New ways to connect with nature at Cleland

Only 20 min­utes from the Ade­laide CBD, Cle­land Wildlife Park is one of the state’s most pop­u­lar native wildlife vis­i­tor expe­ri­ences with more than 140,000 vis­i­tors each year.

That num­ber is set to rise thanks to the park’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tion – the koala expe­ri­ence – get­ting a major facelift mean­ing vis­i­tors will have more oppor­tu­ni­ties to cud­dle a koala, rain, hail or shine!

Pre­vi­ous­ly if it was too hot or too cold, koala holds would be can­celled, but they’ll now be avail­able 364 days a year in a brand new tem­per­a­ture-con­trolled space which will improve com­fort for koalas and vis­i­tors while they enjoy the pop­u­lar experience.

Oth­er improve­ments on the cards include a new nature play space adja­cent to the Bark­ing Gecko Café and an upgrade to the Valente Edu­ca­tion Cen­tre – which will be trans­formed into an inter­ac­tive nature hub for stu­dents to learn about Australia’s nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and become the next gen­er­a­tion of wildlife warriors.

Addi­tion­al improve­ments include new sig­nage to make it eas­i­er to get around the park, enhanced land­scap­ing and upgrades to toi­let facilities.

This $2.5 mil­lion project will be designed by award-win­ning, South Aus­tralian-based Trop­po Archi­tects in part­ner­ship with land­scape design­ers Aspect Stu­dio, tak­ing design cues from the sur­round­ing nat­ur­al environment.

It’s expect­ed this project will be com­plete by June 2022.

Cle­land Koala Hold Expe­ri­ences back this weekend

You don’t have to wait until these improve­ments are ready to enjoy a koala hold at Cle­land. Koala holds are start­ing again this June long week­end for the first time since they were put on hold due to COVID-19 restrictions.

You can book entry tick­ets and expe­ri­ences by vis­it­ing Cleland’s web­site.