How your photos can help document the history of South Australia’s Ngarkat Conservation Park

Two pop­u­lar camp­grounds in Ngarkat Con­ser­va­tion Park, rough­ly 250 km east of Ade­laide, are the focus of a project look­ing to high­light its his­to­ry through sto­ries and photos.

The Box Flat camp­ground is locat­ed about 30 km from Lameroo and Bucks Camp camp­ground is about 30 km from Keith.

Both have been pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tions in years past for vis­i­tors from local towns, includ­ing Lameroo, Kei­th, Tinti­nara and Bordertown.

Both areas are also impor­tant sites for local First Nations, as the loca­tion of sev­er­al soaks.

Bucks Camp has a tum­bled-down, two-room hut with a near­by soak and old well, while Box Flat has an old three-room hut.

But cur­rent­ly there’s not many pho­tos or sto­ries on file to cap­ture the his­to­ry of these spe­cial spots.

Read on to learn about the park and see how you or some­one you know might be able to help pre­serve its history.

About Ngarkat Con­ser­va­tion Park

Ngarkat Con­ser­va­tion Park includes 270,000 hectares of veg­e­tat­ed sand dunes, Mallee and heath.

An abun­dance of wildlife is found through­out the park, includ­ing the rarely spot­ted malleefowl, west­ern grey kan­ga­roos, emus and more than 120 species of birds.

Ngarkat is famous for its win­ter flow­er­ing of key heath species, includ­ing the high­ly orna­men­tal banksia orna­ta, which means unlike many oth­er places in the Mallee dur­ing win­ter, it’s a busy time of the year for its many bird occu­pants. It’s also a good time to vis­it because the sandy hills are much firmer and eas­i­er to nav­i­gate with a four-wheel drive.

A num­ber of walk­ing trails give vis­i­tors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see the wildlife and get a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion of the vast Mallee landscape.

There’s mag­nif­i­cent views from Tyms Look­out along a 2 to 3 hour hike, and the ruins of ear­ly Euro­pean pio­neer­ing set­tle­ments at Box Flat give vis­i­tors an insight into the ear­ly – failed – attempts to farm this country.

How you can help

Have you vis­it­ed Ngarkat Con­ser­va­tion Park and spent some time at these camp­grounds? Or do you know some­one that has?

If so, you might be able to help the team at Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Service.

They are look­ing to col­late fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the sites, from pre-1980, to help with the devel­op­ment of fur­ther infor­ma­tion and sig­nage for these areas.

Whether it’s farm­ing infor­ma­tion, what peo­ple used to do, bits and pieces or pho­tos of pic­nics, the team is keen to see it all – as long as it relates to these areas.

So dig through your pho­to albums and rem­i­nisce on those sto­ries from the past, and if you’ve got some­thing to share sim­ply make sure you sub­mit them by 30 June.

If you like learn­ing about the his­to­ry of South Australia’s nation­al parks, you might like our sto­ry:5 nation­al parks in SA that are rich in Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al her­itage.