Take the Trail

Start at the Bonython Park kiosk (aka ‘Cafe Bonython’)

This Trail is on the traditional land of the Kaurna people.

1. Introduction: at kiosk

In most other parts of the Park Lands, the Park name corresponds with a Park number, and the number has been consistent since the 1890s or earlier. This Park is different.

Although it was marked as Park Lands in Colonel Light’s map of 1837, it took more than 100 years before the people of Adelaide started treating it as a Park.

It was marked on 19th century maps as “Section 6027” but the Park number “27” came into use only in the 1960s. From 1837 until the late 1950s this area was used and abused for many purposes, and rarely resembled a park.

It was only in the late 1950s that a determined effort was made to turn it into a Park, before finally gaining its current name of Bonython Park in the 1960s. Prior to this it was known as “Hemsley’s Paddock” after the Clerk of the Sheep and Cattle Market that operated in this area.

Bonython Park, or Tulya Wardli, is only one part of Park 27, an area that includes a biomedical precinct, railways, Police Barracks, historical Gaol, and car park. This trail is centred on the area known as Bonython Park/Tulya Wardli, which is about 17 hectares, but also takes in the adjacent Kate Cocks Park within Park 27.

The Bonython Park Kiosk overlooks the Torrens River and Linear Park Trail, and is intended to service the adjacent children’s playspace.

The kiosk was closed for more than three years from January 2018, while the City Council searched for a new lessee. Cafe Bonython opened in April 2021. The proprietor is Carolyn Walker, and she hopes you’ll pop in for a coffee and one of her famous cakes!

From this point, walk along the path next to the adventure playspace, and stop where you can get a good view of how popular it is!

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2. Adventure Playspace

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This “adventure playspace”, built in 2012, boasts a 25-metre flying fox, wheelchair accessible merry-go-round, giant mouse wheel, slippery dips, and water play.

Each child has a chance to become an archaeologist and dig for bones in the sand pit.

The playspace also contains two very big timber carvings of Kupe (wood grubs that lived in Redgum) for children to play on.

The huge spider web climbing net also provides opportunities for adventure.

There is plenty of shade, and barbecue facilities and picnic tables nearby.

From this point, walk around the corner on the path and drop down to the lower level pathway closer to the river.

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3. Billabong & terraced garden

Just down the hill on the northern side of the playground is the River Torrens /Karrwirra Pari. If you take a seat anywhere in this area, it will only take a couple of minutes for hungry ducks to approach looking for a snack.

You are also likely to see coots, dusky moorhens, swamphens, swans, ibis, magpies, cormorants, and pelicans here, or close by.

Historical evidence suggests this area was a billabong used as a fishing spot for the Kaurna people prior to European settlement.

Following the arrival of European settlers from the late 1830s to 1914 it was used as a watering place and cattle grazing agistment area, together with waste refuse and offal dumping.

Landscaping works in 1960 helped re-create the billabong with terracing on the banks of the Torrens. Today you will still find keen fishermen here casting a line.

The rockery garden created in the mid 1960s, in conjunction with the Bonython Park renovations, consists of an embankment organically sculptured with boulders.

This is a unique and beautiful part of the Park and you can view it best from down at the water’s edge.

The Garden has two concrete staircases and a lookout arc.

It’s extensively planted with a mixture of River Red Gums, Oriental Agapanthus, Grevillea, Italian Cypress, Pigface, Kurrajong, Lavender, Cape Plumbago and Silver Wormwood.

In the rock garden, on a boulder, you can see a bronze plaque that celebrates Adelaide as the international host city of World Environment Day on 5 June 2000. It is situated beneath several mature River Red Gums.

From this point, retrace your steps back up the curved inclined path, to the path junction.

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4. The Magic Forest & Roma Mitchell Garden

Just to the east of the Bonython Park Adventure Playspace, across the bitumen Park Lands Trail, is ‘The Magic Forest’.

Labelled “a place to dream your dreams”, the mixed eucalyptus planted grove was a 1997 initiative of the Children’s Peaceful Environment Foundation, in conjunction with the Adelaide City Council.

Within the Magic Forest is a native bee “hotel” built in 2018 to provide nesting places for different species of native bees. It’s part of a scheme to attract native bees to the River Torrens Linear Park.

Around the world, bee species are in decline. The Adelaide Native Bee Project started in 2017 to attract native bees to the River Torrens Linear Park and the Park Lands.

