Glenthorne  National Park-Ityamaiitpinna Yarta

Hot­ter months, Day­light Sav­ing Time: 8:00 am — 9:00 pm (Closed on Christ­mas Day)
Cold­er months, stan­dard time: 8:00 am — 7:00 pm

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 Black Hill 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

Parks are for all to enjoy, we would love to hear from you about your expe­ri­ence in nature. You can share your com­ments, pic­tures and videos with us and oth­ers by tag­ging @NationalParksSA on Face­book, Insta­gram or email us.

Park­ing

There are 9 acces­si­ble park­ing spaces scat­tered around the main vis­i­tor hub near the nature play space.

Toi­lets

There is one is acces­si­ble toi­let (left hand) in the nature play space area.

Trails

Foot­prints from the past (1.3km)

This trail unlocks the his­to­ry of the for­mer Glen­thorne Farm through the sto­ries of six char­ac­ters from Glenthorne’s past. The trail takes you through the main vis­i­tor hub, past a 1960s glasshouse lab­o­ra­to­ry and 1850s vigneron’s barn, then towards a look­out with panora­ma views over the park and dis­tant hills. To get the most out of the trail, lis­ten to the audio nar­ra­tives and bring the fea­tured char­ac­ters to life through aug­ment­ed real­i­ty in the​‘Foot­prints from the Past’ tour on the SA Nation­al Parks Tours app. The trail sur­face is hard packed grav­el, there is a rea­son­able gra­di­ent just past the glasshouse to go down so assis­tance may be required. This is a grade 2 trail so there are sec­tions in which assis­tance may be required. For man­u­al wheel­chair users it is rec­om­mend­ed to do the trail with a free­wheel attached (if you have one) as this will make the trail eas­i­er to navigate. 

Walk­ing with Winaity­i­naityi Trail (1.5km)

This trail intro­duces you to 10 winaity­i­naityi (birds) that vis­it Glen­thorne-Tya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta. Hear from Kau­r­na edu­ca­tor Jack Buck­skin in the​‘Walk­ing with Winaity­i­naityi’ tour on the SA Nation­al Parks Tours app. The trail fol­lows the creek line to the two dams, before return­ing back to the vis­i­tor hub. Log seats are locat­ed along the trail for those that want to stop and rest but also so you can take your time look­ing and lis­ten­ing for winaity­i­naityi. The trail sur­face is hard packed grav­el. There is a steep sec­tion approx­i­mate­ly 100m after the first dam in which assis­tance will be required to go down for those that choose to go this way, to avoid this it rec­om­mend­ed to turn right along the path just after the first dam. This is a grade 2 trail with some sec­tions of rea­son­able gra­di­ents in which assis­tance will be required. For man­u­al wheel­chair users it is rec­om­mend­ed to do the trail with a free­wheel attached (if you have one) as this will make the trail eas­i­er to nav­i­gate. Sec­tions of this trail may be hard­er to nav­i­gate in a pow­er chair due to some of the gra­di­ents but worth hav­ing a look and see­ing if it works for you.

Grow with me Trail (2.2km)

This trail takes you to some of the best van­tage points in the park. See just how much Glen­thorne-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta has grown since it was pro­claimed as a nation­al park in May 2020. Keep an eye out for the​‘Grow with me’ pho­to points along the way where you can take pho­tos to add to cit­i­zen sci­ence records and track your own growth along with the park’s each time you vis­it. The trail sur­face is hard packed grav­el. It fol­lows along part of the Foot­prints from the past and Walk­ing with Winaity­i­naityi trails which mean­der past the nature play space and first dam and then heads up the hill to a look out that over­looks the vis­i­tor hub. The trail up the hill has a rea­son­able slope so some peo­ple may require assis­tance but the view at the top is worth it. Depend­ing on the time of the year you can expe­ri­ence some won­der­ful smells com­ing from the plants along parts of the trail. For man­u­al wheel­chair users it is rec­om­mend­ed to do the trail with a free­wheel attached (if you have one) as this will make the trail eas­i­er to navigate.

Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta is locat­ed 16 km south of Adelaide. 

Access is via Majors Road, O’Halloran Hill. 

