Elliot Price and Wamba Kadarbu Mount Springs conservation parks ex outback pastoral leases in South Australia
The Blanche Cup mound springs in Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs Conservation Park near Elliot Price Conservation Park, south of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, in the north of South Australia.
Images courtesy Friends of the Mound Springs
Two South Australian outback conservation park – Elliot Price and Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs – were declared from previous pastoral leases on the southern edge of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre in the later 20th Century.
Elliot Price Conservation Park was South Australia's first arid zone conservation zone, named after Elliot Price, from the nearby Muloorina pastoral station, who offered to surrender his pastoral lease on the area for conservation.
Formerly a wilderness national park, Eliott Price Conservation Park was designated in 1972. It occupied land on the Hunt Peninsula, jutting 40 kilometres into the lake, between Madigan Gulf and Jackboot Bay, and on Brooks Island at the southern end of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre and some adjoining land that had periodic flooding. It was immediately adjoined on its west, north and east sides by Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park
The peninsula surface was largely limestone partly covered in southern parts by a thin layer of wind-blown sand. Parts of the peninsula had saltpans or depressions similar to the bed of Lake Eyre. The limestone formed prominent cliffs in places along the shoreline. Elsewhere the cliffs were eroded and in places sand hummocks were stabilised by nitre bush.
The conservation park preserves important areaa of ungrazed arid wilderness, providing benchmarks to measure the effects of range land grazing. Its rare plant species included cassia nemophila, C. oligophylla, goodenia mitchellii, grevillia nematophylla and frankenia foliosa, along with uncommon bird species of grass owl (tyto longimembris) and the grey grass wren (amytornis barbatus). In 1980, the park was listed on the later-defunct register of the national estate.
Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs Conservation Park protected the Blanche Cup and The Bubbler mound natural artesian springs. Hamilton Hill, a large hill in an otherwise flat landscape, was a large extinct mound spring indicating much higher flows from mound springs in the geological past.
Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs Conservation Park was established in 1996, with more areas added in 2000. Before 1996, the land was part of the Stuart Creek pastoral lease.
The importance of Blanche Cup and the Bubbler mound springs was long recognised and protective fencing was set up around them in the mid1980s through a partnership between the Stuart Creek lessees and the South Australian government environment department.
Wabma Kadarbu Mound Springs Conservation Park also had many other lower-flow mound springs. Elizabeth Springs, in the north of the park, had many small springs or seeps supporting small wetland areas. The park was a day visitor area only. Camping was available at nearby Coward Springs.