Magic Forest Bee BnB

Other, similar bee hotels within the Adelaide Park Lands are in:
• G.S. Kingston Park / Wirrarninthi (Park 23) (just off Catholic Cemetery Rd)
• the Walyu Yarta community garden in Park 21; and
• a biodiversity re-vegetation site on the river’s edge in Mistletoe Park / Tainmuntilla (Park 11).

In Australia there are over 2,000 species of native bees. They don’t swarm – they’re solitary. They are small and easy to miss, and not aggressive. They aren’t relevant to the honey industry but they do pollinate native vegetation, and they do it much more effectively than honey bees. The City of Adelaide has also planted a lot of nectar plants around this Bee Hotel. (There’s no hotel without a restaurant!)

In 2018, the City of Adelaide produced this 3-minute video on the Native Bee Project, featuring Gardening Australia presenter, Sophie Thompson.

Just to the right of the native bee hotel there is a high fence, which marks the rear or “back yard” of the Old Adelaide Gaol, which was closed in 1988.

Behind the fence you can see a sign Roma Mitchell Garden. This garden was tended by prisoners until the gaol closed.

Since the 1990s it has been maintained as a garden by the Catholic Order of Malta, which included Adelaide’s world-famous singing nun, Sister Janet Mead. They call it ‘The Garden of Mercy’.

The gardening is done by the people who stay from time to time at the Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons in Carrington street. The Order of Malta has for many years provided funds for equipment for the garden, supplemented by matching grants from the Macquarie Bank Foundation. The garden also houses some farm animals.

Dame Roma was a friend of the Sisters of Mercy in Adelaide, a former Governor of South Australia, and Australia’s first female Supreme Court Judge. She was honoured by the Order of Malta in 1997.

From here, head south towards the gaol, and follow a bitumen road. This is called Gaol Rd.

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5. Adelaide Gaol, west wall

Walking south along Gaol Road, on your left you will see the original outer walls of the Adelaide Gaol.

This prison was the longest continuously operating Australian prison, open for 147 years from 1841 to 1988. It is one of the two oldest public buildings in Adelaide.

The Gaol is a State Heritage Place and a Museum, and runs a number of different tours for the public. It is open every day of the week from 9am to 5pm.

Adelaide Gaol, c 1945

The gaol was one of the very first parts of the Adelaide Park Lands to be lost to development, only four years after the founding of the colony. We’ve been losing more and more every year since then.

William Baker Ashton was the first Governor of the Adelaide Gaol. He was appointed before the Gaol was built and held this office for 15 years from 1839 to April 1854. Back in those days the Gaol was coloquially known as “Ashton’s Hotel”.

Ashton died one night while in office at the Gaol. The next morning when he was found, rigor mortis had set in, making it impossible to bring his body down the steep narrow staircase from his apartment, and he had to be lowered from an outside window.

The gaol and the area behind the fence is not under the management of the City Council. It is run by the State Government, through the Department of Environment (Heritage branch). This fenced area could be returned to you as public Park Lands at any time, but the State Government is refusing to do so, effectively holding this land hostage. Plans released in 2022 included restoring this area to Park Lands only after construction of a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital nearby.

Tours of the Gaol offer a more detailed history of the site from infamous inmates to notable executions.

Some key points are:

  • Most of the prisoners hanged at the Gaol were buried within its walls

  • The last person hanged here was in 1964

  • Only one woman was ever hanged here - Elizabeth Lillian Woolcock in 1873

From this point, walk a little further along Gaol Road and stop where you can get a good view through the ancient olive trees on your right.

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6. Olive Grove and SA Police greys

On your right is a fenced off area containing a large remnant olive plantation.

The grove was established in 1862 by Sheriff William Boothby, and was regularly maintained and harvested by Adelaide Gaol prisoners until the City Council eventually took over the task of maintaining the grove.

Progressively, the plantations were felled to make way for railway line and yard expansion, together with the development of the Police Barracks in the early 20th century.

This was the second area of the Park Lands planted with olives following the establishment of plantations in Kuntingga (Park 7) and Parnguttilla (Park 8) in North Adelaide.

Roaming around between the olive trees you are likely to see light grey horses.

This area is the home of the SA Police ‘Mounted Operations Unit’ and their horses known as the police ‘greys’. There are up to 24 horses here – the number may vary from time to time. There are other horses kept at a police site near Echunga in the Adelaide Hills.

Although horses were kept in this vicinity from the 1970’s SA Police, in the late 2010s the police Mounted Unit changed the way they manage the horses. The horses were moved from a larger area into a smaller one. Police erected internal fencing into the olive paddocks so that horses had a smaller area in which to roam.

This caused two problems for the historic olive trees. The horses began compacting the soil more intensely, damaging the tree roots, and they began nibbling away at the cambium layer of the tree trunks.

European olive trees can live for thousands of years, so these trees, although they look old, could have a much longer life if they were properly managed. If nothing is done about the overstocking of the horses however, many of these trees will die within the next ten years. Some are already dying.

The Council’s arborist has reported that to protect the historic olives, this paddock should have no more than two horses. The Police wanted to maintain a force of 24 of them.

However all of them will need to be moved during the 2020s as the State Government intends to demolish the Thebarton Police barracks to make way for a new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital.

In March 2023, the State Government announced that the new home for the SA Police horses would be on a much larger, eight-hectare site in Golden Wattle Park / Mirnu Wirra (Park 21W). The compound would house not just the 24 Police greys from this site, but also some of the ones kept now at Echunga. In total SA Police expect to increase their readily-available Park Lands horse herd to 40. The new site would also include stabling for 40 horses, offices, barracks and storage. The proposed new site would destroy a Bush for Life native vegetation site in Park 21W.

The fencing around the new compound would most likely become the two-metre spike-tipped black security fencing that exists around the rest of the Thebarton Police barracks. Fencing of that standard is required to prevent members of the public harassing the horses, which SA Police say has happened occasionally here.

The proposed new area of eight hectares in Park 21 West would be much larger than the six hectares of the Thebarton Polce barracks.

From this point, keep walking along Gaol Road until the road does a sharp right-hand turn. This point is also the driveway entrance to the Old Adelaide Gaol.

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7. Historic signal cabin

This road is now called Gaol Rd (or sometimes Gaol Rd West) but more than a hundred years ago it had a different name: Slaughterhouse Road.

Slaughterhouse Road did not have a bend as this road does, instead continuing on in roughly a straight direction across the area that now has railway lines, to the left of what is now the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

If you walk or drive around the rear of the Royal Adelaide Hospital you are on George street, which is close to the former route of Slaughterhouse Road.

You might be wondering if this is called Slaughterhouse Road, then where was the slaughterhouse? The answer will come at the end of this Trail.

Since 1837, when Colonel Light laid out his plan for Park Lands, this Park 27 has lost huge tracts of land due to the construction of railways and more recently the new Royal Adelaide Hospital, University and biomedical buildings.

As the city’s population ballooned, the sprawling tangle of railway lines inevitably grew as the Adelaide Station terminus required more feeder lines.

Looking to the left of the RAH, you will be able to see the Western Yard Entrance Signal Cabin, with the roof of Adelaide Oval behind it.

This signal cabin was erected in 1915 and was made redundant in the 1980s when a new rail control centre was built.

The old signal cabin is State heritage listed, but there is no way to get closer or to inspect it, because it’s surrounded on all sides by a triangle of fenced railway lines.

At this point you are only about 150 metres from the River as the crow flies.

The City Council’s long-term plan - part of the Park Lands Management Strategy - was to provide a walkway connecting the Gaol entrance to the River. However, there are seven railway lines in between this place and the river.

It would have required a costly series of tunnels or bridges to navigate all seven lines. However this City Council planning has become redundant because in late 2022, the State Government legally took over the entire area to build the new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital.

From here, walk a little further towards Port Road and peer through the fence on your right, into a dusty, cluttered parcel of land.

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8. Kate Cocks Park

This area, along with the land on the opposite side of the road, adjacent to the railway line, was named in September 2017 as Kate Cocks Park.

The area on the right contains a few more olive trees and for decades was used as an additional police horse grazing paddock. The horses are now confined to the olive groves that you saw earlier on this Trail.

Kate Cocks was the first female police constable in the British Empire, and a prominent advocate for women.

It was during the First World War that the police force appointed its first two policewomen, Kate Cocks and Annie Ross, who began work in 1915.

Kate Cocks (1875-1954)

Kate Cocks was also famous for her vigilance on the Park Lands, using her cane to separate lovers who were often unaware of her approach.

Finding lovers locked together she used her catchphrase ‘Three feet apart!’ (Social distancing at its earliest!)

In 1916, courting couples came under the spotlight of the Advertiser newspaper which published an article saying that “During the last few years it has become the fashion among people to do their courting lying down. It is now the practice for them to lie down so closely together as to appear immodest but many of them are respectable.”

