This is Adelaide… ‘alien’ encounters in the park lands
Some of Adelaide’s oldest non-native park lands flora are olive trees. Alex Frayne captures the East End’s grove in an eerie light.
In the northwestern corner of King Rodney Park/Ityamai-itpina is a grove of olive trees that date back to the 1870s.
Now, some of these old non-native trees face the chainsaw as the state government prepares to build a $96 million motorsport track through the eastern park lands.
The trees are an oddity; they’re beloved for their appearance and age, but unlike the many towering gums found across the park lands, they are fundamentally alien to Kaurna Yarta. Feral European olive trees are in fact declared a “weed” in SA legislation.
Nevertheless, the potential felling of these trees in the city park lands has brought renewed public attention.
The grove was recently the home of a short-lived anti-MotoGP encampment.
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It has been neatly captured here by SA photographer Alex Frayne.
“I was walking with camera after dark last week among the olive trees,” he says.
“A car parked on East Terrace suddenly started and its headlights beamed right into the trees.
“It felt like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
Alex Frayne is a regular contributor to InDaily and wrote a series of essays for the publication in 2025.
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