Skilly Hills
The Skilly Hills are a range of hills which make up part of the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia's Mid North region.
They comprise several long parallel ridges of low hills which run generally north south, parallel to the Horrocks Highway, forming part of the western geographical boundary of the Clare Valley. 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 derivation from nearby Skillogalee Creek, a watercourse that rises near Penwortham 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 after skillogalee, a traditional thin broth, simple in composition, once typically consumed throughout the British Isles, especially in Ireland and Scotland, particularly by the working class, as well as by soldiers and seafarers.By the 1860s the creek was often called Skilly Creek, there then being districts called Upper 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.