Minnipa Accommodation, Hotels, Tours & Information

Minnipa

Minnipa is one of several gateways to the beautiful Gawler Ranges National Park, famed for its Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats, pygymy possums, hopping mice and 140 species of wild flowers. Minnipa is an important cereal growing area. The town boasts the Centre for Excellence in Low Rainfall Farming in southern Australia and the Minnipa Agricultural Centre. This facility operates as a commercial farming enterprise and certified seed grower and demonstrates the latest dry land agricultural research. At the Heirloom Leather Collection, you can watch craftsmen working as you browse through the collection of hand plaited kangaroo leather whips, belts and more. Minnipa has good facilities for tourists including accommodation, swimming pool, playground and picnic area. See nearby natural wonders - Pildappa, Tcharkulda, Yarwondutta, Minnipa Hill and Chilpuddie - with their waves, caves and gnamma holes. Settlers constructed elaborate gutters, dams and tanks around them to catch and store precious water. The explorer Edward John Eyre camped in the Minnipa area when he travelled from Streaky Bay to the head of Spencer Gulf in 1839. The first settlers of the district arrived in the 1860s and the town was gazetted in 1915. In 1875 Stephen Hack, leading a government sponsored expedition mapped and recorded the names of the granite outcrops in the surrounding district.