Shepherds Hill Recreation 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:

Black Hill Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office
Phone: (+61) 7133 7300
Email: DEW.​NPWSSouthMetro@​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 – Emer­gency After Hours Duty Offi­cer (voice mes­sages only, text mes­sages are unavail­able to be received)
Phone: 0427 556 676

Injured wildlife:

With­in the park
Please con­tact Black Hill Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Ser­vice Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676 (out­side of busi­ness hours).

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 Cen­tral Lofty Office on (+61) 7133 7300 or the Duty offi­cer on 0427 556 676.

This park is great to vis­it at any time of the year. 

The sum­mer months from Decem­ber through to Feb­ru­ary can be very hot and dry. If you are lucky enough to vis­it the park a few weeks after a soak­ing rain, you will be reward­ed with ephemer­al wild­flow­ers and the sound of frogs in flow­ing creeks.

Shep­herds Hill Recre­ation Park is locat­ed 11km south of Ade­laide. Access is via Ayliffes Road, St Marys and Ellis Avenue, Eden Hills. 

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. Bikes can be car­ried on trains, but restric­tions apply. Please refer to Ade­laide Metro web­site for fur­ther details.

• Ade­laide Metro bus and train services

Shep­herds Hill Park — a view from above

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 wel­come in this 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).

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.

There are no facil­i­ties in the park. Please ensure you car­ry suf­fi­cient water, food and sup­plies for your entire vis­it. It is also a good idea to let a respon­si­ble per­son know of your intend­ed move­ments and when you expect to return.

• Read about the 5 trea­sures of Shep­herd Hill Recre­ation Park on the Good Liv­ing blog. 
• Read the Vol­un­teerInsid­er Guide: Shep­herds Hill on the Good Liv­ing blog. 
• Read the RangerInsid­er Guide: Shep­herds Hill on the Good Liv­ing blog. 
• Get inspired by the 10 things to see and do in Shep­herd Hill Recre­ation Park list on the Good Liv­ing Blog.
• Check out Nature Play SA’s 40 things to do in Shep­herds Hill Recre­ation Park.
• Explore what oth­er nature and out­door activ­i­ties are avail­able in this area on the South Aus­tralia Tourism web­site.

• Mobile phone cov­er­age is good in most areas of the park.

• 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.

There are two dis­tinct native ecosys­tems in the park, the red gum dom­i­nat­ed riv­er flats, and the grey­box grassy wood­land. Both were typ­i­cal of the Ade­laide region but, due to land clear­ing and devel­op­ment, the grey­box, euca­lyp­tus micro­carpa, and its under­storey has now dimin­ished to the extent that this plant asso­ci­a­tion has been giv­en a high con­ser­va­tion rating.

Over the past years, the ​‘friends of’ group has removed olives, bone­seed and oth­er weeds, and have dis­cov­ered a won­der­ful col­lec­tion of native plants that have been over­shad­owed and crowd­ed out by the more aggres­sive weeds. Dur­ing a work­ing bee the pale flax lily, dianel­la longi­fo­lia, a plant that is rare and at risk, was discovered.

One of the most pre­cious plants is the vari­able glycine, glycine tabaci­na, a scram­bling legume with small pur­ple pea shaped flow­ers. This plant is rare and in dan­ger of becom­ing extinct. It is under con­stant threat not only from the com­pe­ti­tion with weeds and being over­shad­owed by olives but also from tram­pling feet and bike tyres.

The ​‘friends of’ group have not­ed 16 dif­fer­ent plant species in the park which have con­ser­va­tion rat­ings from uncom­mon to endangered. 

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

Pri­or to Euro­pean set­tle­ment, the Kau­r­na (Gar-na) peo­ple lived in areas like Shep­herds Hill dur­ing the cool­er months, using the wood­lands for fire, warmth and shel­ter. Dur­ing the sum­mer, the Kau­r­na lived along the coast, tak­ing advan­tage of cool, ocean breezes.

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

Much of Shep­herds Hill Recre­ation Park was cleared around the time of set­tle­ment for graz­ing pur­pos­es and build­ing mate­ri­als. Some of the flat­ter areas of the park were used for crop­ping too. Sheep were grazed on the land up until the late 1950s, when domes­tic dogs became an issue. Hors­es were agist­ed until 1969, which is when all graz­ing rights were final­ly withdrawn. 

Although the land was still being used for graz­ing, the park was acquired for recre­ation­al pur­pos­es in 1953 by the South Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment Tourist Bureau and ded­i­cat­ed as a Nation­al Park Plea­sure Resort from 1955. With the intro­duc­tion of the Nation­al Parks and Wildlife Act in 1972, the park was ded­i­cat­ed as the Shep­herds Hill Recre­ation Park in 1972.