Monarto Safari Resort: Gerry Ryan plans caravan park after luxury resort is up and running
He’s already spending $40 million to create a unique safari experience just 60km from Adelaide. But Victorian businessman Gerry Ryan has revealed plans to open up Monarto to even more visitors.
SA News
Don't miss out on the headlines from SA News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Making Africa: Inside the Monarto expansion
- Cash pledge helps bid to save rhinos
- Prizes, discounts, freebies: Check out the latest subscriber rewards
The Victorian businessman behind a high-end accommodation lodge and glamping tents at Monarto also wants to open a caravan park on the safari park.
Officials at Australia’s largest free-range zoo, about 60km southeast of Adelaide, have also flagged plans to allow people to drive their own cars between exhibits, expand walking trails and create a cycling route on the property.
Jayco Australia founder Gerry Ryan told The Advertiser the park was the perfect location to attract caravaners and campers and that was part of his long-term plan.
“That is certainly the next priority once we get the hotel and the glamping done,” Mr Ryan, right, said.
He will build and operate a $40 million state-of-the-art safari resort at Monarto. He is in the design stage of the development now, but hopes to lodge plans with Murray Bridge Council early next year and be up and running by 2022.
Monarto director Peter Clark said every grey nomad in Australia would put the free-range zoo on their list of places to stay if and when a caravan park opened on the site.
“If you are going to stay somewhere, you might as well stay somewhere different where there’s animals right in front of you and you can probably hear lions roaring in the distance or a hyena going off,” Mr Clark said.
“And we’d make up special little safari tours for them.
“There’s lots of plans in place for it (a caravan park), so it’s just a matter of bedding it down.”
The accommodation area will be on a site called Wild Africa, a previously unopened 550ha plot of land immediately east of the current Monarto park.
A small team of five led by Tim Jenkins is transforming Wild Africa, much of it previously used for farmland, into African-like savannas which will house hundreds of animals and offer dusk and dawn tours aboard purpose-built open-air vehicles.
Back on the traditional 1000ha Monarto park, a new $15.8 million visitor centre, funded by the federal and state governments, will also open in 2022 and spark a switch in entry sites from the southern to northern border.
This will force a range of other changes because visitors will start their tours facing the opposite direction – a scenario Mr Clark wants to use as a catalyst for other innovations.
Monarto visitors currently only have two options for getting around the 1000ha park – by buses or on foot. But Mr Clark said self-drive and cycling tours were also on the cards.
“Monarto is growing at a fast rate and, because of that, we are bringing in changes – not only more things to see and do, but also different ways to do it,” Mr Clark said.
“Sure, we will always have our volunteers and we’ll always have bus tours, but there’ll be other options for getting around, including walking, self-drive and even bikes.”
