Barossa Goldfields

In 1868 Job Harris, the publican at Sandy Creek, found small gold nuggets near the South Para River beyond Cockatoo Valley - and the Barossa briefly went mad. Two thousand diggers rushed the field within the first week, four thousand within a few weeks, and a canvas-and-bark settlement sprang up among the hills at Victoria Hill.

The gold thinned out, the diggers moved on, and the bush quietly took the field back. Today the Barossa Goldfields lie within the northern reaches of Para Wirra Conservation Park, explored by three signposted loop walks: the short Victoria Hill circuit (1.4 km), the Phoenix circuit (4.8 km) and the Lady Pearce circuit (5.8 km). Interpretive signs along the way explain the mining methods, the geology and the people, and you'll pass shafts, mullock heaps and the ruins of miners' cottages.

It is one of the most atmospheric history walks in the region - and almost nobody knows it's there. For the area's bigger mining saga, read how copper built Kapunda on the valley's opposite edge.