Ada Ryan Gardens

The old gardens

Every industrial town needs a soft centre, and Whyalla's is the Ada Ryan Gardens — the city's first major park, named after the wife of Charles Ryan, chairman of the early town commission. The site carries an odd footnote of local history: it was originally Whyalla's first cemetery, relocated in 1918 when the town outgrew its beginnings beneath Hummock Hill.

An afternoon's worth

Today the gardens are simply Whyalla's favourite outdoor room: deep shade from mature trees, sprawling lawns, bird aviaries, free barbecues, picnic shelters, tennis courts, beach volleyball and a playground, all threaded with paved wheelchair-friendly paths. The whole package sits directly behind the city foreshore, so a garden picnic rolls naturally into a swim at the safe, netted beach or an ice cream walk along the jetty.

Start here

For families, the gardens-plus-foreshore combination is the easiest afternoon in Whyalla — and a good staging post for the city's bigger drawcards: the maritime museum with its landlocked warship, the lookout over the steelworks, and in winter, the giant cuttlefish aggregation up the coast at Point Lowly.