Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
Open country east of Adelaide.
An introduction to Monarto, the farmland east of Adelaide where a planned city gave way to a safari park.
On this page
Read the land
Monarto lies north of the South Eastern Freeway, about 16 km west of the Murray River and 63 km from Adelaide. It was chosen in the 1970s as the site of a new city, which was never built.
A guide can give context without turning a landscape into a backdrop. Notice the open paddocks, the old farm buildings and how the habitats follow the lie of the land.
Traces of the farms
The park was made from farmland, and traces of the farms remain, such as the old farmhouse inside the park.
Begin with a detail and ask who built it, who lived there and how the land has changed. A photograph alone cannot tell you that.
A safari park chapter
Monarto Safari Park shows one side of the region: farmland given over to open-range habitats for animals from Africa and Asia.
Look at the meeting of the two: old farming country and the lions, giraffes and elephants that now live on it.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the park’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
