Innes National Park: In the Yorke Peninsula region of South Australia

Innes National Park is regarded as one of the most picturesque parks in the State and with good reason. From the quiet holiday and fishing town of Marion Bay, visitors can set out to explore the many isolated beaches and coves surrounded by native scrub.

And as you enter Innes National Park one of the State's great coastal views opens out as Althorpe Island dominates Investigator Strait.

Innes' role now is far removed from what it was nearly a century ago when the miners cut their way through slabs of gypsum. From nearby Stenhouse Bay the ships would head off with their cargo bound for markets interstate and overseas.

The other attraction at Innes National Park is the wildlife. You usually get to see kangaroos and emus but we teamed up with ecologists Julia Bignall and Anthony Pieck for a walk on the wild side - at night.

Soon we spot something very special - mainland Tammar Wallabies. Old timers could be forgiven for thinking that furry ghosts had returned to this ghost town by the sea. Hunting, habitat destruction and foxes wiped out the Tammar by the early twentieth century - but now they're back.

"We've got a small population here at Innes," explained Julia. "They are really significant because they represent the only population of the mainland tammar wallaby in the wild in South Australia."

If the tammars can establish a toehold at Innes the National Parks and Wildlife staff and those running a remarkable captive breeding program at Monarto will have done a marvellous thing. They will have turned back the clock to a time when tammars had the run of this country.

Their resurgence today is due, in large part, to the vision of a very forward thinking South Australian governor named Sir George Grey.

"In the 1860s he took a population of Tammars to Kawau Island off New Zealand and the population was established there."

In the meantime, the Tammar became extinct in their home range in South Australia.

"We repatriated 85 wallabies to South Australia and we have a captive breeding program at Monarto Zoo. We have more than 130 animals in the program and we've released a number at Innes - and they are thriving.

The wallabies are fitted with colour-coded radio collars, which enables staff to keep track of them. But we were lucky enough to spot a young wallaby without a collar - proof that the tammars are breeding and relishing their second chance in the mallee scrub at Innes.

Innes National Park is at the bottom of Yorke Peninsula about 300 kilometres from Adelaide. Entry permits are available from the Innes Visitor Centre.

Innes National Park
Bottom of Yorke Peninsula
About 300 kms from Adelaide
Entry permits available at Innes Visitor Centre.

Published 6th May 2007