Koolunga

As the legend goes, you have a better chance of running into a bunyip in Koolunga than in any other Aussie town.

While Australia's most fanciful animal features prominently in Aboriginal mythology, reported sightings of bunyips have been few and far between since white settlement.

Several of those sightings were reported at a Koolunga waterhole in 1883. So when in the Koolunga, Red Hill, Yacka region, watch out for a critter variously described as a cross between a dugong and a hippopotamus and as 'about the size of a full-grown calf with dusky grey feathers down its back'. Koolunga locals reckon the Bunyip River Trail offers the best prospects of a glimpse of the beast.

Some visitors, principally anglers, prefer to take their chances with the trout of the Broughton River.

Koolunga, about 160km north of Adelaide, is one of a long chain of towns which not only flank the river, but are largely dependent on a waterway system which is arguably the most significant in South Australia.