South Australia’s sun-baked landscape encloses a distinct beauty. There are stunning
national parks to ramble in, from the cerise dunes of
Simpson Desert to
Lake Eyre National Park with its enormous ’salt-sink’ and wilderness opening up huge skies.
Wilpena Pound is a vast natural amphitheater with rocks protruding like gnarled fingers in
Flinders Ranges National Park.
The Murray River’s life-giving waters ensure agriculture such as orchards and vineyards flourish in seemingly inhospitable territory. The Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale
and Coonawarra are just some of the state’s prized
wine-growing regions known especially for their reds.
Adelaide is an attractive city, intelligently laid-out with wide boulevards. Its central area is completely encircled by parkland and bush inviting exploration by foot. The
Adelaide Hills are literally on its doorstep meaning you can enjoy the cultural offerings of the city in the morning and then get lost in the wilderness in the afternoon.
South Australia is the only state that was not colonized through convicts. Its early settlers were mostly religious non-conformists and South Australia has since paved the way in
Australian reform. It was the first state to give women equal voting rights; and the first to appoint an Aboriginal and a female governor.
GeographyExcept for the state capital of Adelaide, South Australia is sparsely inhabited - it is four times the area of the UK. It is the country’s driest state, a region of rocky plains and desert landscape broken by the fertile wine-growing areas, which include the Barossa Valley.
South Australia stretches upwards to the Northern Territory, eastwards to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and westwards to Western Australia. The countryside ranges from the beach resorts of the Adelaide suburbs to the vast expanses of isolated, semi-desert outback; from the craggy mountains of Flinders Ranges to the meandering Murray River. Offshore is the popular Kangaroo Island. Adelaide nestles in the foothills of Mount Lofty Ranges.
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