Scott Creek Conservation Park

Open dai­ly.

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:

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office
Phone: (+61) 8336 0901
Email: DEW.​NPWSCentralLofty@​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 – Ade­laide and Mount Lofty Ranges Region­al Duty Offi­cer
Phone: 0427 556 676

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Cen­tral Lofty Office on (+61) 8336 0901 or the Region­al Duty Offi­cer on 0427 556 676.

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Scott Creek Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed 30km south of Adelaide.

Access is via Dorset Vale Road or Scott Creek Road, Scott Creek.

• Park map

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 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.

• 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.

Plants

Ear­ly set­tlers cleared and grazed live­stock on much of what is now the park. Today, efforts are being made to restore these degrad­ed areas with their native veg­e­ta­tion. Near­ly 400 species of native plants have been record­ed with­in the park. The park con­tains most of the euca­lypt species native to the Mt Lofty Ranges. The veg­e­ta­tion con­sists pri­mar­i­ly of stringy­bark scrub with a dense under­storey. Many rare and endan­gered plants are also present.

Ani­mals

With its var­ied habi­tats, a vari­ety of native birds and ani­mals are present with­in the park. Over 125 bird species have been observed from small hon­eyeaters, to the large yel­low-tailed black cock­a­toos. Ani­mals are more elu­sive, but vis­i­tors might catch a glimpse of south­ern brown bandi­coots, west­ern grey kan­ga­roos, echid­nas, pos­sums, koalas, snakes, and lizards.

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.

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

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

The area was first occu­pied by Euro­pean set­tlers in the 1830s. The Mack­ereth and Hill fam­i­lies cut tim­ber from this land for use in build­ing the city of Ade­laide. In 1850, the wheel of a dray wag­on broke off pieces of rock which con­tained cop­per. Sub­se­quent years saw the area mined for cop­per and even­tu­al­ly sil­ver. At one time, there were 235 claims pegged along Scott Creek. The Alman­da Sil­ver Min­ing Asso­ci­a­tion was formed in 1868. By the time pro­duc­tion was stopped in 1887, the mine had pro­duced 10,000 ounces (310kg) of sil­ver. Today some of the ruins of the old Alman­da Mine can be explored from the car park off Dorset Vale Road.

The land at Scott Creek was pur­chased by the state gov­ern­ment in the ear­ly 1970s to be man­aged by the State Plan­ning Author­i­ty. In 1985, the area was recog­nised as an impor­tant part of the south Mt Lofty Ranges and adopt­ed as the Scott Creek Con­ser­va­tion Park.