Morialta Conservation Park

Open dai­ly.

Vehi­cle entry gates opened dai­ly between 6:30am to 7pm (6:30am to 9pm dur­ing day­light sav­ings time). Closed on Christ­mas Day.

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.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Black Hill Nation­al Park and Wildlife Ser­vice Office
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSNorthLofty@​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 – Duty offi­cer
Phone: 0427 556 676

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Black Hill Nation­al Park and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Although any time of year is great to vis­it Mori­al­ta, to see the falls at their best, vis­it the park dur­ing spring or win­ter when the water flow is strongest and orchids and wild­flow­ers are at their brightest.

Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 10km north east of Ade­laide. A car park is sit­u­at­ed at the start of the walk­ing trails.

Alter­na­tive­ly, park your vehi­cle at the Mori­al­ta Road entrance, Wood­forde and walk 800 metres wind­ing your way along­side the creek to the Mori­al­ta Falls car park precinct.

If you’re in your own vehi­cle, you can find this park on the map.

• Park map

There is also pub­lic trans­port to this park from the Ade­laide city centre. 

• Ade­laide Metro bus and train services

Social Scrips

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia have cre­at­ed social scripts to help peo­ple on the Autism Spec­trum vis­it parks. These social scripts may be able to assist with less­en­ing anx­i­ety and stress when indi­vid­u­als are vis­it­ing a new place. The scripts below include spe­cif­ic and illus­trat­ed infor­ma­tion about what an autis­tic per­son can expect when vis­it­ing one of South Australia’s nation­al parks.

Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park — Gen­er­al Social Script

Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park — Nature Play Space Social Script 

Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park — First Falls Walk Social Script 

Facil­i­ties

Park­ing

There is acces­si­ble park­ing locat­ed at these loca­tions with­in the park:

• Five acces­si­ble car parks at the Nat­ur­al Resource Cen­tre car park.
• Three acces­si­ble car parks at the Strad­broke Road car park (Mukan­thi Play­space and pic­nic area).
• Three acces­si­ble car parks at the First Falls car park.

Toi­lets

There are acces­si­ble toi­lets locat­ed at the first falls car park and at the Strad­broke Road car park (Mukan­thi Play­space and pic­nic area)..

• Two acces­si­ble (right hand and left habd) toi­lets at Mukan­thi Playspace.
• One acces­si­ble toi­let (left hand) at the First Falls carpark.

See and do

Trails

First Falls Walk (3.6 km return) 

The first part of this trail between the Strad­broke Road and Mori­al­ta Falls Trail­head carpark (2 km return) begins as com­pact­ed grav­el and then becomes a bitu­men trail rang­ing from 1 to 2 metres wide. There is a short incline just beyond the Mori­al­ta Play­ground after the inter­sec­tion of the sec­ond foot­bridge from Wandil­la Dri­ve. From the Mori­al­ta Falls Trail­head to First Falls (1.6 km return) the incline ris­es gen­tly on a wide hard packed grav­el trail to reach the last sec­tion which is a short board­walk to just below First Falls. This walk is a Grade 2 Easy to Mod­er­ate trail so some peo­ple may require assis­tance. This trail is suit­able for prams.

Play­ground and pic­nic area

Watch the kids explore the Mukan­thi play­space whilst you enjoy an open-air pic­nic. The play­space is locat­ed near acces­si­ble park­ing, toi­lets and bar­be­cue areas.

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.

Dogs allowed (in des­ig­nat­ed zone only)on lead

Dogs on a lead are per­mit­ted in the recre­ation zone of the park between Strad­broke Road carpark and the First Falls Carpark. This includes the pic­nic area, play­ground, along the walk­ing trail next to Mori­al­ta Falls Road as far as the Mori­al­ta Falls Trail­head carpark Dogs are not allowed in the rest of the park.

Please ensure you:

• Keep your dog under con­trol and on a lead no more than two metres in length.
• Stick to des­ig­nat­ed walk­ing trails.
• Bring dis­pos­able bags to clean up your dog’s fae­ces (please be aware there are no bins in nation­al parks).

Dogs are not per­mit­ted in oth­er areas of the park.

Dis­cov­er oth­er 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.

Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park has a vari­ety of facil­i­ties avail­able to park vis­i­tors, includ­ing pic­nic areas, BBQs, toi­lets, dis­abled toi­lets, pub­lic trans­port and a playground.

The loca­tion of these facil­i­ties can be found with­in our park maps.

