Cape Willoughby Conservation Park

Open dai­ly. Closed Christ­mas Day.

Cape Willough­by Con­ser­va­tion Park Vis­i­tor Cen­tre open dai­ly from 10 am to 4 pm.

Guid­ed Tours start from 10am, 1pm and 3pm. Per­sons under the age of 5 are not per­mit­ted on the climb the light­house unless they are in an approved baby har­ness or backpack.

Site Entry Fee

$6.00 per adult, payable upon arrival in the retail sec­tion of the Vis­i­tors Centre.

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:

Cape Willough­by Vis­i­tor Cen­tre & Cape Willough­by Tours
Phone: (08) 8553 4466
Email: DEWCapeWilloughby@​sa.​gov.​au

Cape Willough­by Com­mer­cial Tour Oper­a­tors
Phone: (08) 8553 4466
Email: DEWCapeWilloughby@​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: 0477 334 898

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia Kan­ga­roo Island office on (08) 8553 4444 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0477 334 898.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group.

Marine mam­mals
If you find a sick or strand­ed marine mam­mal (includ­ing whales, seals, sea lions and dol­phins), please con­tact Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia Kan­ga­roo Island office on (08) 8553 4444 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0477 334 898.

Cape Willough­by Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 27km south east of Pen­neshaw, on Kan­ga­roo Island. Access is via Cape Willough­by Road.

• Park map

You can get to Kan­ga­roo Island from main­land South Aus­tralia on the SeaLink fer­ry. This vehi­cle and pas­sen­ger fer­ry oper­ates dai­ly (except Christ­mas Day) between Cape Jervis (two hours south of Ade­laide) and Pen­neshaw, Kan­ga­roo Island. The jour­ney takes 45 min­utes for the 16km crossing.

Vis­it the SeaLink web­site for more infor­ma­tion and bookings.

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.

It is an offence to fly drones (remote­ly pilot­ed air­craft) in South Australia’s nation­al parks, con­ser­va­tion parks, game reserves, recre­ation parks or region­al reserves and marine park restrict­ed access zones with­out a per­mit. Per­mits are con­sid­ered for sci­en­tif­ic research and com­mer­cial film­ing only. 

• Infor­ma­tion centre
• Retail Sec­tion
• Toi­lets
• Acces­si­ble toilets
• Paid Guid­ed Tours avail­able in this park.

• Nation­al Parks of Kan­ga­roo Island Vis­i­tor Guide: May 2022
• Kan­ga­roo Island Wilder­ness Trail website
• 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.

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

Cape Willough­by once played a vital role in the ship­ping trade of the young colony of South Aus­tralia before the advent of effi­cient forms of land transport.

Cape Willough­by Light­house was built to assist the safe jour­ney of ships pass­ing through the treach­er­ous stretch of water known as Back­stairs Pas­sage dur­ing a time of rapid­ly expand­ing coastal ship­ping trade between the east­ern colonies and the colony of South Australia.

The light­house was orig­i­nal­ly known as the Sturt Light after the explor­er Cap­tain Charles Sturt. The tow­er took over two years to con­struct and the work­ers lived in tents dur­ing this time. South Aus­trali­a’s first light­house was offi­cial­ly opened in Jan­u­ary 1852, and manned 24 hours a day by 3 light­keep­ers who lived here with their families.

Cape Willough­by Light­house was con­struct­ed from local­ly avail­able gran­ite and lime mor­tar. Quar­ry­ing is evi­dent near the light­house atop the cliffs of Dev­ils Kitchen. It is thought holes were hand-drilled into the rock in the quar­ry and filled with wood. This was kept wet and the expand­ing wood would crack the rock which was then shaped pri­or to con­struc­tion. The result was a cir­cu­lar tow­er of rough­ly dressed gran­ite masonry.

The walls of the light­house are 1.4m thick at the base and taper to 0.86m thick at the top. The tow­er, from the base to the bal­cony, is 20.5 metres high (67 feet and 3 inch­es) and is round for wind resis­tance. The inte­ri­or base of the tow­er is one of the widest in Aus­tralia and the light­keep­ers and their fam­i­lies were even known to have host­ed par­ties and dances here.

The orig­i­nal Dev­ille Lantern room housed opti­cal appa­ra­tus (light) con­sist­ing of 15 mul­ti­ple wick oil burn­er lamps. This was reflect­ed inter­mit­tent­ly by revolv­ing reflec­tors pow­ered by a weight dri­ven motor, and appeared as a flash­ing light. Its great­est inten­si­ty was every 1.5 min­utes and in clear weath­er could reach 24 nau­ti­cal miles.

In 1925 the lantern room and light were replaced by a more mod­ern and pow­er­ful Chance Broth­ers sys­tem. The light con­sist­ed of a pres­surised incan­des­cent kerosene lantern with a three ton revolv­ing Fres­nel lens. The lens float­ed in a bath of mer­cury to reduce fric­tion when turn­ing. It was dri­ven by 146lb weights which had to be wound up every 2.5 hours work­ing on a sys­tem sim­i­lar in prin­ci­ple as a grand­fa­ther clock. The mer­cury proved to be a health haz­ard to the lightkeepers.

In 1959 the light­house was elec­tri­fied by two diesel pow­ered gen­er­a­tors installed at the station.

The light­sta­tion became ful­ly auto­mat­ed in 1974 – 75 when 240 volts main pow­er was con­nect­ed. A stand­by diesel gen­er­a­tor and bat­tery bank pro­vid­ed back­up dur­ing pow­er fail­ure. The lantern house was also removed and was replaced with new fibre­glass lantern hous­ing. The orig­i­nal hous­ing was lat­er installed atop a stub tow­er in the Kingscote Muse­um, where it remains to this day.

The orig­i­nal wood­en jar­rah spi­ral stair­case was also replaced with a steel struc­ture due to wet rot and con­tin­u­al use.

Cape Willough­by Light­sta­tion was one of the last manned light­hous­es in Aus­tralia. It was offi­cial­ly auto­mat­ed (unmanned) in 1992.

In 2003, the light­sta­tion was down­grad­ed when a ML300 bea­con was installed, con­sist­ing of a 35 Watt 12 Volt lamp, which is vis­i­ble for 11 nau­ti­cal miles. In March 2011, this was replaced with a Vega LED bea­con. It is pow­ered by two 12 Volt bat­ter­ies, and the bat­tery float is charged from the mains.