Sandy Creek 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

Sandy Creek Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 60km, or a one hour dri­ve, north east of Adelaide.

Turn right from the Barossa Val­ley High­way on to Con­ser­va­tion Park Road and fol­low the dirt track to the car park.

• 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.

• Parks man­age­ment plans
• Trails SA

• Vis­it the Walk­ing Trails Sup­port Group for maps, leaflets and walk­ing notes pro­duced by park volunteers.

  • Down­load the Barossa Coun­try Walks app (iOS, Android) before you leave home for walk­ing notes on 10 walks in the Barossa. This app is pro­duced by park volunteers.
• 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.

Plants

Fea­tur­ing main­ly low fer­til­i­ty and deep sandy soil, the park is home to stands of south­ern cypress-pine and pink gum, both now rare in the state. Wild­flow­ers are com­mon in spring, with wat­tles, daisies, heaths, lilies, gums, banksias, gre­vil­leas and orchids in full bloom. The rem­nant veg­e­ta­tion in the park is cur­rent­ly under threat, with many species such as pink gums, banksias and bot­tle­brush fail­ing to regen­er­ate and lead­ing to a decline in bird num­bers. One the­o­ry for this is the park’s iso­la­tion from oth­er large areas of native vegetation. 

Ani­mals

Walk­ers may hear the occa­sion­al ​‘plonk­ing’ sound of the bull frog. The east­ern beard­ed drag­on and mar­bled gecko can be seen on sun­ny days. At dusk look out for west­ern grey kan­ga­roos and echid­nas. The park is a haven for birds migrat­ing through the Barossa Val­ley, Ade­laide Hills and Plains, with over 130 species being record­ed. Dia­mond fire­tails – which move around the park in pairs or flocks of up to 30 and mate for life – are an amaz­ing sight.

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.

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

In the first half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, much of Sandy Creek Con­ser­va­tion Park was cleared and plant­ed with vines. Low soil fer­til­i­ty saw the vine­yards aban­doned and, in 1965, the area was ded­i­cat­ed as a con­ser­va­tion park. Sec­tions were named after life-long ornithol­o­gists and con­ser­va­tion­ists, Cecil Rix and Mark Bon­nin, who iden­ti­fied many native bird species in the area. The Sir Kei­th Wil­son sec­tion of the park was a gift from the Wil­son fam­i­ly and the Nature Foun­da­tion of SA Inc., which increased the habi­tat avail­able for numer­ous birds.

Today, regen­er­at­ing cleared land and the ruins of a small hut, built in 1918 from local­ly quar­ried stone and native pine, remain in the park. In addi­tion, an aban­doned vine­yard in the south­ern sec­tion con­tains grass­es that pro­vide impor­tant habi­tat for birds such as the grass-dwelling stub­ble quail.