Millicent
A friendly service town between Mount Gambier and the coast, close to Tantanoola Caves, Canunda National Park and the Glenelg River.
Millicent is the hub of the Wattle Range, set on the old shoreline of a drained inland sea. It makes a handy launching point for the dune-and-surf wilderness of Canunda National Park, the glittering Tantanoola Caves and the woodland trails nearby, and keeps a strong rural and forestry heritage of its own.
Things to do in Millicent
10 places
Canunda National Park
A wild coastal park of towering dunes, surf beaches and rugged cliffs stretching between Southend and Carpenter Rocks.
Cape Buffon Walk (Southend)
Canunda's clifftop circuit
An easy 2.5 km loop at the northern end of Canunda National Park, tracing limestone cliffs, sea stacks and lookouts above Rivoli Bay at Southend.
Geltwood Beach
Wild 4WD beach in Canunda named for a famous shipwreck.
Glencoe Woolshed
Australia's great unmechanised shearing shed
A grand 1863 stone woolshed with 36 blade-shearing stands, built by the Leake brothers and preserved by the National Trust — never converted to machines.
Lake Bonney SE
A vast freshwater lake near Millicent built for wind and water.
Lake McIntyre
$A restored wetland reserve on the edge of Millicent, with easy boardwalks and abundant birdlife.
Millicent Living History Museum
A sprawling regional museum in Millicent, home to the Geltwood shipwreck relics and a vast pioneer collection.
Mount Muirhead Lookout
Big views from an old volcano's shoulder
A viewing platform on the Mount Burr Range near Millicent, looking across black-soil flats to Canunda's dunes, pine forests and lines of wind turbines.
Tantanoola Caves Conservation Park
$$A sparkling dolomite cave
A single, richly decorated show cave set in an ancient sea cliff near Millicent — and one of the few wheelchair-accessible caves in Australia.
Tantanoola Tiger Hotel
$$A characterful country pub built around the legend of the Tantanoola Tiger, between Millicent and Mount Gambier.
Stories from Millicent
Lake Bonney and the Big-Sky Coast
Vast Lake Bonney, ringed by reserves and backed by wind farms, anchors the big-sky country around Millicent, a quieter, more elemental Limestone Coast.
June 2026 · 5 min read
The Tantanoola Tiger: A Limestone Coast Legend
In the 1890s a mysterious predator terrorised the farms around Tantanoola. The truth, when it came, was stranger than the legend.
June 2026 · 6 min read
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Image credits
- MillicentSomersetHotel.JPG by Mattinbgn , CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons