Naracoorte Caves National Park
| Location | Naracoorte Caves National Park, Limestone Coast |
| Start/End Point | Stony Point Road, Struan |
| Distance | 1.4 km return |
| Time | 30 minutes |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Activity | Walking |
| Region | Limestone Coast |
| Accommodation | Camping, mid-range and premium options — See accommodation options |
| Key Feature | Ancient limestone outcrops, stringybark and river red gums |
Walking Through Geological Time at a World Heritage Site
Within Naracoorte Caves National Park — South Australia’s only World Heritage site — the Limestone Cliffs Hike is a short spur trail that takes walkers through native bushland to ancient limestone outcrops that reveal a fraction of the geological story preserved beneath these hills. The park’s twenty-eight limestone caves protect Australia’s most complete fossil record spanning the past 500,000 years, and while the underground wonders require a guided tour to explore, this surface trail provides a glimpse of the limestone landscape that makes it all possible.
The caves formed around one million years ago within the Gambier Limestone, itself dating to between 37 and 12 million years old. Over millennia, holes opened in the limestone surface, creating natural pitfall traps that captured and preserved the bones of animals — from tiny bats to three-metre-tall giant short-faced kangaroos — building one of the richest fossil deposits in the world. The limestone outcrops visible on this trail are surface expressions of the same geological formations that contain those extraordinary underground chambers.
The Walk
The trail branches off from the longer Stoney Point Hike and leads through native bushland to the limestone outcrops that give the trail its name. Stringybark eucalypts and river red gums frame the ancient rock formations, their root systems winding around and through the limestone in a visible partnership between geology and biology that has been developing for centuries.
The limestone outcrops themselves are textured and weathered, their surfaces shaped by millennia of water dissolution — the same process that created the caves below. Looking at these formations, you are seeing the surface expression of a landscape that extends deep underground, where decorated cave chambers preserve fossils of nearly twenty species of megafauna, including marsupial lions, giant kangaroos, and the Tasmanian tiger.
Planning Your Walk
The Limestone Cliffs Hike is accessed from Stony Point Road within Naracoorte Caves National Park. The trail is short, easy, and suitable for all fitness levels. Combine this walk with the longer Stoney Point Hike and a guided cave tour for a full-day experience of the park’s surface and underground landscapes. The Wonambi Fossil Centre at the park entrance provides excellent context for understanding the geological and palaeontological significance of the area.
The Limestone Cliffs Hike is a thirty-minute walk that places you on the surface of one of the world’s great fossil sites. The ancient limestone outcrops, framed by native woodland, are a quiet reminder that the extraordinary caves beneath your feet began as this same rock, dissolved and shaped by water over millions of years into the chambers that now protect half a million years of Australia’s natural history.
Where to Stay
Planning an overnight trip? See our Limestone Coast Accommodation Guide for the best places to stay near this trail.