6 incredible wonders in South Australia to explore

Australia is full of wonders, from icons to the lesser known. Here, we’ve curated 6 wonders from our 100 list that South Australia gets to call its very own.

This article is part of our 100 Australian Wonders series. Throughout the series, we explore our nation’s wonders across culture, nature, food, islands and many more. We hope it inspires your own exploration of Australia’s many wonders.

1. Adelaide Oval, SA

Travelling with: Alexis Buxton-Collins

Whether you’re standing in the shade of the giant Moreton Bay figs looming over The Hill or sitting 50 metres above the turf on the roof of the new Riverbank Stand, being at Adelaide Oval on game day is always a thrill.

Visit Adelaide Oval to see AFL, cricket, and more. (Image: Oval Hotel)

The rest of the time, visitors can step inside the hand-operated 1911 scoreboard or test their skills against the world’s greatest batsman at The Bradman Collection.

Want to stay the night? Australia’s first stadium stay, Oval Hotel, is just a few steps away behind soundproofed walls thick enough to withstand a Guns N’ Roses concert.

The Oval Hotel is just a few steps away from Adelaide Oval. (Image: Oval Hotel)

2. Balumbul/Umpherston Sinkhole, Mt Gambier, SA

Travelling with: Kassia Byrnes

As the ocean slowly retreated, the exposed volcanic landscape of the aptly named Limestone Coast rose to the surface. Today, sinkholes, caves, ponds and lakes make this region of South Australia a paradise for serious divers, recreational swimmers and curious travellers alike.

But none leave an impression quite like the almost magical garden of Balumbul/Umpherston Sinkhole in Mt Gambier. Walk along impossibly green terraced gardens of ferns and hydrangeas and wind through hanging vines while towering palm trees make a bid for freedom as they reach towards the sky.

Stay until dusk, when the garden begins to come alive with possums coming out to feed.

Towering palm trees reach toward the sky at Umpherston Sinkhole. (Image: South Australia Tourism Commission)

3. Seal Bay, Kangaroo Island, SA

Travelling with: Imogen Eveson

One of Australia’s most extraordinary wildlife encounters lies in wait on the wild southern coast of the country’s third largest island. A Kangaroo Island trip is incomplete without padding your way down through the sand dunes to Seal Bay, home to Australia’s third-largest colony of Australian sea lions.

Pups play in the sand and surf, bulls fight for supremacy and mothers rest with their young. Seal Bay has been a protected area since 1954 and the population of this endangered species numbers 1000 here.

The rugged shoreline of Seal Bay has been a protected area since 1954. (Image: Kangaroo Island Tourism Alliance)

Head to the visitor centre to follow a guide to the heart of the colony on the beach (from a safe and respectful distance) while learning about the unique breeding cycle of these magnificent wild creatures and the site’s ongoing research programs. You can also observe the action from the self-guided and wheelchair-accessible boardwalk that winds through the dunes.

A visit to Seal Bay with a guide from Southern Ocean Lodge is also a highlight of a stay at the newly relaunched luxury accommodation that puts guests in the wild heart of this wild island.

See a resident sea lion at Seal Bay, Kangaroo Island. (Image: Imogen Eveson)

4. Kangaroo Island’s Ligurian honey bees, SA

Travelling with: Elizabeth Whitehead

It’s an ironic peculiarity that the purest strain of Ligurian bees resides on the opposite side of the world to their homeland. Twelve hives of Ligurian bees were brought from Italy to Kangaroo Island in 1881, chosen for their docile temperament and productivity.

The bees thrived – thanks to KI’s pristine landscape and climate that mirrors that of their ancestral home in northern Italy. This happenstance made Kangaroo Island the oldest bee sanctuary in the world, and as a result, a legacy of beekeeping has been instilled here.

Kangaroo Island is the oldest bee sanctuary in the world. (Image: Tourism Australia)

This is evidenced by the passionate apiarists across KI who combine Italian bees with local botanicals to create a truly idiosyncratic honey – such as the organic Boobialla honey, with nectar harvested from native juniper and coastal beard heath.

Visit the Kangaroo Island Ligurian Bee Co. in Kingscote to learn all about this legacy.

See resident roos on Kangaroo Island. (Image: Tourism Australia)

5. Flinders Ranges, SA

Travelling with: Alexis Buxton-Collins

Studded with more than 200 fossils, the nine-metre Alice’s Restaurant Bed records the very dawn of complex life on Earth. But the most astonishing thing about this 600 million-year-old slab of rock in the newly opened Nilpena Ediacara National Park is that visitors are allowed – even encouraged – to touch silverfish-like Spriggina, raisin-shaped Attenborites and Parvancorina that look like buttons stamped with an anchor.

Visit nearby Wilpena Pound in Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, which looks like the aftermath of some cataclysmic eruption, and gaze up at the unblemished night skies over Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, and it’s easy to see why this region has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Explore the ancient rocky landscapes of Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park. (Image: Emilie Ristevski)

6. Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, SA

Travelling with: Megan Arkinstall

This glistening salt pan, which stretches for hundreds of kilometres across South Australia’s barren desert, is expected to transform into a pink and orange oasis of floodplains, channels and streams that attract a plethora of birdlife after heavy downfalls in the north earlier this year.

This natural phenomenon only happens once every few years, so 2024 is the time to witness it from above and from the ground with Outback Spirit’s exclusive and specialised Lake Eyre & Wilpena Pound Adventure or a scenic flight with Wrightsair.

See Lake Eyre as it transforms into a pink and orange oasis from above. (Image: South Australian Tourism Commission)

Keep reading our 100 Australian Wonders series; from road trips, outback and cultural wonders to foodie wonders and many more.