Myponga - the secret detour, with Keith Conlon in the Fleurieu Peninsula region of South Australia
Some of the biggest names in road cycling took the ‘secret detour’ from Myponga during the 2005 Tour Down Under so we thought it was time to do the same and discover a real ‘gem’ of the Fleurieu.
You know you’re getting close when you come across the kangaroos that have staked themselves a spot in the Reservoir Reserve. The lush paddocks are another clue - they are green all year round thanks to irrigation. The district has proved the perfect spot for big dairy herds for well over a century.
The milk’s trucked straight through the township these days, but it was once processed in the Myponga Co-Op’s Cheese and Butter Factory in the main street. The building is now used for weekend country markets but in its day, the landmark churned out award winning cheeses and in the 70s exported tons of cheese to Japan.
Head on through the town and you get to Myponga’s other landmark - or should it be watermark? The picturesque Myponga Reservoir.
The main road goes over the causeway these days but pull into the nearby parking bay and you'll see where the old road used to dip down into the now flooded valley. That’s where we met regional Mayor and farmer, Peter Whitford. He grew up around these parts and he can remember what it was like before the valley was dammed.
“It was good farming land,” he explained. “We used to cut hay down there in what was called Lovely Valley - one of the prettiest names in South Australia.”
Now it’s a lovely reservoir that stretches 6 kilometres up the Myponga Creek. What’s different about the curved dam wall is that there’s a public road on top to replace the old road.
Opened in 1962, the dam is 220 metres long and is 17 metres thick at the base. It holds back nearly 6-thousand million gallons of water and thanks to the high rainfall in the catchment area of 140 square kilometres it rarely drops below half full.
It was quite an engineering feat. There were no deaths during construction but one poor bloke came close - he rode his truck several hundred feet down the cliff-face after the ground fell from beneath him in a massive landslide.
“You may not realise but it’s hollow through the middle of it.” said Peter. “You can walk in one side, and come out the other.”
It took 60 thousand tonnes of concrete to build the wall and Peter reckons it’s a spectacular sight when the three gates on the spill-way open and the water plummets down into the creek below.
The giant pipes that carry the water duck and weave in and out, under, over and even through the hills all the way to Happy Valley, the southern beachside suburbs and Fleurieu towns.
Water wasn’t the preferred beverage however when the bare hills rocked their way into history with the Myponga Festival in 1971. Woodstock is wasn’t when fifteen thousand festival goers saw Black Sabbath and the first big outing for a number of other Aussie favourites like Ross Wilson and Daddy Cool.
All is serene again now as you wind down to the gulf and another gem of the Myponga detour - idyllic Myponga Beach. The little settlement might be tiny, but it looms large in local history. The first European settlement on the Fleurieu hills started here in 1840. Not long after the Buffalo landed, the Hewitt family arrived here and began building their homestead.
The stone was dragged from the cliffs below by a team of six bullocks and a dray. But one load proved too heavy.
“They couldn’t get any further up the hill,” said Peter. “The dray pulled them backwards and the bullocks went over the cliff into the sea, and they were all killed.”
Just three families made up Myponga Beach’s early population and they reckon when the fish were on the bite - the chances of the kids returning to school after lunch were pretty slim!
A jetty was built in 1860 but it’s official opening was marred by tragedy.
“The jetty was very crowded and a woman nursing a baby got pushed off onto the rocks. She cushioned the fall of the baby which survived, but unfortunately she was killed.” said Peter.
The jetty serviced a healthy shipping trade for 30 years exporting local wattle bark for leather tanning, livestock and wheat. But eventually the ketch trade weaned and a big blow tore the jetty apart in 1900. Now it’s a photographer’s dream.
The once heavily wooded hills are now bare but they used to be home to the Kaurna people, the original inhabitants of the area whose land stretched all the way down to Cape Jervis. In fact, the name Myponga is a Kaurna word meaning high cliffs.
Myponga is just under 60 kilometres south of Adelaide on the main South Road to Cape Jervis. To take the detour look for the right turn just after the reservoir on the southern side of the town on the main road.
Contact the Yankalilla Bay and Beyond Visitor Centre for more information and maps.
Yankalilla Bay Visitor Information Centre
104 Main Road
YankalillaOpen 7 days Ph (08) 8558 2999
Research thanks to Flinders University Cultural Tourism Degree projects.
