Memory Cove Wilderness Protection Area

To main­tain the spe­cial wilder­ness qual­i­ties of this area access to Mem­o­ry Cove is lim­it­ed to 15 vehi­cles a day, book your vehi­cle entry and camp­ing to receive a gate key.

Upon book­ing fur­ther instruc­tion will be giv­en on how to pick up your key from the Port Lin­coln Vis­i­tor Infor­ma­tion Centre.

Port Lin­coln Vis­i­tor Infor­ma­tion Centre

³⁄₆₀ Tas­man Ter­race, Port Lin­coln
Phone: (+61 8) 8621 2360

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Port Lin­coln Office
Phone: (+61 8) 8688 3111
Email: EPParks@​sa.​gov.​au

Port Lin­coln Vis­i­tor Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre
3 Ade­laide Place, Port Lin­coln
Phone: 1300 788 378
Email: info@​visitportlincoln.​net.​au
Vis­it Port Lin­coln website

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 – After-hours duty offi­cer
Phone: 08 8688 3223

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Port Lin­coln Officeon (08) 8688 3111 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on (08) 8688 3223

Out­side of the park
Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Marine mam­mals
If you find a sick or strand­ed marine mam­mal (includ­ing whales, seals, sea lions and dol­phins), please con­tact Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Port Lin­coln Office on (08) 8688 3111 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on (08) 8688 3223

Sum­mer in Mem­o­ry Cove Wilder­ness Pro­tec­tion Area is per­fect, the weath­er is warm to hot and usu­al­ly dry. It’s great for camp­ing and ide­al for beach lovers.

If you vis­it dur­ing late win­ter and spring – the best time for walk­ing – you’re like­ly to see the park teem­ing with native flo­ra and birdlife. You may even spot a whale or dol­phin that pass by the area dur­ing the win­ter months.

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.

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.

There are five camp­sites avail­able to be booked at Mem­o­ry Cove. There are toi­lets and non-potable water locat­ed at the campground.

This is a remote wilder­ness so please be pre­pared to be self sufficient.

Please bring garbage bags and take you rub­bish with you when you leave.

• Camp­ing safety
• 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

A large pro­por­tion of Lin­coln Nation­al Park is cov­ered with a mix­ture of mallee euca­lypts, some species of which are restrict­ed to south­ern Eyre Penin­su­la and Kan­ga­roo Island (Cof­fin Bay mallee, euca­lyp­tus albop­ur­purea), and the Port Lin­coln mallee euca­lyp­tus con­glo­ba­ta con­glo­ba­ta sub­species occurs on the south­ern tip of Eyre Peninsula.

The coastal dunes which main­ly occur along the south­ern coast are char­ac­terised by a closed heath dom­i­nat­ed by coastal beared heath (Leu­co­pogon parv­i­florus), wat­tle species and a vari­ety of oth­er low coastal shrubs.

The oth­er main veg­e­ta­tion type that rep­re­sents a dis­tinc­tive com­mu­ni­ty in its own right, but which has been exten­sive­ly mod­i­fied by graz­ing and farm­ing land uses, is the droop­ing sheoak wood­lands. This com­mu­ni­ty occurs pri­mar­i­ly inland and is com­prised of a diverse vari­ety of under­storey shrubs and grass­es. The shoeak wood­lands are the focus of habi­tat restora­tion activ­i­ty by vol­un­teers and rangers. 

Ani­mals

Lin­coln Nation­al Park and Mem­o­ry Cove Wilder­ness Pro­tec­tion Area pro­tect the coastal veg­e­ta­tion of the low­er Eyre Penin­su­la and pro­vide a safe refuge for rare wildlife includ­ing Rosen­berg’s goan­na, echid­na, west­ern whip­bird, malleefowl and hood­ed plover. More than 130 species of birds are known to vis­it the area mak­ing it ide­al for birdwatching.

The brush-tailed bet­tong, a small mem­ber of the kan­ga­roo fam­i­ly was once com­mon in this area. The clear­ing of habi­tat and pred­i­ta­tion by fox­es and cats forced this rab­bit sized ani­mal into extinc­tion in South Aus­tralia. With the help of vol­un­teers, park man­age­ment has brought the parks fox and cat pop­u­la­tion back in check and brush-tailed bet­tong has now been rein­tro­duced into the area.

You can see the Aus­tralian sea lions and long-nosed fur seals that haul up on the coast to rest after lengthy fish­ing trips at sea, and the bot­tle-nose and com­mon dol­phins are fre­quent­ly seen close to the shore. The once rare Rosen­berg’s goan­na pop­u­la­tion is recov­er­ing in Lin­coln Nation­al Park thanks to the Rangers inten­sive fox bait­ing program.

The Friends of South­ern Eyre Penin­su­la Parks have pro­duced a brochure list­ing all the birds known to occur with­in the Lin­coln Nation­al Park, this brochures are avail­able for a small fee from the Port Lin­coln Vis­i­tor Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre and the Port Lin­coln Nat­ur­al Resource Cen­tre.

Have you seen a goan­na on the Eyre Peninsula? 

Vis­i­tors can record their goan­na sight­ings and pho­tographs to help under­stand the recov­ery of goan­nas in this region. 

Have you seen a goanna?

Whales

There has been 29 dif­fer­ent types of whales record­ed in South Aus­tralia. The most com­mon are the south­ern right whale, hump­back whale, sperm whale, blue whale and orca whale (killer whale). Of these you are most like­ly to spot a south­ern right whale along the South Aus­tralian coast.

Every year, between May to Octo­ber, south­ern right whales gath­er along the south­ern coast­line of Aus­tralia to mate and calve, before return­ing to sub-Antarc­tic waters to feed.

The south­ern right whale is a large whale which can grow up to 17.5 metres and weigh over 80 tons. The vast major­i­ty of south­ern right whales are black in colour with dis­tinc­tive white pat­terns on their heads that are cal­lus­es formed by small crus­taceans known as ​‘whale lice’. The pat­terns are vis­i­ble at birth and are unique to each whale allow­ing researchers to iden­ti­fy indi­vid­ual whales. 

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.

Vis­i­tors should be aware that intro­duced Euro­pean hon­ey bees may be present with­in this park. Take extra care in the warmer months, from spring through to autumn, when the bees swarm and are attract­ed to water sources.

You can help reduce the risk of bee stings by care­ful­ly man­ag­ing attrac­tants, such as food, drink­ing con­tain­ers and oth­er sources of mois­ture, such as dish­wa­ter and wet clothing.

Long cloth­ing, enclosed foot wear and insect repel­lents can also help to pro­tect from bee stings. If you have any aller­gies to bee stings, ensure you car­ry appro­pri­ate medication.

The Barn­gar­la and Nauo peo­ple use the rich food resources of the low­er Eyre Penin­su­la coast. The local Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple have mas­tered the art of har­vest­ing fresh­wa­ter from under­ground and coastal springs. They also make use of a wide vari­ety of fish, inland mam­mals, rep­tiles and plants. Fish traps made from stone arrange­ments, stone work­ing sites and mid­dens are still present in the park.

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

Colo­nial his­to­ry in the Port Lin­coln area is first record­ed in Matthew Flinders’ voy­age of dis­cov­ery aboard the Inves­ti­ga­tor in 1802. He sur­veyed and mapped much of the coast­line of low­er Eyre Penin­su­la, nam­ing many sites in and around Lin­coln Nation­al Park and Mem­o­ry Cove Wilder­ness Pro­tec­tion Area. Flinders erect­ed a plaque at a site he named Mem­o­ry Cove, in mem­o­ry of the crew he trag­i­cal­ly lost after their cut­ter was upset by rough seas in the Thorny Pas­sage near Mem­o­ry Cove. Eight of the islands in the Thorny Pas­sage were named by Flinders in their memory.

Pri­or to becom­ing a park the area was farmed and grazed from the mid 1800s until the mid 1900’s. Seal­ing occurred for a few decades in the ear­ly 1800s, but seal num­bers were deplet­ed so quick­ly that inter­est turned to whal­ing. A whal­ing sta­tion oper­at­ed in Spald­ing Cove from 1828 to about 1832. By the late 1840s whale num­bers had declined to a point where whal­ing had become unviable.