Granite Island Recreation Park

We have picked the brains of our park rangers to find out what they would rec­om­mend you see and do whilst vis­it­ing this park.

• Enjoy a whim­si­cal trip back in time and catch the unique horse drawn tram across the cause­way to the island.
• Enjoy the views of the wild south­ern ocean at it crash­es into the boul­ders sur­round­ing the island on a souther­ly wind.
• Explore the Kai­ki Trail and check out the amaz­ing for­ma­tion of Umbrel­la Rock.
• Go bird watch­ing and see how many dif­fer­ent vari­eties of birds you can spot. Friends of Gran­ite Island Wildlife Dis­cov­ery have put togeth­er this guide to help you along the way. 

Bush­walk­ing is a fan­tas­tic way to con­nect with nature, keep fit and spend time with fam­i­ly and friends. 

South Aus­trali­a’s nation­al parks fea­ture a range of trails that let you expe­ri­ence a diver­si­ty of land­scapes. Our trails cater for all lev­els of fit­ness and adven­ture and our clas­si­fi­ca­tion sys­tem makes it easy to select an expe­ri­ence suit­able for you.

• Walk, hike or trek — what’s the difference?
• Bush­walk­ing safety
• Park maps
  

Grade 1 — No bush­walk­ing expe­ri­ence required, suit­able for wheel­chair users who have some­one to assist them

Vic­tor Har­bor to Gran­ite Island Cause­way (20 mins one-way, 650 metres)

Nav­i­gate this trail on Google Street View

Take a short stroll or horse tram ride over the wood­en cause­way that con­nects the main­land at Vic­tor Har­bor to Gran­ite Island Recre­ation Park.

Grade 3 — Suit­able for most ages and fit­ness levels

Kai­ki Walk (1 hour, 2.9km loop)

Nav­i­gate this trail on Google Street View

The trail is a great way for peo­ple, includ­ing fam­i­lies with chil­dren and strollers, to dis­cov­er the island. The trail­head is on the island, just after the Vic­tor Har­bor to Gran­ite Island Cause­way reach­es the island. Dis­cov­er more about the wildlife, geol­o­gy and his­to­ry of the island with the inter­pre­tive signs along the trail. Explore gran­ite boul­ders includ­ing Umbrel­la Rock, and take in the views of Encounter Bay, the Bluff, islands and whales in winter.

The Gran­ite Island Recre­ation Park café is open dai­ly from 9:00am – 5:00pm. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion phone (08) 8429 9656.

Seat­ing is avail­able with­in the café with a range of local­ly sourced pas­tries, sand­wich­es and snacks on offer. Enjoy a fresh­ly roast­ed cof­fee and soak up the stun­ning oceans views as you look across the Vic­tor Har­bor foreshore.

On a warm day the grass area in front of the café is per­fect for kids, with dol­phins and sea lions often mak­ing an appear­ance in the distance.

Take your binoc­u­lars, cast your eyes out to sea and you may be lucky enough to spot a south­ern right whale between May and October.

The south­ern right whales’ unique affin­i­ty for coastal inshore waters makes them the per­fect species for land-based whale watch­ing, you can eas­i­ly spend many hours view­ing their play­ful antics. Some­times the whales approach as close as 100m from shore, pro­vid­ing a bird’s eye view of their immense size and rotund, 18m body.

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. 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.

The Lit­tle Penguin

(Also known as fairy pen­guin, blue pen­guin or lit­tle blue penguin)

The Lit­tle Pen­guin is the world’s small­est pen­guin species and is well known to most vis­i­tors to Australia’s south­ern coast­line. It stands about 35 cm tall and weighs about 1.2kg. By com­par­i­son the Emper­or Pen­guin, which is the largest pen­guin in the world, stands over 110 cm and can weigh 30kg. 

The Lit­tle Pen­guin is found only in Aus­tralia and New Zealand and is the only pen­guin to breed in Aus­tralia. Large num­bers can occur where suit­able con­di­tions are present. Lit­tle pen­guins favour rocky shore­lines, just like Gran­ite Island, which pro­vide suit­able breed­ing sites. The avail­abil­i­ty of feed­ing grounds also deter­mines the size and suc­cess of a colony.

