An isolated corner of the Fleurieu Peninsula which is home to an electricity generating wind farm and the mainland base for the Kangaroo Island vehicular ferry.

Where is it?: Fleurieu Peninsula, 108 km south of Adelaide.

Talisker Conservation Park

Talisker became a conservation park in 1976 after a period of 104 years of intermittent mining activity in the area. The park owes its name to the two McLeod brothers who discovered an outcrop of silver-lead ore while searching for gold in 1862. The Talisker Mining company was formed the same year to extract the ore from the lode the McLeods named the 'Talisker of Scotland' after a locality in their homeland, the 'Isle of Skye'.

Talisker Conservation Park is located on the south-western area of the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. It is close to the town of Cape Jervis and adjacent to Deep Creek Conservation Park. The park covers 211 ha (520 acres) including areas of thick scrub, some steep walking tracks and the heritage-listed remains of a nineteenth century silver and lead mine.

Deep Creek Conservation Park

Deep Creek Conservation Park

Deep Creek Conservation Park is a protected area consisting of about 45 square kilometres of natural Australian bush land located on the southern coast of Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, 11 kilometres east of Cape Jervis. The total of 18 kilometres of coastline include views across Backstairs Passage to Kangaroo Island. The gullies contain orchids and ferns, while the hilltops have stunted scrub and low windswept trees. Walking trails (including part of the famous Heysen Trail) provide access to most of the park. The park is classified as an IUCN class II protected area.

Deep Creek Conservation Park Website >>

Kangaroo Island Ferry

SeaLink has two large passenger and car ferries that, in the peak times of the year, may travel up to 12 times per day between Cape Jervis and Kangaroo Island. On average, there are around 5 ferries a day. SeaLink has made it very easy for your to maneuver your vehicle onto the ferries, which can also take caravans, trailers, camper vans, motorbikes and trucks. If you are a little uneasy about loading your own vehicle, just mention this when checking in and they will have someone assist you.

Sealink Website >>




Natural features: Backstairs Passage; Fisher Creek; Blowhole Creek; Deep Creek Conservation Park (8 km south of Delamere); Talisker Conservation Park (contains the ruins of an old silver-lead mine); Bullaparinga hill (325 metres); Landsend to Fishery Beach aeoliantic bench; Eric Bonython Conservation Park, Second Valley

Built features: Starfish Hill Wind Farm; villages of Rapid Bay, Delamere and Second Valley; Cape Jervis lighthouse (1972); The Heysen Trail (the beginning of a walking track to the Flinders Ranges.

Origin of name: most geographical features are named just once - Cape Jervis was very much the exception to the rule, having been given three different names and all within a two week period! Of the three names, the one by which it is known today was the last name to be bestowed - by Matthew Flinders in March 1802. It was the family name of Viscount St. Vincent (1735-1823), John Jervis, President of the Board of the Admiralty, under whom Flinders sailed.

French explorer Nicolas Baudin, who met Flinders at Encounter Bay to the south east of the cape two weeks later, had alreadt named it Cap de La Secheresse (Cape Barren) whilst Louis de Freycinet, sailing with Baudin's expedition but on another ship, called it Cap d'Alembert - after Jean-le-Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783), French mathematician who was abandoned as a baby on the steps of the church of St. Jean Baptiste de Rond.

Both French names were never used, as was the case with many of the names given to coastal features in the area by Baudin and de Freycinet. One exception was Fleurieu Peninsula - it honours Charles Pierre Claret, Comte de Fleurieu, French Minister for Marine in the 1790s. It was Fleurieu who lobbied emperor Napoleon to support Baudin's Australian voyage.

Baudin's name for the peninsula did not come into use until a nephew of Fleurieu's, Compte Alphonse de Fleurieu, visited Australia in 1905 and was disappointed to find few of Baudin's names had been officially adopted. In 1911 he encouraged the Surveyor General of South Australia to adopt Baudin's names for places that did not have a name, including that of his uncle.