Cleland National Park

Open dai­ly.

How­ev­er, some of the attrac­tions with­in the park have var­ied open­ing hours:

• Mount Lofty Sum­mit Café and Restau­rant open­ing hours
• Cle­land Wildlife Park open­ing hours
• Utopia @ Water­fall Gul­ly open­ing hours

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 Cen­tral Lofty Office
Phone: (+61) 8336 0901
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 – 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 the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office on (+61) 8336 0901 or the Region­al Duty Offi­cer on 0427 556 676.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Although this park is great to vis­it all year round, vis­it­ing in win­ter and spring will ensure water­falls are flow­ing and the moss and fern filled val­leys are flour­ish­ing with new life. 

Cle­land Nation­al Park is locat­ed 22 km south east of Ade­laide. Major access points are via Mount Lofty Sum­mit Road and Water­fall Gul­ly Road, how­ev­er a num­ber of oth­er access points off Green­hill and Old Mt Bark­er Roads are avail­able depend­ing on where you want to walk or ride.

If you’re in your own vehi­cle, you can find this park on the map.

• Park map

There is also pub­lic trans­port to this park from the Ade­laide city centre. 

• Ade­laide Metro bus and train services

Cle­land Nation­al Park – a view from above

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.

Facil­i­ties

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.

Steub Trail

The Steub trail is an excel­lent alter­na­tive to the Water­fall Gul­ly to Mount Lofty Sum­mit hike. The trail is 7 km return. Allow about 3 to 5 hours if in a wheel­chair. You can start the walk from either the bot­tom at Cle­land Wildlife Park or at the top at Mount Lofty Sum­mit. The track sur­face is a hard base with a recy­cled prod­uct (Bitu­mate) on the top which makes for a nice smooth ride. The trail is a class 3 trail so assis­tance will be required. The trail has inclines and sev­er­al berms which make it chal­leng­ing for wheel­chair users to nav­i­gate independently.

Water­fall Gully

Water­fall Gul­ly trails

Take the bitu­men trail (300 m) which climbs from the car park to the first falls pool and back. Assis­tance may be required due to the gradient.

Access­ing Water­fall Gully

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, or you can live chat with a cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the web­site Mon­day to Fri­day from 9 am to 5 pm.

Water­fall Gully

At Water­fall Gul­ly there are look­out plat­forms, toi­lets, a pic­nic shel­ter, foot­paths, infor­ma­tion and seat­ing. The loca­tion of these facil­i­ties can be found with­in our park maps.

• Park maps

Utopia restau­rant pro­vides bev­er­ages and meals and can be con­tact­ed for bookings.

Mt Lofty Summit

At Mt Lofty Sum­mit there are look­out plat­forms, toi­lets, a pic­nic shel­ter and foot­paths. The loca­tion of these facil­i­ties can be found with­in our park maps.

• Park maps

Cle­land Wildlife Park

Cle­land Wildlife Park has exten­sive facil­i­ties to make your vis­it as enjoy­able as possible.

Please note pub­lic trans­port is avail­able to the Mt Lofty Sum­mit area and Cle­land Wildlife Park only.

• Mobile phone cov­er­age can be patchy and unre­li­able in this park, espe­cial­ly if you are in low-lying areas.
• Mount Lofty Summit
• Water­fall Gully
• Cle­land Wildlife Park
• Read about 5 trea­sures in Cle­land Nation­al Park 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. 
• Parks man­age­ment plans
• 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.

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.

Our rangers love hav­ing schools in the park, learn­ing in nature. While we update our online infor­ma­tion and resources to assist teach­ers and oth­er learn­ing providers, we sug­gest vis­it­ing the Green Ade­laide nature edu­ca­tion pages for resources. Addi­tion­al­ly, please con­tact the park office to book one of our facil­i­ties for your next school excursion.

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

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

On the 27 March 1802, Matthew Flinders, sail­ing off the south coast of South Aus­tralia, sight­ed Mount Lofty. Some time after, in 1831, Cap­tain Col­lett Bark­er and two asso­ciates, Kent and Davis, made the first Euro­pean ascent of Mount Lofty. They not­ed in this climb that one tree had a girth of near­ly 15 metres, which intro­duced the area for logging.

Con­struc­tion of roads start­ed in 1839 with the devel­op­ment of the Water­fall Gul­ly Road and then Green­hill Road in 1858 allow­ing improved access. Land own­er­ship is dif­fi­cult to trace, how­ev­er, in 1856, Arthur Hardy used the land for sheep graz­ing and was known for build­ing Mount Lofty House. He was reput­ed as being one of Ade­laide’s rich­est men of the time.

Sir Samuel Dav­en­port owned much of Cle­land Nation­al Park in the lat­ter half of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. Dav­en­port was instru­men­tal in estab­lish­ing orchards and gar­dens in the gul­lies, where he tried grow­ing import­ed plants such as tobac­co, mul­ber­ry trees for silk worms, and grapes. Dav­en­port con­tin­ued to graze sheep in the north­ern sec­tion of the park and employed a shep­herd named John Keir, whose cot­tage ruins are still evi­dent in Cle­land today.

Despite many changes to the land­scape from min­ing, log­ging and graz­ing, Water­fall Gul­ly was a not­ed pop­u­lar place for pub­lic amuse­ment and recre­ation. The area was man­aged by the City of Burn­side and became a Nation­al Plea­sure Resort in 1912. It was at this time the kiosk (Utopia restau­rant today) was built. It was­n’t until the 1960s and the con­tin­ued efforts of JB Cle­land to pro­tect its con­ser­va­tion val­ue that it became the Cle­land Wildlife Reserve in 1963.