The num­ber of Lit­tle Pen­guins on Gran­ite Island has declined from 1600 pen­guins in 2001 to 20 adult pen­guins count­ed in the last cen­sus in Octo­ber 2021. Despite, the low num­ber the colony has increased from 16 pen­guins in 2020. The active bur­rows on the island are mon­i­tored with the use of remote cameras.

The defin­i­tive cause of this decline is still unclear, although a 2007 PIR­SA study iden­ti­fied a num­ber of fac­tors includ­ing: changes in the marine envi­ron­ment, pre­da­tion pres­sure, and rat pre­da­tion on chicks. 

Study is ongo­ing on the island and a rat bait­ing pro­gram and mea­sures to pre­vent fox­es access­ing the island are cur­rent­ly in place to pro­tect the eggs and young chicks from predation. 

Lit­tle Pen­guins lay 2 eggs per clutch and incu­bate them for approx­i­mate­ly 36 days. Chicks fledge when they are typ­i­cal­ly 59 days post hatch­ing. Chicks are guard­ed by at least one adult for around 3 weeks fol­low­ing hatch­ing, alter­nat­ing for­ag­ing between the two adult birds. After 3 weeks both par­ents leave the chicks to for­age for food.

• For fur­ther inter­est­ing infor­ma­tion please see our Lit­tle pen­guins fact sheet

Lit­tle Pen­guins for­age for food dur­ing the day and will return to their bur­rows dur­ing the ear­ly morn­ing and late evening. Lit­tle Pen­guins are high­ly sen­si­tive to dis­tur­bances from peo­ple and ani­mals, this can cause them to aban­don their breed­ing activ­i­ties and bur­rows and impact their sur­vival. Please adhere to the fol­low­ing guide­lines to pro­tect this vul­ner­a­ble population:

• Keep your dis­tance — Do not approach a pen­guin by less than 5 meters. 
• The pen­guins always have the​‘right of way’. They are usu­al­ly return­ing to their bur­row or chicks. Don’t get between chicks and adult pen­guins or obstruct a pen­guin from get­ting to its burrow.
• Turn the flash set­ting off on your cam­era. A cam­era flash will blind a pen­guin for up to three days mak­ing them vul­ner­a­ble to predation.
• Do not use a torch unless it has been fit­ted with a red filter.
• Pen­guins are high­ly sen­si­tive to noise – keep your noise lev­el to a min­i­mum if you are near a pen­guin or its burrow.
• Dogs are not per­mit­ted on the island and fines apply. Even the smell of dogs with­in the colony will dis­turb pen­guins and may stop them from breeding.
• Moult­ing pen­guins may be easy to see in their bur­rows but they are most vul­ner­a­ble at this time. Their new feath­ers are not yet water­proof so they can­not leave the bur­row if disturbed.
• Do not touch any pen­guin, chick, eggs or bur­row as human scent may cause the pen­guins to aban­don their breed­ing activities.

There are no des­ig­nat­ed moun­tain bik­ing trails in this park. 

• Which parks can you ride in?

Fish­ing is active­ly man­aged in South Aus­tralia by the Depart­ment of Pri­ma­ry Indus­tries and Resources SA.
Check out these use­ful links before embark­ing on your fish­ing adventure:

• Recre­ation­al fish­ing regulations
• SA recre­ation­al fish­ing guide app
• Aquat­ic reserves

Camp­ing is not per­mit­ted with­in this park.

• Use Find a Park to dis­cov­er which parks you can camp in.

Want to help?

To find out how you can help in this park or near­by, please vis­it Nat­ur­al Resources Ade­laide and Mt Lofty Ranges – Volunteering.

Want to join oth­ers and become a Park Friend?

To find out more about Friends of Parks groups please vis­it Friends of Parks South Australia.

You could join oth­ers to help look after a park. You can take part in work­ing bees, train­ing and oth­er events.