Penambol Conservation Park

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.

Vis­i­tor­in­for­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks and­Wildlife Ser­vice Mount Gam­bier Office
Phone: (+61 8) 8735 1177

Book­ing enquiries pleaseemail:
DEW.​SEOnlineBookings@​sa.​gov.​au

Emer­gen­cy­con­tacts:

Med­ical, fire (includ­ing­bush­fire) and police emer­gency sit­u­a­tions
Phone: Triple Zero — 000

Police Assis­tance
Phone: 131 444 for non-urgent police assistance

Nation­al Parks and­Wildlife Ser­vice SA – After-hours duty offi­cer
Phone: (+61 8) 8735 1177

Injured­wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Mount Gam­bier Office on (08)8735 1177

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, sealions and dol­phins), please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice MountGam­bier Office on (08) 8735 1177

Penam­bol Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 40km south of Mount Gam­bier or 480km south east of Ade­laide. Access is via Glenelg Riv­er Road which may be referred to on some maps as Punt Road or Nel­son Road.

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.

• 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.

Plants

The park is dom­i­nat­ed by mess­mate stringy­bark, with an under­storey of clover glycine, rough bush pea, tiger orchid, hop wat­tle and gold­en tip. Parts of the cen­tral area in the park, for­mer­ly used for graz­ing, are regen­er­at­ing with blackwood. 

Ani­mals

Local­ly sig­nif­i­cant ani­mals include the east­ern grey kan­ga­roo, red-necked wal­la­by, ring­tail pos­sum, echid­na, wom­bat and bush rat. Yel­low-bel­lied glid­ers and the threat­ened gang gang cock­a­too and red-tailed black cock­a­too have also been seen in the park.

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

The park is locat­ed on an inland dune and con­tains sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant fea­tures includ­ing Car­o­line Sink­hole, sit­u­at­ed in the north-east­ern cor­ner. View the sink­hole from a sus­pend­ed plat­form near the main car park on Car­ba Road.

The large sink­hole has col­lapsed into the under­ly­ing marine lime­stone. Look close­ly and you will notice the vary­ing lay­ers of the lime­stone in the walls.

Where sink­holes reach the watertable and have ver­ti­cal sides, like Car­o­line Sink­hole, they are often called cenotes.

The watertable is present­ly low and only exists as small pools around the edge. Changes in veg­e­ta­tion types, clear­ly vis­i­ble from the ele­vat­ed view­ing plat­form, indi­cate for­mer water levels.

There are also sev­er­al dolines scat­tered through­out the park. Dolines are formed the same way as sink­holes, but do not reach the watertable and often have gen­tle sides. The largest doline is locat­ed near the south­ern boundary.

The area was occa­sion­al­ly used as a mil­i­tary train­ing camp dur­ing World War Two.