Waterfall Gully

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.

Gate open­ing times

Mount Lofty Sum­mit Road gate (the road to Cle­land Wildlife Park) is open from 7:30am to 5pm. 

Mount Lofty Sum­mit is open from 6am to 11pm.

Utopia @ Water­fall Gul­ly restau­rant open­ing hours are avail­able on their website.

Water­fall Gul­ly is locat­ed 8km east of Adelaide. 

Access is via Water­fall Gul­ly Road. Please be aware that park­ing may not be avail­able on week­ends due to the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the site.

• Park maps

Restau­rant bookings

Utopia @ Water­fall Gul­ly Restau­rant
Phone: (+61 8) 8379 2488
Utopia @ Water­fall Gul­ly website

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSCentralLofty@​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 – Ade­laide and Mount Lofty Ranges Region­al Duty Offi­cer
Phone: 0427 556 676 

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the Region­al Duty Offi­cer on 0427 556 676.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Park­ing

There are two acces­si­ble park­ing spaces locat­ed at the Water­fall Gul­ly carpark.

Toi­lets

There are two toi­lets locat­ed at the Water­fall Gul­ly carpark. One is an acces­si­ble toi­let (left hand) and the oth­er is an ambu­lant toilet.

Water­fall Gul­ly trails

Take the bitu­men trail (300m) which climbs from the car park to the first falls pool and back. You might need some assis­tance may because of the gradient.

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 pic­nic areas, a kiosk, toi­lets and dis­abled toi­lets avail­able for use at Water­fall Gully.

• Mobile phone cov­er­age can be patchy and unre­li­able in this park, espe­cial­ly if you are in low-lying areas.

• 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.

• Mount Lofty Summit
• Cle­land Wildlife Park

Phy­toph­tho­ra (fy-TOFF-tho­ra), oth­er­wise known as root-rot fun­gus, is killing our native plants and threat­ens the sur­vival of ani­mals depend­ing on plants for food and shelter.

This intro­duced fun­gus can be found in plant roots, soil and water. Help stop the spread by using hygiene sta­tions, stay­ing on tracks and trails and by com­ply­ing with all Phy­toph­tho­ra man­age­ment signs.

• Phy­toph­tho­ra brochure

Plants

The flo­ra on the high­er slopes is pre­dom­i­nant­ly stringy­bark for­est with a com­plex under­storey of small trees and shrubs. The low­er wood­lands on the north­ern side of the park con­tain sig­nif­i­cant stands of blue gums and man­na gum which give way to open grasslands.

Ani­mals

The fau­na with­in the park ranges from a vari­ety of birdlife, such as superb blue wrens, grey fan­tails and white throat­ed tree creep­ers, to for­ag­ing mam­mals, such as the echid­na and the endan­gered south­ern brown bandi­coot. You may be lucky enough to see kan­ga­roos bound­ing along in the dis­tance and keep your eyes open for sleepy koalas high in the trees. 

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.

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