Upgrades at metropolitan Adelaide parks

Improv­ing vis­i­tor access to pop­u­lar nation­al parks

Work is under­way to give vis­i­tors eas­i­er access to some of Adelaide’s most pop­u­lar nation­al parks.

This includes increased car park­ing capac­i­ty at key sites, improv­ing the vis­i­tor expe­ri­ence and improv­ing vis­i­tor safety.

Upgrades are now com­plete at Mark Oliphant Con­ser­va­tion Park in the Ade­laide Hills, in progress at Cham­bers Gul­ly – the pop­u­lar entrance point to the Cle­land Nation­al Park trail net­work – and in progress at Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park in Adelaide’s east.

Find out more about these works, includ­ing a snap­shot of the upgrades and esti­mat­ed deliv­ery timelines.

Works at Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park

Nes­tled 8 km east of Ade­laide, Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park is home to the pop­u­lar Mukan­thi Nature Play Space, which was opened in 2017.

The new nature play space rapid­ly drew in the crowds, putting pres­sure on the car park locat­ed adja­cent to the site and forc­ing vis­i­tors’ vehi­cles to spill onto neigh­bor­ing streets.

To cater for the park’s extra vis­i­tors, South Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment fund­ing will enable a tem­po­rary car park (known as the over­flow car park) locat­ed near the Mukan­thi Nature Play Space to be for­malised, sealed and con­nect­ed to the exist­ing sealed car park on Strad­broke Road.

This will cre­ate one large sealed car park that occu­pies the foot­print of the two exist­ing car parks (the sealed car park and the over­flow car park), but recon­fig­ured to max­imise the num­ber of vehi­cles it can accommodate.

The new car park will have approx­i­mate­ly 100 clear­ly marked car park spaces, a des­ig­nat­ed bus drop-off and pick-up space, one entry dri­ve­way and 2 exit driveways.

New walk­ing paths from the car park will pro­vide safer access for vis­i­tors to the nature play space and beyond.

The car park foot­print has been care­ful­ly designed to min­imise unnec­es­sary impact on the sur­round­ing veg­e­ta­tion, how­ev­er a small amount of veg­e­ta­tion will be removed as part of the con­struc­tion works. DEW ecol­o­gists have select­ed 1650 local native plants to reveg­e­tate the car park precinct as part of the project.

A builder has been select­ed to under­take the project and works will begin from 1 August. The con­struc­tion process is expect­ed to be com­plete in December.

While works are under­way park­ing will be extreme­ly lim­it­ed, and we strong­ly rec­om­mend that you instead vis­it one of our oth­er near­by metro parks, such as Cle­land Con­ser­va­tion Park or Belair Nation­al Park.

While con­struc­tion is under­way vis­i­tors to Mukan­thi play space must park at the Resource Cen­tre or along Mori­al­ta Falls Road, or in per­mit­ted areas in near­by streets. Pedes­tri­an access will remain unchanged oth­er than exclu­sions in place around the con­struc­tion site, and the Fourth Creek trail will not be affect­ed. Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice rangers and Coun­cil staff will mon­i­tor street park­ing and work to min­imise the impact to near­by res­i­dents and park visitors.

We ask all vis­i­tors who choose to park on near­by streets to exer­cise safe­ty pre­cau­tions when cross­ing the road on their way to and from the park and to be care­ful not to obstruct the dri­ve­ways of local res­i­dents when park­ing their vehicles.

Vis­i­tors may also choose to use pub­lic trans­port to trav­el to the park.

Note: this time­line is sub­ject to change as the project progresses.

Works at Mark Oliphant Con­ser­va­tion Park

An increase in vis­i­ta­tion at Mark Oliphant Con­ser­va­tion Park in the Ade­laide Hills in recent years has seen a greater demand on park­ing near the Scott Creek Road entrance at Longwood.

This prompt­ed a range of upgrades to this entrance, includ­ing expand­ing and recon­fig­ur­ing the car park area to cater for approx­i­mate­ly 20 vehicles.

The near­by pic­nic shel­ter was refur­bished and a new pic­nic table has also been installed. A short, acces­si­ble path has also been con­struct­ed to link the car park to the pic­nic area.

Park entry sig­nage has also been improved to pro­vide a more wel­com­ing street pres­ence, and new trail­head sig­nage and improved wayfind­ing sig­nage was also installed.

Works at Cham­bers Gully

Cham­bers Gul­ly in the foothills of Ade­laide is the start­ing point for many of the walk­ing trails in Cle­land Nation­al Park.

Work is now under­way to pro­vide extra park­ing and addi­tion­al vis­i­tor facil­i­ties at this pop­u­lar spot.

The car park area is being recon­fig­ured to bet­ter use the avail­able space, with wheel­stops, fenc­ing and oth­er bar­ri­ers also being installed.

Two pic­nic bench­es will also be installed at the site and a new trail­head and wayfind­ing signs will be erect­ed along the walk­ing trail.

Con­tact us

For more infor­ma­tion about the Com­mu­ni­ty Access to Nation­al Parks project, con­tact the project team.