Attractions
Steamtown Heritage Rail Centre
Address: 2 Telford Ave, Peterborough SA 5422, Australia .Each night, beneath the stars of the Southern Flinders, a light begins to glow beneath a mighty steam train. There’s a hiss of piston, a rush of steam, the cry of a guardsman – and an incredible industrial legacy slowly comes to life.
Peterborough’s Steamtown was once a vast rail operation where over 100 steam locomotives passed through each day before heading to all corners of Australia.
Today, that legacy is preserved – and you’re invited to experience it for yourself.
In daylight hours, you’ll tour the sheds and the extraordinary heritage-listed ‘Roundhouse’ before getting hands-on with heroic locos and luxury carriages. And at night, you’ll thrill to the award-winning ‘Sound and Light Show’, when this powerful story plays out on a stage like no other.
Steamtown Heritage Rail Centre is open 9am to 5pm daily, with guided tours offered any time between 9am and 3.30pm. Closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Low season (Nov - March) tours are between 10am and 2.30pm
Bookings for Sound and Light Shows as well as Steamtown Feature Movie sessions can be made by phone (08 8651 3355) or by email. During low season (Dec to Feb) please do not book online, please ring our staff on 08 8651 3355 to make your booking as we need to have 6 or more people for the show to be presented during this season.
The Burg
Address: 185-189 Main Street, Peterborough SA, Australia .The Burg is part of the Peterborough Newsagency. It contains a 19 metre long mural depicting the history of Peterborough plus a working N Gauge Model railway based on Peterborough as it was in c1968. There is a rolling 30 minute video presentation on the history of Peterborough plus several static displays. Other points of interest are Murdoch (a 7ft Teddy Bear) and his sidekick Little T; which is a small aluminium dinosaur.
Peterborough Printing Works
Address: 7 Jervois Street, Peterborough SA, Australia .It's been almost a decade since an expansive collection of printing artefacts was discovered in the Mid North community of Peterborough. Now a significance assessment has confirmed the historic, social and aesthetic value of this printing press.
"The Peterborough Times Printing Office is a remarkable collection," says history consultant Kate Walsh.
"There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in Australia or elsewhere."
With its collection of printing presses and equipment; inks and tools, paper stock, plus thousands of items printed on the presses, Ms Walsh describes the former Printing Office as an 'historic house'.
Purpose built in the 1890s, up until 2001 the Peterborough printing office produced a variety of newspaper mastheads and huge amounts of commercial work from across the region.
"It still stands, essentially with the same workshop layout, and the machines and equipment used throughout the 20th century."
Town Carriage Museum
Address: Main Street, Peterborough SA, Australia .THE TOWN CARRIAGE MUSEUM - free entry, open 7 days a week, 9am to 5pm
The Town Carriage Museum is all about the town of Peterborough – past, present and future.
It offers community members and visitors alike the chance to see what makes the town special through a collection of 18 artefacts. These have been chosen to represent events in the town’s history, people of significance and aspects of life in the town. Presented together in a simple chronology – a timeline of sorts – through to the present day, they offer a complete picture and illustrate that this town is diverse, interesting and about much more than just railways.
Dragons Rest Habitat Garden
Address: 11 Watkins Road, Peterborough SA, Australia .Situated in a semi-arid zone, Peterborough has freezing Winters, scorching Summers and minimal rainfall, making plant selection crucial for a successful garden.Since the early 1980's we have transformed our 10 acres from horse paddocks to Organic Market Garden, and now to Habitat Garden.
After planting hundreds of trees, shrubs and other plants we are rewarded with a peaceful and productive garden. Dragons Rest is biodiversity at work, there's life from the soil to the treetops.
Constantly changing with the seasons, Spring highlights are poppies, larkspurs and fancy bearded iris. Bearded dragon lizards come out of their hiding places to breed.Bold and bright cannas, sunflowers and other colourful annuals attract bees and insects to the garden in Summer, when the kitchen garden is in full production.Ornamental grasses look beautiful in Autumn, then Winter brings sparkling frosty mornings.
Honeyeaters and parrots feed on flowering eucalypts and eremophilas (Emu bushes). There's always something flowering.A stroll through our award-winning garden will leave you relaxed, amused by unusual artworks, and maybe surprised at what you see.
Generous pathways in most of the garden allow easy access for wheelchairs and walkers.
