Guide to Minnipa South Australia Australia

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.

The town 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.

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. Pildappa, Tcharkulda, Yarwondutta, Minnipa Hill and Chilpuddie with their waves, caves and gnamma holes, are of considerable geological significance. Settlers constructed elaborate gutters, dams and tanks around them to catch and store precious water. The catchment schemes provided water for the railways, which arrived in 1913.