Witjira National Park

Open dai­ly.

Fire safe­ty and information

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

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

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

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion and bookings

Port Augus­ta Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia office

Phone: (+61 8) 8648 5328
Email: DEWDesertParks@​sa.​gov.​au

Out­back Roads Report
Depart­ment of Infra­struc­ture and Trans­port
Phone: 1300 361 033 (24-hour auto­mat­ed ser­vice)
Out­back Road Warn­ings website

Park man­age­ment:

Port Augus­ta Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia office

Phone: (+61 8) 8648 5300
Email: DEWDesertParks@​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: 0408 378 284

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Port Augus­ta Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia office on (08) 8648 5300 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0408 378 284.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

The best time of year to vis­it is between April and Sep­tem­ber. If you’re lucky enough to vis­it the park a few weeks after a soak­ing rain, you’ll be reward­ed with the ephemer­al wild­flow­ers burst­ing into bloom in the sand dune country.

Witji­ra Nation­al Park is locat­ed 887km north-west of Port Augus­ta. Access is via Stu­art High­way, Oodnadatta.

From Ade­laide: Either trav­el via Port Augus­ta, Mar­la (or turn off at Coober Pedy), Ood­na­dat­ta, Hamil­ton Sta­tion then via the Pedir­ka track to Dal­housie or trav­el to Eringa then to Dal­housie Springs.

From Birdsville: Trav­el via the QAA Line and French Line track to Purni Bore and Dal­housie Springs.

From the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry: Enter via Kul­gera, Finke, New Crown and Char­lotte Waters.

Please refer to the lat­est Desert Parks Bul­letin for cur­rent access and road con­di­tion information.

Toi­lets and cold show­er facil­i­ties are avail­able at the Dal­housie Springs camp­ground. Hot show­ers, toi­lets and shade shel­ter are avail­able at Purni Bore camp­ground. Emer­gency water is avail­able from the bore at 3 O’clock Creek camp­ground, which is the last place to fill up on drink­ing water before you cross the desert.

Mount Dare Hotel (pri­vate­ly oper­at­ed) has camp­grounds, accom­mo­da­tion, food and drink, hot show­ers, fuel, water and mechan­i­cal assis­tance available.

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.

• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website. 

• There is no mobile phone cov­er­age in the park.

• Desert Parks Bulletin
• down­load the Ood­na­dat­ta vis­i­tor brochure
• Desert Parks of South Aus­tralia brochure
• Ram­sar Wetlands

• Remote area trav­el information
• Parks man­age­ment plans
• Trails SA
• SA Marine Parks

Out­back Road Report

1300 361 033 (24-hour auto­mat­ed ser­vice)
North­ern and West­ern South Aus­tralian Out­back Roads Tem­po­rary Clo­sures, Restric­tions and Warn­ings Report

• 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.

Witji­ra Nation­al Park is part of the tra­di­tion­al coun­try of the Low­er South­ern Arrernte and Wangkan­gur­ru peo­ple and is of spe­cial cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance to mem­bers of these groups. The ancient springs have a strong mytho­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple and are fea­tured in many trib­al sto­ries and songs, and there are many Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al and her­itage sites with­in the park. A Co-man­age­ment Board man­ages the park. It com­pris­es mem­bers of the two groups and mem­bers of the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Water.

Word from the Witji­ra Nation­al Park Co-man­age­ment Board

We have been co-oper­a­tive­ly man­ag­ing Witji­ra for decades, respon­si­ble for joint­ly man­ag­ing the park since 1995 and lat­er becom­ing a Co-man­age­ment Board in 2007. We have strong links to this land, reflect­ed through Altyerre/​Tjukurpa and the many Dream­ing sto­ries that weave through­out the park.

One of our biggest achieve­ments is work­ing togeth­er. We respect each other’s exper­tise and strengths, as well as hav­ing respect and trust in a work­ing rela­tion­ship for the ben­e­fit of all.

We work with part­ners to achieve con­ser­va­tion and cul­tur­al objec­tives includ­ing con­trol­ling date palms that invade wet­land habi­tats, reduc­ing fer­al ani­mal pop­u­la­tions that dam­age our land (such as camels and don­keys), and improv­ing vis­i­tor facilities.

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

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.

The Dal­housie mound springs have been part of Abo­rig­i­nal life for thou­sands of years. They were first sight­ed by Euro­peans on 10 Decem­ber 1870 when a small par­ty of sur­vey­ors work­ing on the Over­land Tele­graph Line in search of water locat­ed the springs.

Ned Bagot took up the first lease of Dal­housie Sta­tion on New Years Day in 1873. Oth­er sta­tions of Bloods Creek, Mount Dare and Fed­er­al were also tak­en up and lat­er amal­ga­mat­ed under the umbrel­la of the Dal­housie Pas­toral Company.

Sheep, ango­ra goats, hors­es, camels and cat­tle were bred on this sta­tion. In the 1950s, agri­cul­ture was attempt­ed with lucerne plant­ed near the Dal­housie main spring.

After a cen­tu­ry of pas­toral­ism, the mound springs with nation­al bio­log­i­cal, geo­log­i­cal and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance had become degrad­ed. On 21 Novem­ber 1985, the 77769 square kilo­me­tre sta­tion was pur­chased and ded­i­cat­ed as Witji­ra Nation­al Park.