Kate Cocks was not amused, commenting that the “police were powerless to advise couples to sit up”.

Kate Cocks is also remembered on a plaque along the Jubilee 150 walk on North Terrace, and Cocks Avenue, Morphett Vale is named after her.

For years the City Council had been intending to (eventually) landscape this area. Such goals were outlined in the Park Lands Management Strategy. However no funding had been allocated for the purpose.

In 2021 the former Liberal State Government announced its intention to take over Kate Cocks Park and build a three-storey car park here. That plan was scrapped by the incoming Labor State Government in 2022. In late 2022, the Labor plan was for an even larger, eight-storey car park in Kate Cocks Park.

The Labor State Government’s car park plan, released in late 2022, would obliterate a forest of she-oaks and olives in Kate Cocks Park alongside the railway lines. See below.

Kate Cocks Park was re-zoned in January 2022 and is now destined for destruction as a Park.

From here, walk to the end of Gaol Road, out to Port Road. Turn left, cross over the railway bridge and then turn left into a garden pathway. Walk around the garden, on the path, to a vantage point overlooking a central pond.

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9. RAH (former site of cattle and sheep yards)

At this pond you are right alongside the Royal Adelaide Hospital building, which was completed in 2017. Built at a cost of over $2 billion, it is famous as one of the most expensive buildings in the world.

The hospital includes two helipads on its roof and underground parking for 2,300 cars. It is the largest single alienation of the Adelaide Park Lands.

The new Royal Adelaide Hospital sits on the site of the old cattle yards and markets that operated in the mid 1800s.

After 1841 the market was connected to the City Slaughterhouse built to the west of Adelaide Gaol.

Slaughterhouse Road ran from North Terrace, behind the livestock yards to what is now Bonython Park.

From the 1850s until the 20th century, the City Council’s major income derived from the Park Land was from the slaughterhouse and cattle market.

In 1913, the council was able to expel the cattle market from the Park Lands after 65 years and relocate it to Gepps Cross. The yards were seen as damaging to the Park Lands and the aesthetics of the city. The noise, dust and smells from the many cattle and sheep was no longer acceptable.

That expulsion of the livestock yards also allowed the construction of railway lines across the former route of Slaughterhouse Road.

Sitting opposite the former cattle yards site, over the other side of North Terrace, is the Newmarket Hotel. Built in 1847 and was initially called the Newmarket Inn. The Inn was a favourite of abattoir workers employed at the cattle market, who would simply cross North Terrace on their lunch breaks.

The hotel was renamed the Newmarket Hotel in 1883, and today remains as a landmark.

This is where the ‘Butcher’ glass was supposedly invented – being the amount of beer that butchers were allowed to consume during their lunch break!

Outside the Newmarket Hotel at the corner of Port Road, North Terrace and West Terrace, is a large bronze plaque – 80 cm across - embedded in the footpath. It’s called “Trig Station A” and it marks the point where Colonel William Light began his trigonometrical (trig) survey of Adelaide, in 1837.

The hotel is heritage listed. In late July 2021, South Australia’s Planning Assessment Commission approved a gigantic development on the site – twin towers each 32 storeys tall, but retaining the facade of the Newmarket Hotel.

Each of the towers was proposed to be 107 metres tall, which was more than double the recommended local limit and, if constructed, would force a change to the flight path of incoming aircraft. As part of the proposed development, the three-storey Newmarket Hotel was to be refurbished.

Image: supplied by proponents, August 2021, to InDaily

There were suggestions in 2018 that the Newmarket Hotel might make way for a new Women’s and Childrens’ Hospital.

Under the 2018 proposal, a new Women’s and Childrens’ Hospital would also have retained the Newmarket Hotel facade, and would have been connected to the RAH with an air bridge across North Terrace. However that was regarded as too expensive and so the then Liberal State Government decided to put a new Women’s and Childrens’ Hospital here, where you are now standing, in this two-hectare garden.

An artist’s impression (right) of what was the former Liberal State Government’s plan for a Womens’ and Children’s Hospital that would have obliterated the two-hectare garden next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

In late 2022, the new Labor State Government scrapped the former Liberal Government’s plans and decided instead to put a new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital on the site of the Thebarton Police barracks.

However that does not mean that this garden in your Adelaide Park Lands has its future secured.

The Labor State Government has made it quite clear that this garden is likely to be destroyed eventually for an inevitable expansion of the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

A still image from a State Government video, noting that its plans for a new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital on the western side of the railway line “Preserves future expansion space”. The “expansion space” is the garden immediately west of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where the previous Liberal State Government wanted to construct a new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital. See below.

