Nullarbor National Park, Wilderness Protection Area and Regional Reserve

Open dai­ly.

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

Vis­it from mid-May to late Octo­ber for your chance to watch majes­tic south­ern right whales cruise below the cliffs. The high cliff line pro­vides fan­tas­tic views for land-based whale watch­ers. Board­walks from the Head of Bight Vis­i­tors Cen­tre take you to two main view­ing areas. The board­walk ramps are sloped for wheel chair access.

There are 3 offi­cial Bun­da Cliff look­outs which are sign post­ed and have been put in loca­tions safe for the pub­lic. The look­outs pro­vide some of the best view­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties look­ing either east or west along the cliffs. 

Whales with calves tend to stay ​‘in res­i­dence’ at the site all sea­son. At the height of the sea­son (July/​August), over 100 whales can be in the area at one time.

At this point in time, the only options for camp­ing with­in Nullar­bor Wilder­ness Pro­tec­tion Area is Koon­al­da Home­stead. Camp­ing along the Bun­da Cliffs is not per­mit­ted due to the unsta­ble cliff edge, con­stant­ly col­laps­ing into the ocean. 

Nullar­bor Nation­al Park and Region­al Reserve is locat­ed 300km west of Ceduna. Access is via Eyre Highway.

• Park map

Although not with­in Nullar­bor Nation­al Park, the Head of Bight Vis­i­tor Cen­tre is acces­si­ble and is man­aged inde­pen­dent­ly by the Abo­rig­i­nal Lands Trust.

There is a large board­walk plat­form with excel­lent views over the bight, where whales and their calves vis­it. The Vis­i­tor Cen­tre also has wheel­chairs which can be borrowed.

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.

There are very lim­it­ed facil­i­ties in the park. Please ensure you car­ry suf­fi­cient water, food and sup­plies for your entire vis­it. It is also a good idea to let a respon­si­ble per­son know of your intend­ed move­ments and when you expect to return.

Facil­i­ties include vis­i­tor toi­lets, show­ers, two road­hous­es and Head of Bight Vis­i­tors Cen­tre.

Camp­ing

Camp­ing is pro­hib­it­ed in all areas, includ­ing Bun­da Cliffs. Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able at Koon­al­da.

Learn more about Bun­da Cliffs. 

• 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 except in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty of the Head of Bight Vis­i­tors Cen­tre and adja­cent to roadhouses.
• At this point in time, the only options for camp­ing with­in Nullar­bor Wilder­ness Pro­tec­tion Area is Koon­al­da Home­stead. Camp­ing along the Bun­da Cliffs is not per­mit­ted due to the unsta­ble cliff edge, con­stant­ly col­laps­ing into the ocean. 
• 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.

There are sev­er­al pest species which sur­vive the harsh con­di­tions with­in the park. Camels peri­od­i­cal­ly ven­ture into the park, espe­cial­ly after rain. Sim­i­lar­ly fox­es and fer­al cats can be seen. Buf­fel grass is rou­tine­ly con­trolled by the Abo­rig­i­nal Rangers.

There has been 29 dif­fer­ent types of whales record­ed in South Aus­tralia. The most com­mon are the south­ern right whale, hump­back whale, sperm whale, blue whale and orca whale (killer whale). Of these you are most like­ly to spot a south­ern right whale along the South Aus­tralian coast.

Every year, between May to Octo­ber, south­ern right whales gath­er along the south­ern coast­line of Aus­tralia to mate and calve, before return­ing to sub-Antarc­tic waters to feed.

The south­ern right whale is a large whale which can grow up to 17.5 metres and weigh over 80 tons. The vast major­i­ty of south­ern right whales are black in colour with dis­tinc­tive white pat­terns on their heads that are cal­lus­es formed by small crus­taceans known as ​‘whale lice’. The pat­terns are vis­i­ble at birth and are unique to each whale allow­ing researchers to iden­ti­fy indi­vid­ual whales. 

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

Mirn­ing Country

The Nullar­bor is the tra­di­tion­al land of the Mirn­ing Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple who have strong cul­tur­al links with Coun­try. The Mirn­ing peo­ple are recog­nised as Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers, through the Far West Coast Native Title Deter­mi­na­tion 2013, of the Nullar­bor Parks. The Nullar­bor Park is man­aged by a Co-man­age­ment Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee of Mirn­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice staff.

The Nullar­bor Parks Advi­so­ry Committee

We are made up of Mirn­ing peo­ple, as well as gov­ern­ment and com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives. As Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers, the Mirn­ing peo­ple are cus­to­di­ans of the Nullar­bor and its coast­line, includ­ing por­tions of the Marine Park.

For Abo­rig­i­nal first nations, cre­ation ances­tors laid down the tra­di­tion­al lore (law) of the Coun­try and bestowed a range of cus­tom­ary rights and oblig­a­tions to the many Abo­rig­i­nal Nations across our state.

Many places across the Nullar­bor have great his­tor­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance to the Mirn­ing; some of these places have cul­tur­al pro­to­cols, requir­ing restrict­ed access where 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 Abo­rig­i­nal partnerships

Fol­low­ing Euro­pean set­tle­ment, the Nullar­bor was the site of a num­ber of pas­toral ven­tures and there are a num­ber of rem­nant sites includ­ing the his­toric Gilgerra­bie and Koon­al­da Huts, with­in the park bound­aries. The Nullar­bor Nation­al Park was declared in 1979.