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Area: 984,277 sq km
Population: 1.5 million
Capital city: Adelaide (pop: 1 million)
South Australia is located in the southern central section of Australia and borders all of the mainland states. Its southern coast fronts the Great Australian Bight, and is indented by the Spencer and St Vincent gulfs. Only the Flinders Ranges, north of Adelaide, and the Musgrave Ranges, in the inhospitable north-west, interrupt the low-lying, flat terrain. The west of the state merges into the incessant Nullarbor Plain.
 Scenic view of the rust belt from a Coober Pedy dugout home (25K)
Green, fertile land is confined to Adelaide and its northern outskirts, the Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Barossa and Clare valleys; the rest of the useable land in the state is utilised for wheat, barley or borderline grazing. Most of the northern half of the state is covered by the Great Victoria and Simpson deserts and the centre is occupied by the saline lakes of Eyre, Torrens, Frome and Gardiner. A large section of the state's centre is occupied by the prohibited area around Woomera, an experimental rocket launch site in the 1950s and 1960s. Atomic bomb tests conducted by the British at Maralinga in the 1950s have left similar no-go zones.
Poonindie Church on the Eyre Peninsula (18K)
Adelaide has four seasons, with maximum temperatures averaging 28 degrees centigrade between November and March. Minimums can be below 10 degrees between June and September. Rainfall is heaviest from May to September. The further north and west you go, the drier and hotter it gets.
Adelaide
Adelaide is a solid, gracious, civilised city, surrounded by parkland, and situated on the banks of the Torrens River. The metropolitan area is bound by the scenic Adelaide Hills and the shores of Gulf St Vincent. Adelaide is often referred to as the `city of churches', but is gaining greater recognition now for hosting the excellent biennial Adelaide Arts Festival. Attractions include the South Australian Museum, the Migration Museum, the Gallery of South Australia, the Adelaide Festival Centre and Glenelg Beach.
South Australians - fondly known as `crow eaters' (22K)
Barossa Valley
The Barossa Valley is arguably the best-known wine-producing region in Australia. The gently sloping valley was settled in 1842 by German settlers fleeing religious persecution in Prussia and Silesia, and its distinct Germanic flavour remains. It's a beautiful, well-tended area with over 50 wineries, most of which encourage casual visits for tasting and cellar sales. To fully appreciate the area, get off the main road and take the narrow backroads between settlements. The central town is Tanunda. Adelaide is just over an hour's drive to the south-west. Note that the least scenic time to visit is between July and October, because the vines are heavily pruned during the winter months. The busiest months are from March to May when the grapes are harvested. There are several other wine-growing regions in the state, notably the south-eastern corner around Penola, Coonawarra and Padthaway; in the Clare Valley, north of the Barossa; and around McLaren Vale on the Fleurieu Peninsula.
Rising from the northern end of Spencer Gulf, in the east of South Australia, and running north for 800km (500mi), the Flinders Ranges are, to many seasoned travellers, the epitome of outback Australia. It's a superb area for bushwalks, wildlife and taking in the ever-changing colours of the outback. In the far north, the mountains are hemmed in barren salt lakes.
The best-known feature of the range is the huge natural basin known as Wilpena Pound which is ringed by 1000m (3280ft) cliffs. Other attractions include Alligator Gorge in Mt Remarkable National Park, Brachina Gorge, and the ironstone capped ridge known as the Great Wall of China. Winter is probably the most pleasant time to visit, but the ranges are greenest and carpeted in wildflowers in spring. The most convenient towns are Quorn and Hawker.
Brachina Creek in the Flinders Ranges (27K)
The opal-mining centre of Coober Pedy is as close as Australia gets to having a frontier town. The name is Aboriginal and means `white fellow's hole in the ground'. This aptly describes the place because a large proportion of the population live in dugouts so as to shelter from the extreme temperatures, which can reach 50 degrees centigrade. The town is hardly attractive, looking dried out, dusty and covered with junk, but it's an interesting (and sometimes volatile) place with 53 nationalities represented in its population of 2500 souls. Several dugout homes are open to visitors, and there are also displays of opals, a mining museum and plenty of space for fossicking if you get a prospecting permit in Adelaide.
Supermarket mural, Coober Pedy (19K)
The 10,000 sq km expanse of Lake Eyre is usually just a flat, blinding crust of dry salt, but once every eight years it rains enough in central and western Queensland to begin to fill the lake. It then becomes a vast breeding ground for zillions of pelicans, seagulls, terns and other waterbirds. It's such a rare celebration of life in the desert that it's well worth the trip. Donald Campbell set a world land-speed record of 648km/h on Lake Eyre North in 1964, but you would be unwise to drive onto the lake bed yourself - your vehicle will break the crust and sink into a black saline slop.
The Victoria Fossil Cave, one of the extraordinary Naracoorte Caves, was recently made a World Heritage site because of the significance of its fossils. There are a number of other caves in the area, several with stalactites and stalagmites. The Bat Cave is a must for comic book enthusiasts. The bats make a spectacular departure at dusk on summer evenings.
The Birdsville, Strzelecki and Oodnadatta tracks, in the northern half of the state, are about as far off the beaten track you can go without going AWOL.
The Flinders Ranges offer ample bushwalking opportunities, especially in the area around Wilpena Pound. The Mt Lofty Ranges have good walks, notably in Belair National Park, and Cleland, Morialta and Deep Creek parks. For the serious walker, the Heysen Trail extends 1500km from Cape Jarvis, at the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula, to Parachina Gorge in the northern Flinders Ranges.
The best surfing in the state is at Pondalowie on the Yorke Peninsula. Other good areas are on the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula and at remote Port Sinclair, west of Ceduna. Divers should head for Kangaroo Island (where there are several accessible shipwrecks), Rapid Bay and Port Noarlunga Reef Marine Reserve. The reefs around Snapper Point are suitable for snorkelling. There is good sailing in Gulf St Vincent. The Murray River and the Coorong are popular with canoeists.
The boisterous Tunarama Festival is held in Port Lincoln, the tuna capital of Australia, over the Australia Day weekend. It celebrates the start of the fishing season. The Barossa hosts a number of events, but the biggest is the biennial Vintage Festival, which lasts seven days from Easter Monday in odd-numbered years. The festival includes brass bands, tug-of-war contests, maypole dancing and wine-tasting. The McLaren Vale Wine Bushing Festival is in late October/early November and includes wine-tasting, vineyard tours and a grand feast. Mt Gambier hosts the Blue Lake Festival in November, when the lake in the volcanic crater turns from grey to blue. The festival includes exhibitions, concerts and a concurrent blues music festival.
Kendell Airlines is the main regional operator with flights fanning out from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln, Ceduna, Coober Pedy and Mt Gambier. Southern Australia Airlines and Lincoln Airlines are the other operators. Greyhound Pioneer has bus services between Adelaide and all major South Australian towns. Stateliner is the main regional bus operator. Three railway lines cross the state - the Indian Pacific (Sydney-Perth), the Ghan (Adelaide-Alice Springs) and the Overland (Adelaide-Melbourne).
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Facts at a Glance
Environment
Attractions
Off The Beaten Track
Activities
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