This century-old river red gum tree is the main feature of the Park 27 garden, all of which is now regarded as “future expansion space” for hospital extensions.

This two-hectare garden is used for stormwater detention taking runoff from the RAH.

It is the last scrap of Park Lands anywhere on the North side of North Terrace.

Its proposed use, in future, as “expansion space” for the Royal Adelaide Hospital. would be contrary to the assurances that were given in 2012 just before construction commenced on the RAH. At that time, the Labor State Government led by Premier Mike Rann said that:

  • this open space environment on the western side of the RAH would “create a visual and physical link to the River Torrens”, and

  • the development of the RAH would result in “significant areas of land being reverted back from rail yards to park lands, strengthening the continuity of Adelaide’s Park Lands.”

All of those assurances have been abadoned, with current plans to build over this area with a new Womens and Childrens Hospital, (as shown above) and also build a three-storey car park in Kate Cocks Park.

From this point, go back to Port Road and walk westwards to the Thebarton Police Barracks.

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10. Thebarton Police Barracks

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Turning right from Gaol Road, onto the Port Road footpath, you come to the Thebarton Police Barracks, which have been on this site since 1917.

The barracks cover two hectares of Park 27. The fenced enclosure for police horses to the rear of the barracks occupies another four hectares so that the entire police presence here is six hectares.

Originally (from 1917) the barracks had a kitchen, administration quarters, dormitory, stables, chaff mill, farriery, saddlery, and quarantine shed.

These days, the police barracks are used by about 250 employees for mounted operations, dog training, road safety, police band practice, security services, traffic camera and armoury sections.

The Police Historical Society uses three buildings at the barracks to store records and exhibit collections of police memorabilia.

However all sections will be moved out, progressively during the mid 2020s, so that the barracks can be demolished to make way for a new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital.

SA Police Historical Society Museum

The Kaurna name for Bonython Park is Tulya Wardli, meaning “Police Barracks”.

Ironically the Police Barracks, although they are on Park Lands (Park 27) are not actually recognised as being in Bonython Park.

From this point, walk to the end of the Police barracks enclosure, and go through the gate into the mock roadway ‘road safety centre’.

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11. Road Safety Centre and ‘Gift of Life’ Garden

Next to the Police barracks, this fenced off area, containing a mock roadway, is specially designed for children to ride their bikes in a safe environment and learn about road safety.

The South Australian Police Road Safety Centre includes real traffic lights, give way signs and roundabouts.

The Centre provides road safety education for schools and community groups Monday to Friday during school terms. On weekends and school holidays, everybody can use it. It is also accessible to the public during daylight hours when not in use for formal lessons.

The Road Safety Centre will also be required to move during the 2020s to make way for a new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital.

Across the grass on the western side of the Safety Centre is a small garden that was established as an expression of gratitude, and to pay tribute to the many organ donors and their families for making new life possible.

It was dedicated in 2001, by the then South Australian Governor, His Excellency Sir Eric Neal.

From this point, walk across the grass onto the paved path, and stop just before the traffic lights on Port Road.

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12. Entrance Art Sculpture

This pathway is one of the formal entrances to Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27).

Here, you will find two art works, one on either side of the path. They were erected in 1997 as part of road reconstruction and widening works for Port Road.

Also here you will see a cast iron marker denoting the edge of the Strangways and Musgrave wards in the original Thebarton municipality.

From here, walk back into the park, across the grass, and stop on the western side of a circular pond.

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13. Model Boat Pond

A popular feature of Bonython Park, this pond can be used by children or adults, for sailing model boats, including by remote control.

From 7.30am to 1pm on the weekend non-powered model boats take to the water, and after 1pm till sunset it is time for the powered boats.

The pond is 73 metres wide and approximately 230 metres in circumference.

The idea was modelled from a similar but much larger pond in Kensington Gardens, London, called the Round Pond (which despite its name is not round, as this one is).

The boat pond was an idea of Adelaide’s long-term Town Clerk (CEO) William Veale in the early 1960s.

Mr Veale was keen for this lake to be used for model boats and wrote to 50 schools and colleges advising them the pond was being constructed.

Model Boat Pond, 1963

It was officially opened by the Lord Mayor in 1963 as the only one of its type in Australia.

At the opening event, the Model Ship and Power Boat Club of South Australia put on a regatta for the occasion.

