South Australia

On the north side of the Flinders Ranges are extensive depressions and salt pans, the largest of which are Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens. In the coastal region to the east are the wedge-shaped Eyre Peninsula, the boot-shaped Yorke Peninsula and the spur of the Fleurieu Peninsula, off which is beautiful Kangaroo Island. The southern part of the state with its Mediterranean climate produces large quantities of fruit (particularly in the Barossa and Clare Valleys), but wheat is also grown and large areas are given up to extensive pastoral farming.Adelaide, capital of South Australia, is a friendly and attractive city with venerable old 19th C buildings and extensive parks and gardens. It is ringed by the beautiful Adelaide Hills and Mount Lofty Ranges. There are sheltered bathing beaches on Gulf St Vincent and good surfing beaches on the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, at the southwestern tip of the Yorke Peninsula and on the Eyre Peninsula. Scuba divers can explore the wrecks off Kangaroo Island and the reefs to the south of Adelaide (Port Noarlunga, Aldinga Bay). The best sailing waters are in Gulf St Vincent.Kangaroo Island, Australia's third largest island, is a popular holiday destination with many scenic beauties, including fine coastal scenery, and a rich fauna (in particular kangaroos, koalas and seals). The southeastern part of the state, with Mount Gambier, a former volcano, and its crater lakes, borders on Victoria. This is a region of flat grazing land and fascinating coastal scenery. Particularly attractive, too, are the varied coastal landscapes of the Coorong, a chain of lagoons and salt lakes between Lake Alexandrina and the sea.The Murray River, much of which is navigable (paddle steamers, house boats), flows into Lake Alexandrina, supplying water for the plantations of citrus fruits in the otherwise semi-arid plain.The Yorke Peninsula lies between Gulf St Vincent and Spencer Gulf, with beautiful beaches and Innes National Park at its southwestern tip to attract holidaymakers. The area round the three-town triangle of Wallaroo-Moonta-Kadina, once a great copper-mining area, is known as Little Cornwall and preserves some of the traditions of the Cornish miners who flocked here in the 19th and early 20th centuries.The coastal regions of the Eyre Peninsula have varied attractions for holidaymakers. The beaches on the east coast are sheltered, while on the stormy west coast there are good surfing beaches and rugged cliffs. In the north of the peninsula are the hills of the Gawler Ranges with the rich deposits of iron ore which supply the heavy industry of Whyalla.At the north end of Gulf St Vincent are the Flinders Ranges, which extend northward for 400km into the arid outback. This fascinating mountain world with its changing play of color, its heavily eroded rock formations and - in spite of its aridity - its rich flora and fauna is a must for all visitors to South Australia. The region was first explored by Matthew Flinders in the early 19th C. In many places there are Aboriginal rock paintings and drawings.Beyond the Flinders Ranges is a landscape which becomes ever flatter and more featureless, with the endless expanse of Lake Eyre, a salt lake lying below sea level - though this desert-like region is still small in comparison with the immense expanses of the outback in northern Australia. In this almost uninhabited wilderness are a number of Aboriginal reserves, which can be visited only with special permission, and the controversial Woomera weapon-testing range, which is a prohibited area.Particular attractions in the outback are the opal-mining towns such as Coober Pedy (much of which is underground) and the adventurous roads and tracks leading into New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.The endless salt pans to the north (Lake Torrens, Lake Eyre), some of them lying under sea level, have mostly dried up. Only rarely, when there has been exceptionally heavy rain in the distant hills of the eastern Dividing Range, does sufficient water from their immense catchment areas reach them, converting them briefly into shallow lakes.To the north of the 32nd parallel, where only 1 per cent of the population of South Australia live in small and sometimes tiny settlements, the country is barren, arid and hostile to man. Endless expanses of desert, dusty and monotonous, blazing hot in summer and uncomfortably cold on winter nights, make up the greater part of the territory of South Australia, and the western part of the state is bounded by desert too.