Aldinga 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:

Black Hill Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSSouthMetro@​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 Vic­tor Har­bor Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676 (out­side of busi­ness hours).

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 Vic­tor Har­bor Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676 (out­side of busi­ness hours)

Vis­it in spring to enjoy a stun­ning range of wild­flow­ers as the park bursts into colour.

Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 46 km south of Ade­laide, on the coast­line of the Gulf of St Vin­cent, between the town­ships of Aldin­ga Beach and Sel­l­icks Beach.

From Ade­laide, take Main South Road and turn right at Aldin­ga Beach Road. Bitu­men and grav­el roads pro­vide con­ven­tion­al vehi­cle access to the park boundary.

Vis­i­tors can­not dri­ve into the park. Walk­ers can enter via stiles or gates at the cor­ner of Wat­tle Avenue and Aca­cia Ter­race, Quan­dong Avenue, Fras­er Street, Boomerang Avenue and Cox Road. A small car park is locat­ed on the cor­ner of Fras­er and Dover Streets. 

• Park maps

Pub­lic transport

You can catch an Ade­laide Metro bus to Low­er Esplanade which is approx­i­mate­ly 650 m to the park.

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.

There are no facil­i­ties in the park. Trails exist in the area for­mer­ly ded­i­cat­ed to Aldin­ga Scrub Con­ser­va­tion Park, how­ev­er access is lim­it­ed in the wash­pool sec­tion of the park. Please refer to the Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park map for fur­ther detail.

Please ensure you car­ry suf­fi­cient water, food and sup­plies for your entire vis­it. It is also a good idea to let a respon­si­ble per­son know of your intend­ed move­ments and when you expect to return.

• 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.

• Use­ful maps, brochures and species lists can be found on the Friends of Aldin­ga Scrub website.

Plants

Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park con­tains a diverse range of plant com­mu­ni­ties from sedge­lands and closed heaths to pink gum wood­lands and mallee box. These plants, adapt­ed to the sandy soils, help sta­bilise the sand dunes and help pre­vent sand blows.

Low wood­lands and heath com­mu­ni­ties cov­er most of Aldin­ga Scrub. In the north-east and far east­ern sec­tions of the scrub, a low wood­land of mallee box trees grows on brown sandy loam soils. Sedge­lands grow in areas where the water table is close to the sur­face and the soil is semi-per­ma­nent­ly water­logged. Tall shrub­lands of droop­ing sheoak give way to low-grow­ing coastal dune veg­e­ta­tion on the west­ern side of the scrub.

Sev­er­al rare species of plants are found in the park. They include lacy coral lichen, nar­doo, hairy sedge and sev­er­al species of orchids. 

Ani­mals

More than 166 dif­fer­ent bird species can be seen and heard with­in Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park. Some are migra­to­ry and vis­it the area for only a few months each year. If you watch qui­et­ly you may spot mistle­toe birds, rain­bow bee-eaters, brown goshawks and gold­en whistlers.

The park’s veg­e­ta­tion pro­vides a vari­ety of host plants for 18 species of but­ter­flies and 540 species of oth­er insects. Brush­tail pos­sums, short-beaked echid­nas, bats, geck­oes and skinks live in the park. The park also pro­vides a home for brown snakes and red-bel­lied black snakes.

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.

Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park was part of the ter­ri­to­ry of the Kau­r­na peo­ple who used the area dur­ing the sum­mer months. The area yield­ed a rich and boun­ti­ful sup­ply of food and mate­ri­als used for uten­sils. Shell­fish, fish, mar­su­pi­als, rep­tiles, birds and plant foods such as nar­doo, muntries, yams and quan­dongs were abundant.

Pri­or to Euro­pean set­tle­ment, the area of the park that was more recent­ly known as the Aldin­ga Wash­pool was an impor­tant place for cur­ing and dry­ing pos­sum skins by the Kau­r­na peo­ple. It is a sig­nif­i­cant site as part of the Tjil­bruke Dream­ing Trail and con­tains reg­is­tered sites under the Abo­rig­i­nal Her­itage Act 1988 (SA).

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

Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park is sit­u­at­ed in an area known as the Willun­ga sub-basin. This was formed by red clays being washed down from the Willun­ga Hills over sev­er­al thou­sand years. Sands from the ocean floor have been deposit­ed over the clays and an old­er red marine sand deposit.

Mobile sand dunes known as ​‘sand blows’ occur along the west­ern bound­ary of the park. These mobile dunes are backed by semi-sta­bilised sand dune ridges which reach up to 35 metres high. Fur­ther inland, sta­bilised dunes up to ten metres high alter­nate with swales to form an undu­lat­ing sand plain.

The first Euro­pean set­tler in the area was Mr F Cul­ley in 1857. Before World War I the scrub area was sub­di­vid­ed and sev­er­al attempts were made to farm. Because of the sandy soils, farm­ing did not prove viable.

In the 1960s the Willun­ga Coun­cil became con­cerned that sub­di­vi­sion of the area would cause ero­sion. Between 1965 and 1982, 300 hectares were pur­chased at Aldin­ga to be man­aged by the State Plan­ning Author­i­ty as an Open Space Reserve. In 1985 the reserve was declared Aldin­ga Scrub Con­ser­va­tion Park.

In 2018, local com­mu­ni­ty sup­port led to the estab­lish­ment of an Aldin­ga Wash­pool Work­ing Group to see the Wash­pool and adja­cent Aldin­ga Scrub Con­ser­va­tion Park pro­tect­ed in its entirety. 

In Jan­u­ary 2022, the Aldin­ga Wash­pool, one of Adelaide’s last remain­ing coastal fresh­wa­ter and estu­ar­ine lagoon sys­tems was added to Aldin­ga Scrub Con­ser­va­tion Park and pro­claimed as the Aldin­ga Con­ser­va­tion Park.