For several generations of Adelaide children, a visit to view the model boats at Bonython Park has been a popular weekend pastime.

There is no swimming allowed, but there are plenty of ducks that children can watch and feed.

Two bronze plaques on small boulders can be found on either side of the pond that honour the work of the Adelaide Parklands Youth Project in brick laying, seat positioning and construction of of the two timber pergolas.

In 2021, the City Council approved in principle a commemorative public artwork alongside the pond. It would be dedicated to those affected by domestic violence. The “Place of Courage” project is backed by the non-profit Spirit of Woman organisation. They held a design workshop during 2022, while trying to secure funding for the proposed artwork.

From this point, walk north-west across the grass to the edge of a bitumen area.

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14. Re-greening site

For more than two decades this bitumen area has been used as a car park, although that was not ever the intention when the bitumen surface was laid.

This 7,500 square metre site was once used for netball but no netball has been played there since 1997. On some days it recent years it was crammed with many as 350 cars, although there are no line markings and so sometimes cars are blocked in by others parked around them. In 2022, the City Council reported that it was spending up to $20,000 annually repeatedly patching up the deteriorating surface.

There is a long-term plan to set up beach volleyball courts here – but by 2022, no funding had yet been secured for that purpose.

There is constant tension between the desire to encourage people into the Park Lands, and the demand for parking their cars on the Park Lands.

The City Council’s as yet unfunded concept plan for this bitumen area. The southern part (marked “restore to turf”) is the site of APA’s “UnPaving Paradise” Re-greening project.

There are tens of thousands of car parking spaces on Park Lands. This area off Port Road has been just one of many. Parking here has been time-limited You were not allowed to park here all day, but for years many people did park here and catch a tram into the City.

In 2021 the Adelaide Park Lands Association received approval to conduct a pilot re-greening project on a small area at the southern end of this car park. We conducted a design competition to get low-cost suggestions for making the site attractive. This was the winning entry by Wenxhuan Zhang:

On 12 July 2022, the City Council decided to close the car park by September 2022, pending construction of both the beach volleyball courts, and APA’s re-greening project.

However that did not occur. No explanation has been offered.

The availability of the site is now in some doubt, because the State Government has declared that a large part of Bonython Park (some 19 hectares known as an “Expanded Area”) is subject to the possibility of "large scale excavation works" while the new hospital was being constructed, up until 2031.

The State Government’s “expanded area” of 19 hectares that is at risk of “large-scale excavation works” during the eight-year construction period for the proposed new Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Not all of this area will be excavated, but trenches for water, sewer, and electricity will be dug across as-yet-unspecified lines.

From here, walk north-east through the trees bordering the bitumen, towards the river, and stop when you reach a single-lane road.

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15. Community open spaces

On both the left and the right of this roadway are large grassed open spaces.

On the right is a family picnic area with tables, barbecues, tree shade and plenty of open grass not far from the Adventure Playspace.

On the left is a smaller grassed area, that may be used for community events. On occasions paid car parking is permitted here for people attending events in the Park.

Eastern Open Space

This open space is within the 19 hectare “Expanded Area” and therefore is subject to the possibility of "large scale excavation works" while the new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital is being constructed, up until 2031.

Resume walking north along this roadway. Turn right at the Y-junction on the road, and stop on the edge of a much larger open grassed area to your left.

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16. Circus and events site

Looking west you will see a large tract of flat grassed land adjacent to Port Road, which hosts numerous major events each year and plays an important part in Adelaide’s society and community culture.

This area is best known for its long history of entertainment, with visiting circuses having camped at Bonython Park since 1953.

Bullen’s Circus, which was then described as Australia’s largest, was the first circus to camp on this site that later became part of Bonython Park.

When Bullen’s circus made its way to the site in 1953 it caused the biggest traffic jam ever experienced on Port Road.

Police were kept busy when 10,000 people turned up to watch the raising of the big top.

From the mid-1960s, the introduction of the jumbo jet ushered in the era of the monster circus and entertainment spectacle.

Accompanied by hundreds of tons of equipment, the Park saw visits by Moscow State Circus, Disney on Parade, International Ice Follies, Lloyd Webber productions and the Cirque de Soleil.

More recently this area has hosted music festivals like Soundwave, Stereosonic, and We Love Sounds.

It was also the former site of the Adelaide Skyshow (a fireworks display which used to be held each year on Australia Day), and for a time was the home of the annual Schutzenfest.

From left: Ashton’s Circus, Shutzenfest, and Soundwave. Some of the many large events staged here in Bonython Park.

