Brookfield Conservation Park

The pub­lic sec­tion of Brook­field Con­ser­va­tion Park is open from 7am until sun­set, 7 days a week.

This park is closed 4 times a year for fer­al ani­mal con­trol pro­grams, see the alerts in the top right hand cor­ner of this page for clo­sure details.

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:

Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia River­land and Mur­ray­lands Region­al Office
28 Vaugh­an Tce, Berri
Phone: (+61 8) 8595 2111
Email: rm.​npws@​sa.​gov.​au

Book­ing enquiries please email
DEW.​RMOnlineBookings@​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: 0417 192 335

Injured Wildlife:

With­in the park

Please con­tact the River­land and Mur­ray­lands Region­al Office on (08) 8595 2111 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0417 192 335 (out­side of busi­ness hours).

Out­side of the park

Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

This park is best to explore between spring and autumn, as it can be very hot and dry dur­ing sum­mer months.

The park has three dis­tinct veg­e­ta­tion com­mu­ni­ties; arid wood­land, arid shrub­land and mallee. Each of these areas come alive par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing late win­ter and spring, and after sum­mer and autumn rains.

The dif­fer­ing veg­e­ta­tion hosts a vari­ety of birdlife, rep­tiles and flow­er­ing shrubs, many of which can be seen eas­i­ly from the walk­ing trails and self-dri­ve tour.

Most Aus­tralian wildlife is active at dawn and dusk, as a method of con­serv­ing ener­gy dur­ing extreme tem­per­a­tures. This includes the south­ern hairy-nosed wom­bat. The best time to spot a wom­bat is in the lat­er after­noon on a warm, but not hot, day when the ani­mals will come out of their bur­rows to bask in the sun.

Brook­field Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 130km north east of Ade­laide, 11km west of Blanchetown. Access is via Sturt Highway.

There is a side gate that is acces­si­ble on the east­ern perime­ter of the park, along Park Road.

• Park map

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.

Enjoy an open air lunch at the pic­nic ground, which you can access via the Mallee Dri­ve Track. Toi­lets are also locat­ed at this pic­nic ground.

Brook­field has three self-dri­ve tracks that you can explore; Blue­bush & Mallee, Mallee and Blue­bush. Each of these is one way only, to ensure vis­i­tor safe­ty as the tracks are nar­row. The start­ing point for all the dri­ves is at the shear­ing shed near the park entry.

The park has reg­u­lar researchers and vis­i­tors stay­ing at the sci­en­tif­ic camp and old home­stead. These areas are not open to the pub­lic. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact:

Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia Berri office
Phone: (+61 8) 8595 2111
Email: DEW.​RMOnlineBooking@​sa.​gov.​au

Please note: Some areas of this park are restrict­ed to the pub­lic and require per­mis­sion to enter.

• 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.

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.

At the time of Euro­pean arrival, the Nga­iawang Peo­ple occu­pied an area of approx­i­mate­ly 388,000 hectares on the West­ern Mur­ray Plains, in which the park is sit­u­at­ed, although no evi­dence of Abo­rig­i­nal set­tle­ment has been found in the park itself.

With­in this area, the riv­er was the main focus of activ­i­ty, pro­vid­ing a per­ma­nent water source and a con­tin­u­ous food sup­ply. Fish were caught in nets and inge­nious stone traps, one of which is still pre­served in the north­ern end of McBeans Pound. The riv­er was also a major com­mu­ni­ca­tion and trans­port route. Bark canoes were obtained from large riv­er red gums, and sev­er­al of these canoe trees can still be seen near Blanchetown. The riv­er became the nucle­us of set­tle­ment as it pro­vid­ed for most needs.

Please refer to the South Aus­tralian Muse­um pub­li­ca­tion Nga­iawang Folk Province (1977) for fur­ther infor­ma­tion on Ngaiawang.

• Since set­tle­ment in 1836, the area of Brook­field Con­ser­va­tion Park formed part of the very first pas­toral leas­es. Pio­neer farm­ing fam­i­lies would have large hold­ings run­ning sheep that were con­fined in brush yards each night and pro­tect­ed by shep­herds who would live near­by in sim­ple slab huts.
• In lat­er years, the area was called Glen Leslie Sta­tion and grazed up to 1800 to 2000 sheep dur­ing good times. The sta­tion was also used to cut tim­ber, both for wood and for char­coal. The char­coal pits and shear­ing sheds still remain in the park as a reminder of this farm­ing heritage.
• In 1971 Glen Leslie Sta­tion was pur­chased by the Chica­go Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety as a con­ser­va­tion reserve for south­ern-hairy nosed wom­bats. At this time it was renamed Brook­field Zoo Reserve.
• In 1977 the Chica­go Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety gift­ed Brook­field Zoo Reserve to the Gov­ern­ment of South Australia.
• On the 6^th of July 1978 Brook­field Con­ser­va­tion Park was offi­cial­ly pro­claimed under the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Act 1972.