• Park maps

• Read about the 5 trea­sures of Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park on the Good Liv­ing blog.
• Read the Insid­er Guide: Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park on the Good Liv­ing blog.
• Check out Nature Play SA’s 40 things to do in Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Parks.
• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism website. 

• Mobile phone cov­er­age can be patchy and unre­li­able in this park, espe­cial­ly if you are in low-lying areas.

• 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.

Check out Nature Play SA’s 40 things to do in Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Parks.

Learn­ing in nature vir­tu­al tour

This vir­tu­al tour has been cre­at­ed as a resource for teach­ers to assist with out­door learn­ing. It can be used before and after vis­it­ing Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park, and can even be used by stu­dents in the classroom.

This tour com­ple­ments the ​‘Learn­ing in nature at Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park — pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment (PD) for teach­ers’ resource.The PD resource and this vir­tu­al tour con­tain a num­ber of activ­i­ty stops based around learn­ing con­cepts tied back to the cur­ricu­lum. This vir­tu­al tour also con­tains addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about plants, ani­mals, learn­ing ideas and links to addi­tion­al edu­ca­tion­al resources.

• Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park — Learn­ing in nature vir­tu­al tour

Phy­toph­tho­ra (fy-TOFF-tho­ra), oth­er­wise known as root-rot fun­gus, is killing our native plants and threat­ens the sur­vival of ani­mals depend­ing on plants for food and shelter.

This intro­duced fun­gus can be found in plant roots, soil and water. Help stop the spread by using hygiene sta­tions, stay­ing on tracks and trails and by com­ply­ing with all Phy­toph­tho­ra man­age­ment signs.

• Phy­toph­tho­ra brochure

Plants

The veg­e­ta­tion of Mori­al­ta is diverse. The under­storey veg­e­ta­tion is influ­enced by land use and fire regimes as well as under­ly­ing geol­o­gy. There is con­sid­er­able species diver­si­ty with­in the park with Mori­al­ta record­ing 302 native and 52 intro­duced species.

Veg­e­ta­tion asso­ci­a­tions vary and include savan­na type wood­lands with herba­ceous under­storey and scle­ro­phyl­lous open forests dom­i­nat­ed by canopy species such as stringy­bark, pink gum, blue gum, red gum and man­na gum. 

Ani­mals

The park sup­ports a vari­ety of wildlife habi­tats, includ­ing a range of birds, a small num­ber of mam­mals and a small num­ber of amphib­ian species along Fourth Creek. Be on the look out for the blue wrens, south­ern boo­book and tawny frog mouth owls, black-faced cuck­oo-shrikes and kan­ga­roos on the grassy slopes. Frogs can be heard in the creek lines. 

Of impor­tance are the heath cov­ered ridge lines that sup­port the endan­gered chest­nut-rumped heath wren, while the south­ern brown bandi­coot will seek out the gul­lies 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.

The area is part of the tra­di­tion­al lands of the Kau­r­na (‘Gar-na) peo­ple. They used the land for hunt­ing and gath­er­ing and obtain­ing wood for fire and shel­ter dur­ing their sea­son­al relo­ca­tion from the coast. One of the group’s most impor­tant tools was fire to aid hunt­ing and encour­age regrowth. Mori­al­ta gets its name from the Kau­r­na word ​‘mori­al­ta’, mean­ing ​‘ever-flow­ing’.

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

First set­tle­ment of the area around Mori­al­ta began in 1840 with tree felling, min­ing and quar­ry­ing and graz­ing hav­ing dra­mat­ic effects on the native veg­e­ta­tion. The area around Fourth Creek was occu­pied by a vari­ety of own­ers, all util­is­ing the land for pri­ma­ry pro­duc­tion with Ango­ra goats being intro­duced into this area dur­ing the 1870’s. 

In 1901, James Smith Reid pur­chased 405 hectares around the head­wa­ters of Fourth Creek. In August 1912, he donat­ed 120 hectares of land to the State Gov­ern­ment and sold a fur­ther 90 hectares. This land was placed in the con­trol of the Nation­al Plea­sure Resort on 20 March 1913 and Mori­al­ta Falls pro­claimed in the Gov­ern­ment Gazette of 15 July 1915 as a Nation­al Plea­sure Resort. 

In July 1972, an area com­pris­ing 372.2 hectares, was com­bined under the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 and renamed Mori­al­ta Con­ser­va­tion Park.