This area of Park 27 also played host over a recent summer, to Water Wonderland, an inflatable water theme park.

This open space is within the 19 hectare “Expanded Area” and therefore is subject to the possibility of "large scale excavation works" while the new Womens’ and Children’s Hospital is being constructed, up until 2031.

From this point, walk north along the road until you come to a road junction. Turn right there, and go down the hill. Stop at the low wooden bridge crossing the river.

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17. Bunyip Trail & Kaurna significance

JE Brown Park (Park 27A) is the name that was assigned in 2017 to the area on the other side of the River extending across to the railway line. Among other things, J.E. Brown Park features the Bunyip trail, an activity trail for children.

One of the stops on the Bunyip Trail. Pic: James Elsby

Based on the popular book ‘The Bunyip of Berkleys Creek’, the trail encourages hands‑on participation by completing a series of activities relating to the story at different points along the 200 - metre trail.

J.E. Brown Park is also a dog off-leash area. A separate Trail Guide to Parks 27A and 27B is in production and will be published in 2023.

The area along the Torrens here was set aside in the very first days of the British Colony as being a ‘Native Location’ or ‘Aboriginal Location’.

South Australia was founded as a colony on 28 December 1836 – what we call “Proclamation Day” - with a ceremony at Holdfast Bay.

Only a few days later, the first settlement began here in Adelaide, and the first site occupied by Europeans was here in what we now call Bonython Park.

From January to March 1837, migrants camped in tents and temporary wooden huts in two camps in this location.

The camps were named after two of the first migrant ships, the Buffalo and the Coromandel.

Image: State Library of SA: “Coloured lithograph, drawn by William Light and engraved by Robert Havell, of 'A View of the Country and of the Temporary Erections near the Site for the Proposed Town of Adelaide" in South Australia. Forming the First of a Series of Views of that Colony now preparing for Publication'. The drawing features several small settlers' homes and tents, a hay cart drawn by two oxen, and several groups of settlers and Aboriginal people in the foreground, with the bush and Adelaide Hills in the background.

These camps could be considered Adelaide’s first migrant hostel; a temporary camp, right here for the “boat people”

The colonial government had the intention of gathering the existing Aboriginal population into one place for the purposes of education provided by missionaries.

Of course it also had the effect of removing the Kaurna people from their traditional lands after thousands of years; lands that were now earmarked for European settlers to live and work.

Between 1837 and 1845 the so-called “Native Location” was set up, and then moved several times.

The first Native Location (Bromley’s Camp) was established in April 1837 by Captain Walter Bromley who was appointed ‘Protector of Aborigines’. This was only a few months after the first migrants arrived.

Bromley’s Camp was established, under instruction, by Colonel Light, on land that is now part of Bonython Park. However Bromley’s Camp was little more than a rations distribution point.

A few months later, William Wyatt became the second ‘Protector’ in August 1837 and established a more permanent settlement – in the same vicinity as Bromley’s Camp – south of the river where an acre of land was fenced and contained 12 huts for about 200 aboriginal people.

Two missionaries arrived in October 1838 and established themselves at the old location, where they studied Kaurna language and taught in that language.

Only a year later, in 1839, the Native location was moved again, across to the north side of the river, on what is now part of the Par 3 golf course.

Map by surveyor George Kingston, dated 1842, showing the “aborigines location” that was in use 1839-45

This was called the Pirltawardli site. A school was opened there in December 1840, but the site was dismantled in 1845, and a new ‘Native School’ teaching only in English was set up near what is now Kintore Avenue.

“Schoolroom of the Aborigines” (1841) by William Cawthorne. This was located immediately across the river from Bonython Park, on what is now the Par 3 golf course.

However the name Pirltawardli still exists. It’s the Kaurna word for Possum Place, and also the name for the adjacent Park 1, also known as Possum Park, and the site of the City of Adelaide’s golf courses.

From this point turn south and walk on the path along the river’s edge. Stop where you can get a good view of the next wooden bridge crossing.

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18. Naming, and landscaping in the 1960s

Bonython Park received its English name only in 1962 after it had been landscaped.

John Lavington Bonython (1875-1960)

At that point, it was named in honour of this man: prominent South Australian politician and journalist Sir John Lavington Bonython, who died in 1960. He was the son of John Langdon Bonython.

Bonython Hall on North Terrace (part of Adelaide University), is named after the older Bonython. This Park is named after the younger Bonython.

