The Skilly Hills are a range of hills which make up part of the

Mount Lofty Ranges The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...

in South Australia's

Mid North The Mid North is a region of South Australia, north of the Adelaide Plains and south of the Far North and the outback. It is generally accepted to extend from Spencer Gulf east to the Barrier Highway, including the coastal plain, the southern ...

region. They comprise several long parallel ridges of low hills which run generally north south, parallel to the

Horrocks Highway Main North Road is the major north-south arterial route through the suburbs north of the Adelaide City Centre in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. It continues north through the settled areas of South Australia and is a total of long, fro ...

, forming part of the western geographical boundary of the

Clare Valley The Clare Valley is a valley located in South Australia about north of Adelaide in the Clare and Gilbert Valleys council area. It is the river valley formed by the Hutt River but is also strongly associated with the roughly parallel Hill Rive ...

. For government administration, they are in the Hundred of Upper Wakefield, County of Stanley. The most prominent peaks are Tower Hill and Mount Oakden, the latter being named after local pioneer John Oakden.

History

The name Skilly Hills is a

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and usage (language), linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of p ...

derivation from nearby Skillogalee Creek, a watercourse that rises near

Penwortham Penwortham () is a town in South Ribble, Lancashire, England, on the south bank of the River Ribble facing the city of Preston. The town is at the most westerly crossing point of the river, with major road and rail links crossing it here. The ...

and flows southward, generally parallel to the Skilly Hills, to become a tributary of the Wakefield River. The creek itself was named by a government survey party of 1840 (perhaps with a certain irony concerning their rations) after skillogalee (usually spelt skillygalee), a traditional thin broth, simple in composition, once typically consumed throughout the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles (O ...

, especially in

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and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

, particularly by the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

, as well as by soldiers and seafarers. By the 1860s the creek was often called Skilly Creek, there then being districts called Upper (later Higher) Skilly and Lower Skilly, with schools in each. Upper Skilly also became called the Skilly Hills, a name recorded in common usage by at least 1877. The high rainfall in the Skilly Hills contributes to the Skillogalee Creek being one of the few permanently flowing watercourses in the region.''Water Allocation Plan for the Clare Valley Prescribed Water Resources Area'', (Government of South Australia, 2009) .

Land use

There are no towns of significance within the Skilly Hills but there are several towns and townships nearby which service the area, including Penwortham, Leasingham, Watervale, and Auburn. The town of

Clare Clare may refer to: Places Antarctica * Clare Range, a mountain range in Victoria Land Australia * Clare, South Australia, a town in the Clare Valley * Clare Valley, South Australia Canada * Clare (electoral district), an electoral district * C ...

serves many of the commercial needs of the district. Land use is mainly mixed farming and sheep grazing. In recent decades

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are ...

and

olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: ...

production have become important elements of local commerce. These attractions, plus the picturesque hills, support a tourism industry, resulting from which there are quite a few bed and breakfast establishments in the region.

References

Mid North (South Australia) Mountain ranges of South Australia {{SouthAustralia-geo-stub