Discovering Sleep's Hill Tunnel South Australia | Xplore S01 Ep14

I have been hiking in this park for a few years, but was never able to find this tunnel. Till today.

Sleep's Hill railway tunnel near Shepherds Hill Recreation Park was constructed in approximately 1883 for trains on the Adelaide to Belair line. It served a number of ballast quarries for the South Australian Railways (SAR).
A third tunnel with a double track was completed in 1919.

Sleep's Hill is named after Samuel Sleep, an early colonist who arrived in South Australia in the late 1830's. RX90 steam trains, similar to Goolwa’s cockle train, used the track until 1919 when the Adelaide to Belair section was duplicated with a dual-track system further east.

When the line was abandoned, the tunnels became an exploration area for locals until the Japanese entered World War II and Adelaide feared air raids.
The 150m tunnel in Eden Hills stored the State Library’s most valuable documents, artefacts and records, while the 290m tunnel in Panorama stored ammunition.

In the 1960s, the tunnels became mushroom farms and about 2000 boxes would be exported each week.

The tunnels were State Heritage-listed in 1993.

[vicnurse]

Just found this video. Very interesting, used to walk in this park a lot, however more interesting was I used to work at the State Library in the archives when they were still there. I never knew about the storage of Sleeps Hill for library material. Makes you wonder how water tight etc it was. But so interesting. Thanks so much, yes a pity about the grafitti....be interesting if there were any small buried aritafacts there....?? so interesting, again thanks so much. Vicki

[brettt]

I grew up living on Viaduct Road, Eden Hills, and my Dad was a big train buff. We used to go down to Dale Road, which looked over the railway, and we met a retired resident who remembered the old train line being used and had a lot of steam train locomotive memorabilia. One day of exploring, after school, we found the doors to the old tunnel open, and saw the mushroom farm inside being worked on

[aussiedumps]

Used to play around there as a kid but more time spent around the current tunnel and climbing the rock wall above it. Back then it looked a lot taller. There was talk that the old tunnel was being used as a mushroom farm at one stage

[walk.ride.repeat]

Well presented and informative, good job and thanks for sharing👍

[cctv]

There’s a fringe event there starting feb 16th. Well worth a look!

[donaldpate]

I was just there yesterday! I found the other end of Tunnel No. 2. You go down to the entry of the current Sleep’s Hill tunnel and there is a small trail to the left along the ravine. It is just a short distance. A fallen tree has partially blocked the entrance. I will now go back to look at the end of the tunnel you found on the other side of the tracks!

[Dundee.]

its now a wine storage. ive technicaly been inside and its a hell of a story. me and my mates found it by accident