Spring hit and everyone’s feeds were full of canola, so we made the drive out to the Barossa to see it properly. About an hour from Adelaide, easy drive, mostly highway.
Kalperri Road
This is the spot most people are actually chasing. It’s a narrow gravel road, canola on both sides the whole way down, backed by a line of gum trees at one end. Walked it with the dog on lead, no traffic to worry about, just the odd car passing every ten minutes or so.
Parking’s the annoying part. Grass along the verge is long enough that pulling off isn’t obvious, and there’s really only one property on the whole road, a house and a couple of sheds about halfway down, so we’re guessing the canola on either side belongs to them. Best bet is to park near there and walk from that point, or push on to the end of the road where there’s a bit more room to pull in.
Address to search is 148 Kalperri Road if you want to line up the GPS with the house.
The bike path off Barossa Valley Way
Different spot, same trip. Barossa Valley Way splits the canola into two big blocks, and there’s a sealed path running along one side that’s a much easier walk than Kalperri Road if you’ve got kids or don’t want to deal with gravel. Kids posed for photos right on the path with the fields going for what looked like forever behind them. Fencing the whole way along so nobody’s wandering into the crop, which we appreciated.
Steingarten, if you’ve got the afternoon for it
Not far from the canola, there’s a vineyard lookout called Steingarten, sits up on a hill with views back over the Barossa. Whole hillside’s covered in vines that from a distance look almost matcha-green against the yellow canola further down. Worth the detour if the light’s good.
Tanunda
Drove through Tanunda on the way back, small town, does the heritage main street thing well, though everything looked priced for tourists rather than locals. Fine for a coffee stop, not somewhere we lingered.
Worth knowing before you go
Canola doesn’t stay bright yellow for long. Some of the fields we passed on the highway were already going to seed, patchier and duller than the ones on Kalperri Road, so if you’re planning the trip around peak colour, go sooner rather than later once it starts blooming.
More South Australia day trips under our SA listings, or check our SA school holidays 2026 dates if you’re timing a Barossa trip around the break.