Park maps.

Two new mobile food ven­dors are now oper­at­ing at Glen­thorne Nation­al Park. You’ll find them near the play­ground offer­ing a wide range of cof­fee, drinks and food. Pop over next time you visit. 

Dogs are wel­come in the for­mer O’Halloran Hill Recre­ation Park and along the 4km Trail Loop in Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta. 

Please ensure you: 

• Keep your dog under con­trol and on a lead no more than 2 metres in length.
• Stick to des­ig­nat­ed walk­ing trails.
• Bring dis­pos­able bags to clean up your dog’s fae­ces (please be aware there are no bins in nation­al parks).

Dis­cov­er oth­er 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.

There are vis­i­tor facil­i­ties locat­ed in the Glen­thorne Vis­i­tor hub, adja­cent to the adven­ture play­ground. Facil­i­ties include shel­ters, acces­si­ble BBQs, acces­si­ble toi­lets, pic­nic areas, drink­ing foun­tains and carparks (includ­ing 8 acces­si­ble carparks).

• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website.
• Mobile phone cov­er­age is good in most areas of the park.
• 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.

Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­­mai­it­pin­­na Yarta will not only ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty, it will help pre­serve, re-estab­lish and re-con­nect impor­tant habi­tat for native plants and animals. 

The park has impor­tant grey­box grassy wood­land, with some scat­tered remant grey­box trees and areas of grass­land remain­ing on the site. Over 200,00 native plants have been plant­ed at Glen­thorne to help restore it back to a nat­ur­al grassy-wood­land habitat.

More than 90 bird species have been record­ed at Glen­thorne. Stay a while and you might be lucky enough to spot small flocks of yel­low-tailed black cock­a­toos and the more elu­sive grey fantail.

Down­load the free SA Nation­al Parks Tours app for exclu­sive con­tent and park expe­ri­ences. Take the ​‘Walk­ing with Winaity­i­naityi’ (Walk­ing with Birds) trail to dis­cov­er some of the Winaity­i­naityi that vis­it here and their Kau­r­na names You’ll find 10 winaity­i­naityi totems out on the trail, plus you can dive deep­er in the SA Nation­al Parks Tours app with audio from cul­tur­al and lan­guage edu­ca­tor Jack Buckskin.

The Kau­r­na Peo­ple are the Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers of the lands and waters of the greater Ade­laide region, includ­ing Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­­mai­it­pin­­na Yarta. They main­tain a deep rela­tion­ship with Coun­try, and have done so for tens of thou­sands of years through their cus­toms and Tjukurpa. 

The park is named after Itya­mai­it­pin­na who was a sig­nif­i­cant Kau­r­na elder dur­ing the coloni­sa­tion between Kau­r­na and Euo­pean set­tlers. ​‘Itya’ means ​‘fleshy’, ​‘mai’ means ​‘food’, ​‘itpin­na’ means the ​‘father of’ and ​‘yarta’ means land. Learn more about the Itya­mai­it­pin­na in the video below. 

Down­load the free SA Nation­al Parks Tours app for exclu­sive con­tent and park expe­ri­ences fea­tur­ing Kau­r­na cul­ture, lan­guage and aug­ment­ed reality.

Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­­mai­it­pin­­na Yarta includes a num­ber of his­tor­i­cal­ly impor­tant areas that are being pre­served as part of the park.

The for­mer Glen­thorne prop­er­ty has a diverse his­to­ry, in 1839 the state’s first police com­mis­sion­er Major Thomas Shuld­ham O’Halloran lived on the prop­er­ty. After Euro­pean inva­sion, the land has been used as a farm, a train­ing ground for mil­i­tary hors­es in WWI and a a research facil­i­ty from 1949. Each of these phas­es of his­to­ry are reflect­ed in the his­tor­i­cal build­ings that remain at the park, some dat­ing back to the 1950s.

Down­load the free SA Nation­al Parks Tours app for exclu­sive con­tent and park expe­ri­ences fea­tur­ing char­ac­ters from each peri­od of his­to­ry. Aug­ment­ed real­i­ty and audio con­tent which will take you past key his­tor­i­cal sites in the park and explain their impor­tance in the landscape.