South Australia is the fifth largest state in Australia with a population of 1.4 million. It is home to long summers, stunning beaches and award-winning wine, events and festivals. The gateway to the Barossa, Flinders Ranges and Kangaroo Island, South Australia has the easiest access to the Australian outback of any state. Adelaide, a place of natural beauty and simple elegance, is the capital city of South Australia.
Guide to South Australia
Capital City: Adelaide
Among Australia’s cities, Adelaide has long been at the forefront in terms of cultural activities. It is a place of natural beauty and simple elegance. The city centre has wide flat streets, and is surrounded on all sides by parklands. The urban landscape is highlighted with many elegant colonial buildings, museums, churches and galleries.
Guide to South Australia
Top destinations
Among Australia’s cities, Adelaide has long been at the forefront in terms of cultural activities. It is a place of natural beauty and simple elegance. The city centre has wide flat streets, and is surrounded on all sides by parklands. The urban landscape is highlighted with many elegant colonial buildings, museums, churches and galleries.
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Two of Australia’s premier and most famous wine regions, the wineries here, started by 19th Century German settlers in the Barossa Valley, that put Australia on the world map as a producer of fine table wines. All the big name brands have wineries there among lesser known brands, offering winery tours, tastings and cellar door sales.
Australia’s longest river, the mighty Murray, winds its way past vineyards, citrus orchards, vertical limestone cliffs, and towering red gums on its way to the Southern Ocean. The River has abundant wildlife with prolific, raucous birdlife, fish and many native animals. Rich in heritage, the region’s restored paddle steamers, museums and villages recapture the history of the River.
With its rugged, pristine coastline, Kangaroo Island – Australia’s third-largest island – is located off mainland not far from Adelaide. The island’s relatively unspoiled environment offers opportunities to see native animals in their natural environment, spectacular scenery, pristine beaches and a rugged, wave-swept Southern Ocean coastline. By contrast, the island’s hinterland is a patchwork of green fields and tree-lined roads receding to the surrounding low hills.
The Flinders Ranges is without doubt the most accessible outback region of Australia. Tracks throughout the Flinders Ranges wind through stunning rocky gorges. The air is crisp and clear, the colours are vibrant and the wildlife abundant. The play of light on rocky spurs, towers, gorges and valley floors make this country a never-ending delight for landscape artists and colour photographers.
Fleurieu, Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas all jut out into the Great Australian Bight, but are as different from each other as it is possible to be, apart from perhaps the stunning coastal vistas on their western shores. Fleurieu, the closest to Adelaide, has wineries, rolling hills and pretty towns; Yorke has a copper mining heritage; Eyre is a mix of outback open spaces, small picturesque communities and fascinatingly shaped granite formations.
Midway between Adelaide and Melbourne, the area’s bedrock that gives the region its name provides a natural filter for its vineyards. The unique terra rossa soil of the Coonawarra produce some of the world’s best red wines. This unique area is also noted for its rock lobster, world-heritage listed caves with their 350,000 year old fossil bed, and Mt. Gambier’s Blue Lake, located in an extinct volcanic crater, which mysteriously changes colour for three months of the year.
Promoted as the opal capital of the world, Coober Pedy is a remote, extremely eccentric town in the middle of nowhere. Most of its residents live underground in caves bored into the rock of the hills around the town, all because of the harsh summer temperatures. One of the most unique places in Australia and perhaps the world, Coober Pedy today relies as much on tourism as the opal mining industry.
A semi arid, flat plain which extends across the border between Western Australia and South Australia from Ceduna to near Kalgoorlie. The Eyre Highway, the road link between east and west across the Nullarbor, is a drive everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime. The head of the Gt Australian Bight is where Southern Right Whales come between June to October of each year to breed and give birth to whale calves. The nearby Bunda Cliffs are a magnificent sight in themselves and stretch in an unbroken line for 200 kilometres to the Western Australian border.
