The Best Heritage Sites on the Yorke Peninsula
Cornish copper, gypsum ghost towns and lighthouses
The Yorke Peninsula's history runs deep: the Cornish copper boom that built "Little Cornwall", the gypsum township that rose and fell inside Innes, the lighthouses and jetties of its working ports. The bones of all of it still stand, often in dramatic settings.
Here are the heritage sites that bring the peninsula's past to life.
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1
MoontaMoonta Mines State Heritage Area
A vast open-air precinct of Cornish engine houses, chimney stacks and miners' cottages - the heart of Little Cornwall.
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2
MoontaMoonta Mines Museum
The definitive telling of the copper boom that was once among the richest in the Empire.
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3
Innes National ParkInneston Historic Township
A gypsum-mining ghost town slowly returning to the mallee inside Innes National Park.
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4
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5
Wallaroo
Wallaroo Heritage & Nautical Museum
Maritime and copper-smelting relics in Wallaroo's old post office.
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6
WallarooWallaroo Smelter Chimney
The lone surviving Hughes chimney, towering over the Wallaroo foreshore.
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7
Marion BayCape Spencer Lighthouse
A clifftop light at the wild south-western tip of Innes.
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8
EdithburghTroubridge Island
A historic offshore lighthouse island and penguin haven off Edithburgh.
Many of these sites come alive every two years for the Kernewek Lowender Cornish festival - but they're worth the trip any time.
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Image credits
- Hughes Enginehouse, Moonta Mines, North view 20230210 1.jpg by DXR , CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons