Ferries McDonald Conservation Park

Open dai­ly.

Vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion, book­ings and park management:

Nation­al Parks Wildlife Ser­vice South Aus­tralia River­land and Mur­ray­lands Region­al Office
28 Vaugh­an Tce, Berri

Phone: (+61 8) 8595 2111
Email: rm.​npws@​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 – After-hours duty offi­cer
Phone: 0417 192 335

Injured Wildlife:

With­in the park

Please con­tact the River­land and Mur­ray­lands Region­al Office on (08) 8595 2111 or the after-hours duty offi­cer on 0417 192 335 (out­side of busi­ness hours).

Out­side of the park

Please con­tact a local wildlife res­cue group

Vis­it in spring to see the park abun­dant with native orchids, flow­er­ing blos­som and all of the beau­ti­ful birds this sea­son attracts.

Fer­ries-McDon­ald Con­ser­va­tion Park is locat­ed approx­i­mate­ly 15 min from Mur­ray Bridge and 45 min from Adelaide.

Fer­ris McDon­ald Road bisects the park from north to south.

The car park and walk­ing trail are acces­si­ble from Chauncey’s Line Road, approx­i­mate­ly 100m east of the inter­sec­tion of Chauncey’s Line Rd and Fer­ries Mac­Don­ald Rd.

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.

Please come to the park pre­pared to be self reliant as there is no facil­i­ties locat­ed in 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.

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.

Fer­ries McDon­ald Con­ser­va­tion Park was part of what was once a vast area of mallee bush­land dur­ing pre-indus­tri­al times, how­ev­er, much of the land sur­round­ing the cur­rent park was cleared years ago for agri­cul­ture. For­tu­nate­ly, a few rocky out­crops, which were not suit­able for farm­ing, pre­served frag­ments of the orig­i­nal vegetation.

The park was ded­i­cat­ed in two stages. The first took place on 28 July 1938 when the area was gazetted as a closed area for birds and ani­mals, cre­at­ing the first reserve specif­i­cal­ly for mallee fau­na. The area was named after Robert McDon­ald, the donor of much of the land. An addi­tion to the park was made in 1953 from a bequest from James Fer­ries, thus cre­at­ing the Fer­ries-McDon­ald Reserve. The area was pre­vi­ous­ly known as Chauncey’s Line Scrub.