Mount Monster Conservation Park

Open dai­ly.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Coorong Nation­al Park Infor­ma­tion Office
Phone: (+61 8) 7133 7270

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Mount Gam­bier Office
Phone: (+61 8) 7424 5770

Book­ing enquiries please email:
DEW.​SEOnlineBookings@​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: (+61 8) 7424 5770

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Mount Gam­bier Office on (08) 7424 5770

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Autumn and spring are the best times to vis­it this park. The sum­mer months from Decem­ber through to Feb­ru­ary can be very hot and dry, and win­ter months from June through to August can be very cold and wet. Fol­low­ing an excep­tion­al­ly wet win­ter, a spec­tac­u­lar wild­flower show in spring will live long in your memory.

The park is locat­ed approx­i­mate­ly 12 km south of Kei­th on the west­ern side of the Rid­doch (Kei­th to Nara­coorte) Highway.

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.

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.

Plants

Eight dif­fer­ent veg­e­ta­tion asso­ci­a­tions con­sist­ing of at least 176 dif­fer­ent plant species have been iden­ti­fied, 30 of those are orchids. One species, cra­dle of incense (prostan­thera eury­bioides) is con­sid­ered nation­al­ly endangered.

The eight dif­fer­ent veg­e­ta­tion asso­ci­a­tions are:

Broom­brush, hon­ey myr­tle and dry­land tea tree

Wide­spread through­out the park, but the mix of these three species varies con­sid­er­ably through the park, depend­ing on soil type.

Hedge wat­tle, broom­brush, hon­ey myr­tle, dry­land tea-tree

Only on the rocky out­crops, also dom­i­nat­ed by Spoon-leaved spy­drid­i­um and Droop­ing sheoak.

Pink gum, desert banksia and sil­ver banksia

This occurs only along the edge of the road on the north­ern bound­ary. It has the most divers under­storey of all the asso­ci­a­tions in Mont Monster.

Yel­low mallee, hon­ey myr­tle and dry-land tea-tree

Occurs away from the por­phorit­ic out­crops over shal­low soils.

Pink gums, gold­en wat­tle, hon­ey myr­tle and dry­land tea-tree

Occur­ring on the deep allu­vial soils, this has a dense and diverse understorey.

Pep­per­mint box and white mallee

With emer­gent pink gum and gold­en wat­tle it is the most wide-spread asso­ci­at­ed in the park and has a large mix of species with a sparse understorey.

Pep­per­mint box and South Aus­tralian coastal mallee

Only found along the south-east­ern bound­ary of the park with lim­it­ed and sparse understorey.

Blue gum and pep­per­mint box

Occurs in the deep allu­vial soils between the por­phorit­ic out­crops. The trees are ama­ture, well spaced and have no understorey.

Ani­mals

The park sup­ports a vari­ety of wildlife habi­tats and is an impor­tant refuge to many wildlife species. Keep a keen look out for west­ern grey kan­ga­roos, swamp and red necked wal­la­bies, short-beaked echid­nas, and vari­ety of wood­land birds and reptiles.

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.

• 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.

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

This park occu­pies an area of 93 hectares in Sec­tion 178 of the Hun­dred of Stir­ling. It was ded­i­cat­ed as a Con­ser­va­tion Park in Sep­tem­ber 1976 as a gift from three sur­round­ing Landown­ers. The dis­used quar­ry area was lat­er added to the park in 2011. Mt Mon­ster was also an impor­tant his­tor­i­cal nav­i­ga­tion aid dur­ing the Gold rush era, and the ini­tal set­tlemet of Mt Mon­ster was lat­er renamed to Keith.