Kaiserstuhl 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:

North Lofty Dis­trict Office — Black Hill Con­ser­va­tion Park
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSNorthLofty@​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 North Lofty Dis­trict Office — Black Hill Con­ser­va­tion Park on (+61) 7133 7300 or the duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Dusk and ear­ly morn­ings are the best time to observe the park’s wildlife. Be on the look out for kan­ga­roos feed­ing on the open grass­lands in the ear­ly morn­ing or late after­noon, while the occa­sion­al echid­na or pos­sum may be seen for­ag­ing for food at dusk.

Kaiser­stuhl Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 12km south east of Tanun­da in the Barossa Valley.

• 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 this park. How­ev­er pic­nic and toi­let facil­i­ties are avail­able in near­by towns or oth­er parks in the region. Car park­ing areas are not pro­vid­ed, but park­ing is per­mit­ted along the road out­side the park boundary.

Plants

Kaiser­stuhl Con­ser­va­tion Park sup­ports approx­i­mate­ly 400 plant species and was prin­ci­pal­ly estab­lished to pre­serve the most norther­ly occur­rence of the brown stringy­bark, Euca­lyp­tus bax­teri. Their mul­ti-stemmed, mallee-like appear­ance is the result of ear­li­er, reg­u­lar trim­ming to pro­vide wood for the Nuri­oot­pa brick kilns.

Large blue gums, riv­er red gums, native pines and sheoaks pro­vide shady cov­er for the diverse under­storey of yac­cas, wat­tles, tea-trees and sil­ver banksias. Many plants, such as laven­der gre­vil­leas and fringe myr­tles flower in spring. The green flow­ered hairy cor­rea is an unusu­al plant that grows in the shel­ter of the large gran­ite out­crops. The rare prick­ly tree vio­let also occurs in the park and is often mis­tak­en for the African box­thorn. This native plant pro­vides pro­tect­ed nest­ing sites for small birds.

You may see mistle­toe grow­ing on the euca­lypts, aca­cias and casuar­i­nas in the park. These are par­a­sitic native plants, which pro­vide food and shel­ter for many bird species. The lichens grow­ing on the rocks are also an impor­tant part of the ecosys­tem help­ing to weath­er the rocks to form soil. 

Ani­mals

The park is home to native birds such as blue wrens, par­rots, hon­eyeaters, finch­es and thorn­bills. Many of the bird pop­u­la­tions are declin­ing in the Mount Lofty Ranges, even in the parks, due to frag­men­ta­tion of their ter­ri­to­ries. These parks are too small to con­tain viable pop­u­la­tions of some species, and as the old birds die they are becom­ing local­ly extinct.

In the late after­noon or ear­ly morn­ing, west­ern grey kan­ga­roos are found feed­ing on open grass­land areas. Euros can occa­sion­al­ly be seen on the rocky ridges of the high­er sec­tions of the park.

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.

• 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.

Phy­toph­tho­ra (fy-TOFF-tho­ra), oth­er­wise known as root-rot fun­gus, is killing our native plants and threat­ens the sur­vival of ani­mals depend­ing on plants for food and shelter.

This intro­duced fun­gus can be found in plant roots, soil and water. Help stop the spread by using hygiene sta­tions, stay­ing on tracks and trails and by com­ply­ing with all Phy­toph­tho­ra man­age­ment signs.

• Phy­toph­tho­ra brochure

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

Tanun­da Creek Bul­lock Track orig­i­nal­ly crossed the creek sev­er­al times with­in the park but was closed around 1885 in favour of the more direct route along Tanun­da Creek Road.

Two plaques record the bequest to the Field Nat­u­ral­ists’ Soci­ety of South Aus­tralia by Mr L. W. Nicholls. This pro­vid­ed major assis­tance for the pur­chase of the park in 1978. The offi­cial ded­i­ca­tion cer­e­mo­ny took place in 1983.