About the park

Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta includes the Glen­thorne prop­er­ty and O’Halloran Hill Recre­ation Park.

The nation­al park con­nects with oth­er parks and parcels of land in Adelaide’s south, includ­ing Mari­no Con­ser­va­tion Park, Hal­lett Cove Con­ser­va­tion Park, Hap­py Val­ley Reser­voir and areas of the Field Riv­er Val­ley to form the Glen­thorne Precinct.

The total area of the Glen­thorne Precinct is more than 1,500 hectares, which is big­ger than Belair Nation­al Park – South Australia’s old­est nation­al park.

Cul­tur­al significance

The Kau­r­na Peo­ple are the Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers of the lands and waters of the greater Ade­laide region, includ­ing Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta. 

They main­tain a deep rela­tion­ship with Coun­try, and have done sofor tens of thou­sands of years through their cus­toms and Tjukurpa.

Tjukur­pa, which includes cul­tur­al sto­ries and lore, is vital to under­stand­ing the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of south­ern Ade­laide, and pro­found­ly influ­ences the way Glen­thorne Nation­al Park is managed.

In recog­ni­tion and respect for the Kau­r­na peo­ple as Tra­di­tion­al Own­ers of Glen­thorne, the park has been co-named Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta.

Watch this video to learn more about the mean­ing of the name and how to pro­nounce it with confidence. 

Her­itage and Euro­pean History

Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta has a num­ber of his­tor­i­cal­ly impor­tant areas that will be pre­served as part of the park.

The park has a rich his­to­ry, colonised in 1839 by the state’s first police com­mis­sion­er Major Thomas Shuld­ham O’Halloran. It has since been used as a farm, a train­ing ground for mil­i­tary hors­es in WWI, and a research facil­i­ty from 1949.

Each of these phas­es of his­to­ry are reflect­ed in the his­tor­i­cal build­ing remains on the site, dat­ing back to the 1950s.

These impor­tant her­itage sites will be pre­served as part of the park’s her­itage precinct.

Plants and animals

Cre­at­ing Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta and the sur­round­ing precinct will help pre­serve, re-estab­lish and re-con­nect impor­tant habi­tat for native plants and animals.

The precinct will enable the trans­for­ma­tion and expan­sion of wildlife and veg­e­ta­tion cor­ri­dors in the south­ern sub­urbs, sup­port­ing native plants and ani­mals to sur­vive and thrive.

There are some impor­tant areas of veg­e­ta­tion includ­ed in the precinct:

In Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta, there’s the nation­al­ly impor­tant grey­box grassy wood­land, with some scat­tered rem­nant grey­box trees (some sev­er­al hun­dred years old) and areas of grass­land remain­ing on the site.

In the Low­er Field Riv­er – the last unde­vel­oped catch­ment in met­ro­pol­i­tan Ade­laide – although the val­ley has large­ly been cleared for agri­cul­ture or graz­ing, it pro­vides a sig­nif­i­cant bio­di­ver­si­ty cor­ri­dor link­ing the hills to the coast. 

Mari­no Con­ser­va­tion Park con­serves the last remain­ing stands of coastal heath veg­e­ta­tion along this part of the Ade­laide coast­line, form­ing a green buffer between the suburbs.

Hal­lett Cove Con­ser­va­tion Park pro­tects rem­nant coastal low shrub­land, includ­ing local native species plant­ed by the Friends of Hal­lett Cove Con­ser­va­tion Park vol­un­teer group in an ongo­ing effort to restore native vegetation.

Geo­log­i­cal significance

With­in the precinct, Hal­lett Cove Con­ser­va­tion Park has some of Australia’s most impor­tant geo­log­i­cal for­ma­tions, which can be viewed from the stun­ning board­walk through the park.

The out­stand­ing glacial pave­ments along the north­ern cliff tops are the best record of Per­mi­an glacia­tion in Aus­tralia, formed dur­ing an ice age 280 mil­lion years ago, and have inter­na­tion­al significance.