The name is actually somewhat ironic. In the years just before his death in 1960, John Lavington Bonython was critical of what was being planned here.

He had envisaged a more grandiose scheme for the area, which included creating a second lake as large as the existing Torrens Lake.

You may have heard the name William Veale in connection with the Adelaide Park Lands. Mr Veale was the Town Clerk of Adelaide (today we would call him the Chief Executive) for 18 years 1947 to 1965, and left a very significant legacy in the Park Lands.

Together with the Mayor of the time, Arthur Rymill, their efforts are very noticeable throughout the Adelaide Park Lands.

Messrs Rymill and Veale, as leaders of the City Council in the post-war era, were responsible for establishing a lake and other facilities in Rymill Park, and for the landscaping of what we know call Veale Gardens in Park 21 off South Terrace and Bonython Park.

Mr Veale laid out his plans for Park 27 in 1958. At the time, he said this area was like the ‘Siberia of the Park Lands’, and needed to be addressed.

According to newspaper reports of the time, it was regarded as “the most unsightly location in the Adelaide Park Lands”. The banks of the river looked like steep ravines.

Erosion on banks - pre 1960

The Council, led by Messrs Rymill and Veale approved a landscaping scheme, which involved the removal of over 30,000 cubic metres of soil. A series of low weirs were built to form shallow lakes, and the land was transformed into the lawns, picnic grounds and gardens, that you can see today.

The idea was that the shallow lakes could be safe for children, and also used for canoeing, small rowing and pedal boats.

From here, walk along the path to the wooden bridge across the river.

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19. Park Lands Trail

Opposite this bridge, and close to your starting point on this Trail, you’ll notice a building made of Carey Gully sandstone, similar to the kiosk. That’s a maintenance shed and electricity substation for the Park.

The bitumen path on which you’ve been walking is just a small segment of the River Torrens Linear Park, which extends for more than 33 kilometres from Athlestone in the foothills, to Henley Beach on St Vincent Gulf .

This is Australia’s longest hills-to-coast path. It is ideal for families wanting to spend time together walking, riding, running or taking the family dog for some exercise.

This part of the River Torrens Linear Park also forms part of the Adelaide Park Lands Trail, which is a series of connected walking and cycling trails which loop both the city of Adelaide and North Adelaide.

There is a proposal to connect up all the different segments of the Park Lands Trail, with tunnels or bridges under or over all of the roads, and install lighting and reflective surfaces.

It’s being promoted as a potential tourist attraction. Come and run, or walk or cycle, all the way around a capital city. It’s being called the “Adelaide Recreation Circuit”.

Its promoter has support from Business SA, the City Council, Bike SA, and others. However he has not yet been able to secure funding for a feasibility study.

Next to the bridge is an interpretive sign which suggests that this location was probably the site of South Australia’s first commercial garden or nursery. The garden was set up by one of the first settlers, Thomas Allen a botanist.

Thomas Allen as photographed by his son in 1862. Pic provided to the City of Adelaide by Ian Westergaard

It existed, probably in this location, between 1837 and 1840. A description of the garden, written in 1838 suggested that it was the only piece of ground in the colony that was cultivated and pleasant to roam through, with “its cucumber and melon beds, and solace from the glare and dust of Currie and Hindley Streets.” It was described as being a low, swampy piece of land that had formerly been flooded, and was capable of “producing astonishing crops of of both English and Colonial vegetables”.

Part of Colonel William Light’s 1837 survey map of Adelaide. The area marked “Botanical Garden” (nowhere near the current Botanic Garden) is where Thomas Allen is believed to have established the colony’s first commercial garden nursery.

From this point you can climb the stairs back to your starting point at the Bonython Park kiosk.

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20. Return to kiosk - the slaughterhouse site

Returning to your starting point at the Bonython Park kiosk, it’s time to answer the question posed earlier on this trail. Where was the slaughterhouse?

The Bonython Park kiosk itself stands at, or immediately next to, the site of a two-storey brick slaughterhouse, that stood here for many decades, until 1913. The kiosk was built in 1963, some fifty years later.

The site remained vacant for 50 years. Therefore, when the kiosk was built, few people associated the site with the former slaughterhouse.

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Optional: download and print a tri-fold leaflet, i.e. a double-sided single A4 page, with a brief summary of this Trail Guide: (PDF, 1.7 Mb)

All of our Trail Guides and Guided Walks are on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people. The Adelaide Park Lands Association acknowledges and pays respect to the past, present and future traditional custodians and elders of these lands.