Milang - Historic Port on the Lake: In the Fleurieu Peninsula region of South Australia
On the shores of Australia’s largest inland lake, the historic port of Milang sits on a limestone rise. Two cultures come together in their names. Lake Alexandrina was named for the British princess who would soon become Queen Victoria, while a tribe of the Ngarrindjeri aboriginal nation called this “a place of sorcery”, Milangk. Captain Sturt came over the lake on his epic exploratory journey in 1830 and fired enthusiasm for a British province here, and in 1853 two paddle steamers went past upstream months apart to pioneer the riverboat trade. As a result, 150 years ago, the port of Milang became a very good idea, especially for the commercial operators of Strathalbyn, who anticipated the opening up of the Murray-Darling basin.
Within just four years, an Adelaide newspaper reported that “Milang is becoming a very bustling little port and will shortly grow into a place of great importance”. And it did. The Church of Christ had already built a chapel after holding services in the wheelwright’s shop, which expanded into a two storey bakery still standing today. The official signs of prosperity and culture were soon in place, and the town’s new heritage map pinpoints substantial buildings like the Institute, Post Office, old police station and three more churches.
On the end of the jetty (half its original length since the great flood of 1956), there’s a Milang claim to fame - the brightly painted hand crane is the oldest in South Australia. It was erected for cargo handling in 1859, in the very early days of the port, and so it was an apt rendezvous for a yarn to relative newcomer Alex Stone, who has retired here and steeped himself in the town’s history. I asked him about what was on the hill in Milang’s heyday.
“You would have seen the Pier Hotel and that is still there. Down from that, there were the Landseer’s buildings - quite a big complex, with a general store, a flour mill and chimney and a wool store with the family residence upstairs”.
“Is there much evidence of shipbuilding?”
“None that I’ve been able to find”.
There was once much banging and sawing by the shore. Frank Potts, the legendary founder of the 1850 Bleasdale Winery at nearby Langhorne Creek, constructed several paddle steamers here. The Church of England’s floating chapel, the mission boat Etona was locally built (it now resides at Echuca), and the ambitious Landseer drydock was a failure here, but it was floated up to Mannum to become a successful venture that is now part of that town’s riverside museum. When it’s not out heaving and puffing through a gourmet cruise, the grand old lady of the Murray, P.S Marion, is moored there too. She began as a Milang-built barge in 1877.
The old railway line runs along the floodbank in front of the town, bedecked with an assortment of vintage and freight trucks and carriages. The service began just a little late to make the heady days of the paddle steamer era, but it still served the town long and true, with the last passenger train departing in 1970. They sold off the picturesque little weatherboard station to a local farmer, and then bought it back again to serve tea and scones on Sunday afternoons.
It is also the Tourist Information Centre, and so they will happily tell you about the newly opened wetlands below. The samphire flats are dedicated to Latham’s Snipe, annual visitors who like it so much in Milang that they fly all the way from Japan. Where can we stay? The cottage-like motel overlooks Lake Alexandrina, and the caravan park runs the gamut of greens from the milky lake water to the dark tonings of the pine trees behind it.
Of course, if you know one of the shack owners, you are talking about joining an exclusive lakeside community in their cheek-by-jowl brightly hued miniature holiday houses that crowd along the bank. In the sailing regatta season, they welcome hundreds of yachts into their reed-island-protected shallows and flimsy jetties.
The lake can turn very rough, however, as it did for the riverboat captains who called Milang home. In the edge-of-town cemetery, Alex Stone found us some headstones with celebrated names in the history of the river trade.
“Captain Daniel Cremer was the master of the Jupiter. He did the cross-lake run three times each week for 27 years,” he told me next to the early twentieth century gravestone. Captain Oliver’s grave is nearby. On the PS Queen, he plied the Renmark run with a Milang crew that made it home once per month. Earlier, Captain Kruse skippered the three masted Pungkari on Lake Alexandrina, calling regularly at the sprawling village that is headquarters to this day of Poltalloch Station on the other side. It is close to the inland lighthouse that guided the Royal Mail and passenger steamers through to Meningie, the South East and Melbourne.
The clank of cream and milk cans is long gone from Milang’s now-rusting butter factory. Much of its supply came in the Jupiter across the lake from Narrung, and it went all the way to win prizes for butter in London. The town’s commercial heart is quiet now, too. Where the butcher hung sides of lamb out the front, the “Old Butcher Shop” B and B verandah looks out to the 1850s Lake Hotel and general store, still intact for the pending 150th anniversary.
There’s also some evocative industrial and transport heritage at the railhead overlooking the shacks. It was the 1878 railway line to the government-created port of Morgan upstream, however, that cut short Milang’s heyday. It survived, however, on fishing and farming and dairies, and now it has a bright and welcoming sailing-themed mapboard with a view of the lake. You can pick up a well interpreted heritage map at the railway station information centre on Sundays, and the town is now on the web. Only 77 kilometres from Adelaide via the South East Freeway and Mt Barker, it’s an easy journey to this quiet side of the Fleurieu and its historic port in the lake.
If you are looking for some great accommodation for your stay at Milang, we recommend:
Milang Lakes Hotel
Milang Lakeside Caravan ParkMilang Websites:
www.visitalexandrina.com/towns/milang.asp
