Gawler Ranges National 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:

Gawler Ranges Nation­al Park Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office
Phone: (+61 8) 8648 1883
Email: EPParks@​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 – After-hours duty offi­cer
Phone: 08 8688 3223

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Gawler Ranges Nation­al Park Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (08) 8648 1883 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on (08) 8688 3223

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

In late autumn and win­ter the park is green and cool, per­fect for camp­fires and bush­walks. After rain, the creeks flow and most pools are alive with aquat­ic life. From late win­ter into spring, the park teems with wild­flow­ers in incred­i­ble shapes, sizes and colours.

In spring, you can see the bril­liant flow­ers of our local crim­son mallee, and the plains are car­pet­ed with native grass­es and blue­bush. Sum­mer can be very hot, but if you’re pre­pared to work around the weath­er you’ll have calm days, extra­or­di­nary sun­sets, and clear views of the star­ry nights.

A 4WD is rec­om­mend­ed to enjoy all of the high­lights of the park, although in dry weath­er much of the park can be accessed by high clear­ance 2WD.

Gawler Ranges Nation­al Park is locat­ed in South Australia’s spec­tac­u­lar south­ern Gawler Ranges, approx­i­mate­ly six hours dri­ve north­west from Ade­laide. The park is 40km north of the Eyre High­way and road access is from Iron Knob, Kim­ba, Wudin­na or Min­ni­pa. The Gawler Ranges are a great stopover for trav­ellers cross­ing the Eyre Penin­su­la en route to Perth.

• 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.

All camp­sites have toi­lets. Camp­fires and gen­er­a­tors are allowed how­ev­er you need to bring your own fire­wood and drink­ing water.

• Read about the Top five things to see in the Gawler Ranges Nation­al Park on the Good Liv­ing blog.
• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website. 

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

• Tel­stra mobile phone recep­tion is avail­able at the Paney Park Head­quar­ters Office and the Paney Shear­ing Shed.

• Camp­ing safety
• 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.

The Gawler Ranges Peo­ple are recog­nised as the tra­di­tion­al own­ers of this Coun­try, attain­ing native title in 2011. The Gawler Ranges peo­ple are a dis­tinct group of foun­da­tion fam­i­lies made up of some, but not all, the Barn­gar­la, Kokatha and Wiran­gu Peo­ple. This Coun­try was and con­tin­ues to be impor­tant to the laws, cus­toms and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty of the Gawler Ranges Peo­ple. The Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers ask that you respect their cul­ture and this ancient landscape.

Plants

The Gawler Ranges is the mid­dle ground between south­ern mallee coun­try and the arid zone to the north of South Aus­tralia. There are over 400 dif­fer­ent plant species in the park and many are at the extreme of their geo­graph­i­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion. Oth­ers are found nowhere else, such as the Gawler Ranges Hop Bush and the Gawler Ranges Grevillea. 

Ani­mals

The Gawler Ranges is a haven for bright­ly-coloured wildlife such as the Aus­tralian ring­neck par­rot and superb fairy-wren. There are many rare and threat­ened ani­mals in the park, includ­ing Australia’s only pro­tect­ed pop­u­la­tion of the short-tailed grass wren. This shy crea­ture lives on hill­tops, ridges and slopes, rely­ing on spiny shrubs and bush­es for pro­tec­tion from predators.

If you move about the park qui­et­ly and keep your binoc­u­lars handy, you may be reward­ed with a glimpse of a yel­low-foot­ed rock-wal­la­by, a south­ern hairy-nosed wom­bat, a cen­tral long-eared bat, or a major mitchell cock­a­too. In the after­noons it is com­mon to see sand goan­nas cross­ing the tracks as they head about their business.

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.

Buf­fel grass is a long-lived intro­duced tus­sock grass that is now recog­nised as one of the worst envi­ron­men­tal threats in Australia’s arid range­lands. Buf­fel grass is a declared weed in South Aus­tralia. This intro­duced weed is fast-grow­ing, out­com­petes native grass­es and shrubs, and makes it dif­fi­cult for ani­mals and peo­ple to move across the land­scape. It burns hot­ter and more fre­quent­ly than native veg­e­ta­tion, killing larg­er shrubs and trees, and regen­er­ates more quick­ly after fire events, trans­form­ing diverse healthy land­scapes into grass­lands, cre­at­ing a mono­cul­ture that dev­as­tates nat­ur­al ecosystems. 

Help stop the spread of buf­fel grass by keep­ing to tracks and report any sight­ings in parks.

Fur­ther information: 

• Buf­fel grass — PIRSA
• Land­scape South Aus­tralia — Alinyt­jara Wil­u­rara | Buf­fel grass
• Land­scape South Aus­tralia — Eyre Penin­su­la | Pest plants
• Land­scape South Aus­tralia — SA Arid Lands | Pest plants

Many local farm­ing fam­i­lies have strong con­nec­tions to this park as their descen­dants first arrived in this region in the 1850s and eked out a liv­ing. Even while this land was used for farm­ing, the Gawler Ranges Peo­ple always main­tained their cul­tur­al respon­si­bil­i­ties, often employed on Paney Sta­tion as shear­ers, trap­pers and stockmen.

Paney Home­stead, Old Paney Home­stead and Pon­dan­na Out­sta­tion are reminders of ear­ly sta­tion life and the enor­mous strug­gles met in this remote and vari­able coun­try. These sites and relics are stark reminders of human hard­ship, con­flict and sur­vival. Pon­dan­na Out­sta­tion has been restored by the Friends of Gawler Ranges and is avail­able for short term stays. For more infor­ma­tion and book­ings please call +61 8 8680 2969