Holiday houses in Beachport

Mother Nature dialled up the drama on South Australia’s Limestone Coast. This stretch of stunning countryside spans much of the state’s southeast, from Coorong National Park all the way to the Victorian border. Along the way lie geological wonders aplenty, including jarringly beautiful beaches, gorges, sinkholes, and caves filled with some of the world’s oldest fossils. Beachport is in prime position to take advantage of this bounty. The town is surrounded by water, with immense Lake George on one side and Rivoli Bay on the other. In Beachport you’ll be treated to long stretches of sand, safe swimming, surfing, and stellar views, with walking trails traversing clifftops and calm coves home to all manner of birdlife. And then there are the nearby wineries and farmers’ markets. This place may well be the ultimate union of nature and nurture.

Sun, sand, surf — it’s hardly surprising that the summer months are peak season in Beachport. This is also the ideal time to fill up on fresh seafood, with rock lobster season in full swing along the Limestone Coast, the reliable catch spanning October through May. The winter months are popular among those who come here to visit wineries and explore the coast’s charming historic towns. And in between, find wildflowers in spring and glorious deciduous groves in autumn, transforming the countryside with fiery hues.

Umpherston Sinkhole

Things start to get deep at the Umpherston Sinkhole, located in the nearby town of Mount Gambier. The sunken gardens occupy a collapsed cave, now filled with lush terraced flora and hanging vines, and home to a resident population of curious possums — they venture out at dusk, when the garden is floodlit, to greet visitors.

Naracoorte Caves National Park

The caves at South Australia’s only World Heritage site — and one of the world’s most important fossil sites — tell a story dating back 500,000 years. Inside, palaeontologists have discovered fossils that are like a storybook of Australian history, including the 60,000-year-old bones of megafauna like the Thylacoleo carnifex marsupial lion and sthenurine kangaroos. Of the 28 caves in the park, four are open to budding explorers.

Woakwine Cutting

It’s hard to fathom the scale of this engineering feat until you see it, an enormous gash in the countryside spanning a kilometre and dipping to 28 metres in parts. The ravine was carved in the late 1950s by just two people, cutting through the Woakwine Range as a way to drain the countryside for farming. Today, a mini memorial at the lookout details the epic endeavour and the machinery used to do it.