Malkumba-Coongie Lakes National Park

Open dai­ly.

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

Innam­inc­ka Region­al Reserve Office
Phone: (+61 8) 8675 9909 

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

Cli­mat­i­cal­ly and sceni­cal­ly, April and Octo­ber are the best times to vis­it this park. The sum­mer months from Novem­ber through to Feb­ru­ary can be very hot and dry. If you are lucky enough to vis­it the park a few weeks after a soak­ing rain, you will be reward­ed with ephemer­al wild­flow­ers and the sound of frogs in flow­ing creeks.

Malkum­ba-Coongie Lakes Nation­al Park is locat­ed 100km north west of Innam­inc­ka. Access is along the Strz­elec­ki Track, via Leigh Creek.

Please refer to the lat­est Desert Parks Bul­letin for cur­rent access and road con­di­tion information.

• Park maps

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.

Toi­let facil­i­ties are avail­able at the Coop­er Creek in the Coongie Lake Day Vis­i­tor and camp­ground area.

Come pre­pared to be self-suf­fi­cient if you are plan­ning on camp­ing on the lake’s edge or the Kudriemitchie camp­ground as there is no facil­i­ties avail­able in those areas.

• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website. 

• There is no mobile phone cov­er­age in the park.

Please refer to the lat­est Desert Parks Bul­letin for cur­rent access and road con­di­tion information.

• Desert Parks of South Aus­tralia brochure
• Down­load the Birdsville and Strz­elec­ki Tracks vis­i­tor brochure.

• 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.

Take a vir­tu­al tour of this park, get a taste for the beau­ty of the lakes at sun­rise, the red of the out­back dunes and the a sense of still­ness that this park provides.

• Geo­ra­ma vir­tu­al tour

Plants

The park’s flo­ra changes with the sea­son­al water flows. North­ern riv­er red gums are often plen­ti­ful where water is per­ma­nent with Lignum form­ing dense thick­ets beneath. The soil type and how reg­u­lar­ly the area is flood­ed deter­mines the sur­round­ing veg­e­ta­tion, rang­ing from grass­es and native herbs to low open wood­lands of Coolabah trees.

The sand dunes in the park can be up to 15 metres tall. Veg­e­ta­tion on the dunes varies with flo­ra includ­ing nar­row-leaved hop-bush, sand hill wat­tle and sand hill cane-grass. 

Ani­mals

The Coongie Lakes wet­land is inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised as a Ram­sar wet­land of inter­na­tion­al impor­tance and is known for its diver­si­ty and mul­ti­tude of water­birds. The wet­lands are home to 205 bird species, includ­ing 87 water­bird or wet­land depen­dent species, 45 of which breed here. Twen­ty four of these species are rare, vul­ner­a­ble or endan­gered in South Australia.

Every year, mil­lions of migra­to­ry wad­ing birds fly from one side of the world to the oth­er and back again, cov­er­ing a dis­tance more than 25,000km. Along the route is a net­work of wet­lands, includ­ing Coongie Lakes, that the birds vis­it from Decem­ber to April to feed and shelter.

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.

The Coongie Lakes and asso­ci­at­ed wet­lands are a spir­i­tu­al site for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple and was once cru­cial to the main­te­nance of the Indige­nous pop­u­la­tions due to the avail­abil­i­ty of resources, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing flood events.

The Yan­druwand­ha and Yawar­rawar­rka peo­ple have lived in this region for thou­sands of years, tak­ing advan­tage of the pro­lif­ic birdlife and sea­son­al wildlife. The groups retain a strong inter­est and pres­ence in the area.

Words from the Yan­druwand­ha Yawar­rawar­rka Parks Advi­so­ry Committee

Our peo­ple lived and thrived around the Coongie Lakes area for many gen­er­a­tions before Euro­pean explor­ers and pas­toral­ists arrived in the 1800s. Despite loss of coun­try, our cul­ture was not lost; we kept our lan­guage and sto­ries, and hand­ed them on.

We are keen to pro­tect the land and share our sto­ries and cul­ture with neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties and vis­i­tors. The Malkum­ba – Coongie Lakes Nation­al Park Man­age­ment Plan (2014) iden­ti­fies three zones with­in the park – Her­itage and Con­ser­va­tion Zone; Liv­ing and Camp­ing Zone; and Fish­ing Zone – to allow our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to car­ry out tra­di­tion­al activ­i­ties today. We have also improved inter­pre­ta­tive signs and are final­is­ing a cul­tur­al her­itage plan.

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