

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the Region­al Duty Offi­cer on 0427 556 676.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Mark Oliphant Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 22km south east from Adelaide. 

Access is via South-East­ern Freeway.

• Park maps

Dogs are not per­mit­ted in this park.

Dis­cov­er which parks you can walk your dog in on our find a park tool or read 12 dog-friend­ly walks in Ade­laide Parks by Good Liv­ing for inspiration.

Assis­tance dogs are per­mit­ted in most pub­lic places and are there­fore wel­come in South Australia’s parks and reserves. Assis­tance dogs must be appro­pri­ate­ly restrained on a lead and remain under your effec­tive con­trol at all times while in a park or reserve.

As per the dogs in parks and reserves pol­i­cy, if the dog is not an accred­it­ed assis­tance dog, they must be trained to assist a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty to alle­vi­ate that dis­abil­i­ty and meet stan­dards of hygiene and behav­iour appro­pri­ate for a dog in a pub­lic place. How­ev­er, refusal may be giv­en if the per­son with the dis­abil­i­ty is unable to pro­duce evi­dence the dog is an assis­tance dog with the appro­pri­ate training.

Before tak­ing your assis­tance dog into a park that does not nor­mal­ly allow dogs, it is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you con­tact us so we can pro­vide you with the lat­est infor­ma­tion on any poten­tial haz­ards with­in spe­cif­ic parks that may affect your dog. Please con­tact the park via the con­tact details pro­vid­ed under the con­tact tab or con­tact the vis­i­tor ser­vice cen­tre via email or on Face­book.

There are no facil­i­ties in the park. Please ensure you car­ry suf­fi­cient water, food and sup­plies for your entire vis­it. It is also a good idea to let a respon­si­ble per­son know of your intend­ed move­ments and when you expect to return.

Park­ing: There are 2 acces­si­ble car parks available.

There are no toi­let facil­i­ties at this park.

Pic­nic Area: There is a pic­nic table and a pic­nic shel­ter both are acces­si­ble and pro­vide a spot for some­one in a wheel­chair to sit at the table. There is a short, acces­si­ble path made from com­pact grav­el to link the car park to the pic­nic shelter.

Plants

Mess­mate stringy­bark and brown stringy­bark dom­i­nate the for­est canopy, and there is a small stand of can­dle­bark gums near the oval. This tall euca­lypt with white bark is rare and only found in the high­er rain­fall areas of the Ade­laide Hills. Tiny patch­es of pink gum, man­na gum and blue gum also occur in the park. In the for­est under­storey, there are many spring-flow­er­ing shrubs, includ­ing myr­tle-leaved wat­tle, beaked hakea and large-leaved bush-pea. The park’s flo­ra was affect­ed by bush­fires in Feb­ru­ary 1980 and Jan­u­ary 1995, but weeds are the main threat to native plants.

Ani­mals

The rare south­ern brown bandi­coot and yel­low-foot­ed antech­i­nus, along with sev­er­al lizard, snake and frog species, inhab­it the park, but most are rarely seen. Bird­watch­ers might see the superb fairy-wren, scar­let robin, gold­en whistler, Ade­laide rosel­la and hon­eyeater species. Inver­te­brates are the small­est but most abun­dant and diverse ani­mal group. Look close­ly at the shapes, colours and behav­iours of ants, bee­tles and butterflies.

Flo­ra and fau­na species lists

To down­load flo­ra (plants) and fau­na (ani­mals) species lists for this park, use the ​‘Cre­ate Sim­ple Species List’ tab under ​‘Flo­ra Tools’ or ​‘Fau­na Tools’ in NatureMaps.

• Mobile phone cov­er­age can be patchy and unre­li­able in this park, espe­cial­ly if you are in low-lying areas.

• Parks man­age­ment plans
• Trails SA
• SA Marine Parks

• Impor­tant: Col­lec­tion of fire­wood with­in Nation­al Parks is pro­hib­it­ed. Dead wood plays a vital role in pro­vid­ing shel­ter for ani­mals and adding nutri­ents to the soil.

Before Euro­pean set­tle­ment, the area pro­vid­ed food, wood and shel­ter for the Kau­r­na Peo­ples, and was a major trav­el­ling route between the hills and plains.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples have occu­pied, enjoyed and man­aged the lands and waters of this State for thou­sands of gen­er­a­tions. For Abo­rig­i­nal first nations, cre­ation ances­tors laid down the laws of the Coun­try and bestowed a range of cus­tom­ary rights and oblig­a­tions to the many Abo­rig­i­nal Nations across our state. 

There are many places across the State that have great spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to Abo­rig­i­nal first nations. At some of these places Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al pro­to­cols, such as restrict­ed access, are pro­mot­ed and vis­i­tors are asked to respect the wish­es of Tra­di­tion­al Owners.

In places where pro­to­cols are not pro­mot­ed vis­i­tors are asked to show respect by not touch­ing or remov­ing any­thing, and make sure you take all your rub­bish with you when you leave.

Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples con­tin­ue to play an active role in car­ing for their Coun­try, includ­ing in parks across South Australia. 

• DEW Park management
• DEW Abo­rig­i­nal partnerships

The park was first used for recre­ation in the 1930s, and in 1945 was pur­chased by the YMCA. It was acquired by the State Gov­ern­ment in 1953 and pro­claimed the Lof­tia Recre­ation Park in 1972. The park was expand­ed in 1992 and 1995, and renamed in 1996 in recog­ni­tion of its con­ser­va­tion val­ues and to hon­our physi­cist and human­i­tar­i­an Sir Mark Oliphant’s con­tri­bu­tion to conservation.

The YMCA camp build­ings were removed in the late 2000’s and work on restor­ing the native veg­e­ta­tion around the old camp con­tin­ues today.