Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park

Open dai­ly.

Please note: Hal­li­gan Bay Point is closed from Decem­ber 1 to March 15 each year, in line with the Simp­son Desert annu­al sum­mer closure.

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 

Out­back Roads Report
Depart­ment of Plan­ning, Trans­port and Infra­struc­ture
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: DesertParks@​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 to vis­it Kati Than­da-Lake Eyre Nation­al Park is between April and Octo­ber. If sum­mer mon­soon rains pro­vide flood­wa­ters local­ly or from Queens­land, you are more like­ly to see water in the lake dur­ing these cool­er months. In sum­mer, tem­per­a­tures in the area can soar to more than 50 degrees Celsius.

Kati Than­da-Lake Eyre Nation­al Park is locat­ed 60km east of William Creek and 95km north-west of Mar­ree. The park is acces­si­ble via two pas­toral tracks, known as ​‘pub­lic access routes’. Both are suit­able for 4WD vehi­cles only. You should trav­el in con­voy and car­ry reserves of fuel, water and food. It is best to avoid trav­el­ling in the hot­ter months, from Novem­ber to March. 

From William Creek: Trav­el south-east on the Ood­na­dat­ta Track for 7km to the access track to Kati Than­da-Lake Eyre Nation­al Park. Trav­el along this track to Hal­li­gan Bay Point via Armistice Bore and ABC Bay. This pub­lic access route is closed from 1 Decem­ber to 15 March.

Check the lat­est Desert Parks Bul­letin and the road con­di­tion report for cur­rent access before you leave.

• Park maps

Camp sites are avail­able at Hal­li­gan Bay Point where toi­lets and two pic­nic shel­ters are pro­vid­ed, or at Muloo­ri­na Sta­tion’s pri­vate­ly owned camp­ground which includes toi­let facilities.

Camp­grounds with toi­let and show­er facil­i­ties are also locat­ed at Mar­ree, William Creek, and at Cow­ard Springs, 130 km west of Mar­ree on the Ood­na­dat­ta Track.

• There is no mobile phone cov­er­age in the park.

• Check the lat­est Desert Parks Bul­letinand road con­di­tion report for cur­rent access infor­ma­tion before you leave
• Down­load the Ood­na­dat­ta Track vis­i­tor brochure and the Birdsville and Strz­elec­ki Tracks vis­i­tor brochure.
• Take a look at Kati Than­da-Lake Eyre from the air as fea­tured on the Good Liv­ing blog.
• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website. 

• 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.

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.

Plants

Veg­e­ta­tion is gen­er­al­ly sparse in the park. Cane­grass and scat­tered clumps of mul­ga and aca­cias grow on the red sand dunes and the occa­sion­al stand of aca­cia can be seen on the coarse gib­ber table­lands. Nitre-bush, sam­phire, needle­bush and native wil­low are also found in the Lake Eyre area. After heavy local rain the land­scape bursts into colour and is sur­round­ed by a sea of grass-green foliage. The flow­ers pro­duce an abun­dance of nec­tar and seeds that attract many insects and in turn, flocks of birds.

After heavy local rain the area becomes a blaze of liv­ing colour edged by ver­dant green. When these plants burst into flower, their nec­tar and seed attract insects and birds. 

Ani­mals

Gen­er­a­tions of desert ani­mals have had to adapt in order to sur­vive in the harsh envi­ron­ment of Kati Than­da such as the Lake Eyre drag­on. This lizard lives out on the dry lakebed eat­ing ants and shel­ter­ing under the salt crust on the deep mud layer.

If you are lucky enough to vis­it dur­ing a flood you may wit­ness the lake host­ing a chaot­ic com­mu­ni­ty of breed­ing birds that have flown thou­sands of kilo­me­tres from as far away as Chi­na and Japan.

Under the water­line, bony bream and hardy­head, shrimp and perch all begin their own breed­ing and feed­ing fren­zies as water fills the lake. The Lake Eyre hardy­head can sur­vive in water up to 15 times salti­er than sea­wa­ter so it can con­tin­ue feed­ing and breed­ing as the oth­er fish around it suc­cumb to the salty water as the fresh water evaporates. 

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.

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.

Kati Than­da is a very spe­cial place to every­one who bears wit­ness to it, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Ara­bana and the Dieri Peo­ple. Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple have been liv­ing around Kati Than­da for thou­sands of years, and it plays a cen­tral role in many of their sto­ries and songs. This park is co-man­aged by an Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing mem­bers of the Ara­bana peo­ple and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the South Aus­tralian Government.

Co-nam­ing

Lake Eyre Nation­al Park is now for­mal­ly known as Kati Than­da-Lake Eyre Nation­al Park after a request through the Ara­bana Parks Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee. The Ara­bana Parks Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee is a part­ner­ship ini­ti­at­ed in June 2012 between the Ara­bana Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion and the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment, Water and Nat­ur­al Resources to share respon­si­bil­i­ty for the man­age­ment of the Kati Than­da-Lake Eyre Nation­al Park.

Words from the Ara­bana Parks Advi­so­ry Committee

We wel­come vis­i­tors to our tra­di­tion­al lands and encour­age them to learn about our sto­ries and cul­ture. In this area, vis­i­tor num­bers vary great­ly from about 5,000 in a dry year and soar to around 25,000 in a flood event year. We seek to estab­lish cul­tur­al­ly appro­pri­ate ways for peo­ple to expe­ri­ence the parks, in par­tic­u­lar the waters and lake bed of Kati Than­da and the mound springs of the area, which have high con­ser­va­tion and cul­tur­al val­ues, and are sen­si­tive to vis­i­tor impacts.