Yellabinna Regional Reserve and Wilderness Protection Area

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.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Ceduna office
Phone: (+61 8) 8625 3144
Email: EPParks@​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: (08) 8688 3223

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Ceduna officeon (08) 8625 3144 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on (08) 8688 3223

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Marine mam­mals
If you find a sick or strand­ed marine mam­mal (includ­ing whales, seals, sea lions and dol­phins), please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Ceduna office on (08) 8625 3144 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on (08) 8688 3223

Yellabin­na Region­al Reserve and Wilder­ness Pro­tec­tion Area is locat­ed 30km north of Ceduna. Access to the park is via the Googs Track only. Trav­el from south to north is recommended.

• Park map

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 camp­sites where camp­fires are per­mit­ted with­in this park.

• There is no mobile phone cov­er­age in the park.

• 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.

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.

Buf­fel grass is a long-lived intro­duced tus­sock grass that is now recog­nised as one of the worst envi­ron­men­tal threats in Australia’s arid range­lands. Buf­fel grass is a declared weed in South Aus­tralia. This intro­duced weed is fast-grow­ing, out­com­petes native grass­es and shrubs, and makes it dif­fi­cult for ani­mals and peo­ple to move across the land­scape. It burns hot­ter and more fre­quent­ly than native veg­e­ta­tion, killing larg­er shrubs and trees, and regen­er­ates more quick­ly after fire events, trans­form­ing diverse healthy land­scapes into grass­lands, cre­at­ing a mono­cul­ture that dev­as­tates nat­ur­al ecosystems. 

Help stop the spread of buf­fel grass by keep­ing to tracks and report any sight­ings in parks.

Fur­ther information: 

• Buf­fel grass — PIRSA
• Land­scape South Aus­tralia — Alinyt­jara Wil­u­rara | Buf­fel grass
• Land­scape South Aus­tralia — Eyre Penin­su­la | Pest plants
• Land­scape South Aus­tralia — SA Arid Lands | Pest plants

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

The his­to­ry of Goog’s Road (now known as Goog’s Track)

For many years, Goog (John) and Jen­ny Den­ton had stood on the back veran­dah of the Lone Oak farm­house, look­ing north and won­der­ing what was out there in the scrub. They decid­ed to find out for them­selves. In 1973, they set out to build Googs Road – from Lone Oak farm to Tarcoola.

Goog and Jen­ny Den­ton, their chil­dren (Mar­tin, Deb­bie and Jef­fery) togeth­er with Denis Beat­tie (Jenny’s broth­er and Goog’s mate) began the mem­o­rable task of build­ing the road in June 1973.

Clear­ing the track began with a Ford­son trac­tor fit­ted with a front-end loader blade and a Toy­ota two wheel dri­ve ute. Then the going got tougher and the sand­hills big­ger and steep­er. At this point it was decid­ed that a bull­doz­er and four-wheel dri­ves were need­ed, so the Allis Chalmers HD14 was employed. Work on the road pro­ceed­ed for anoth­er two years, on week­ends only.

Rough­ly 55kms up the road, and eigh­teen months lat­er, a shack was built, which served as a base camp for the rest of the road through to Mount Finke. At this site the road branch­es north to Mount Finke. The shack was removed in 1977, at the request of the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice. Oppo­site this site, are memo­ri­als to Goog Den­ton and eldest son, Mar­tin ​“Dinger” Denton.

Sev­en kilo­me­tres north from the shack, progress on the road came to a halt for about sic months, due to prob­lems with the doz­er and oth­er commitments.

All fuel, water and sup­plies were cart­ed up on the back of three land rovers. Con­sid­er­able fuel and sup­plies were donat­ed by var­i­ous local peo­ple, to assist in the process of mak­ing the road to Tar­coola – they could see the val­ue of such a road. With­out their sup­port, it would not have been pos­si­ble to com­plete the road. The costs involved in clear­ing the way were enor­mous and Goog and Jen­ny would not have been able to do it on their own.

A grad­er was pur­chased in about March 1976 to make the road eas­i­er and safer to trav­el. The sand was very soft on some hills. Many had to be grad­ed from each side, as it was impos­si­ble to grade over the crest, due to the steep­ness of the hills.

Some week­ends the road pro­gressed three to 5kms and on oth­ers, 8 to 10kms. Some week­ends no progress was made at all. The going got tougher; the nights got cold­er. On many occa­sions, rain pre­vent­ed work from con­tin­u­ing. On these occa­sions, over drinks at the camp­fire, dis­cus­sions about progress and how to pro­ceed with the road con­sumed many hours.

In August 1976, the road to Mount Finke was final­ly com­plet­ed after 3 mem­o­rable years. The site where the road end­ed is known as Drum Camp.

The road from Mount Finke to Mal­booma had been cut through with axes by sta­tion own­ers, who had hoped to get their wool through to Theve­nard quick­er. The project became tough and they aban­doned the project. Two drums of water were left at this point (Drum Camp). This was the point at which Googs Road end­ed. This was as far as the grad­er went. The road to Tar­coola was cleared.