Goolwa The Riverport: Keith strolls the wharves in the Fleurieu Peninsula region of South Australia
After it's marathon journey from way up in the high country in the Australian Alps the Murray River spills into a lakes system that provides one last vast playground for folk that just love to muck around in boats...
Lazing on the last big 'elbow' in the river that gives the town its name in the language of the local Ngarrindjeri people, Goolwa is a place synonymous with getting out on the water. The marinas are a boaties' delight - especially for the purists. Goolwa's Wooden Boat Festival has become a national institution.
Goolwa is the last town on the river, a little over an hour's drive south of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula.
The living is easy. It's a holiday town that has grown up around an old river port that was so big in its heyday it was called the New Orleans of the south on the Mississippi of Australia - the Murray River.
The venerable paddlesteamer, Oscar W, sits quietly at the wharf now but in the river port's heyday, you'd be dodging wool bales and wheat bags along here. Local history buff, Colin Sibley says Goolwa is a little town that had a big future - for a while anyway.
"It took a man with a vision," explained Colin. "South Australian Governor, Sir Henry Edward Fox Young came here in 1848 and he realised that if you were this side of the Blue Mountains you were closer to the markets of London if you brought the goods down the Murray."
Here was his opportunity to make he his young colony a conduit to international markets and revitalise an economy gutted by Victoria's gold rush. He had the power of the purse so he offered a 4,000 pound prize for anyone who could make a go of it. He even backed his own man.
"Captain Francis Cadell did an incredible thing in a boat called the Lady Augusta," said Colin. "He brought the steamship in through the Murray Mouth and sailed it up to Goolwa amidst all the bunting celebration…"
The famous 1853 race upstream that followed between the professional long time mariner, Cadell in the Lady Augusta and the amateur, flour miller, Captain William Randell in the Mary Ann proved it could be done. But there was a problem - the mouth of the Murray was just too treacherous...
"As Light said you could never preserve a channel against the scud of the sea," said Colin. "But what you might do is bring the goods in and off-load them at Goolwa. And then create an Australian first by having an iron tramway, a railway to take the goods to the nearest little port - a place that was soon to be developed, Port Elliot."
And so, amid torrid debate about its worth, work began on Australia's first iron railway. It was finished in 1854 with a backlog of cargo that had proved Governor Young was right. Goolwa blossomed with a gaggle of fine stone buildings going up behind the new river port. Near the old station, the distinctive Railway Superintendent's Cottage sets the tone.
Wander around this relaxed town even today and Goolwa's riverboat heritage is never far away. Opposite the town green, a tribute to those 'hurry-on-please' days... a fine old replica of one the well patronised horsedrawn passenger carriages.
"It was boom time. About 150 years ago, if we go back to the 1870s in that time typically something like 25,000 bale of wool a year went through on the railway to the coast. In its first 10 years of operation something like 40,000 people travelled on the tramway as passengers…"
Eleven kilometres along the track, Port Elliot was also booming. It was enough to make the folk in Port Adelaide worried as goods were carted along a cutting around Horseshoe Bay, out to the jetty and onto the waiting ships. But the plan all came unstuck in 1856 thanks to the unforgiving Southern Ocean.
"1856 was a really bad year with four shipwrecks - the Commodore, the Lapwing, the Josephine and finally the Harry. That literally ruined the hopes of Port Elliot."
What can be a deceptively calm bay fell idle as the railway was pushed through to Victor Harbor. But when the pioneer line was linked through to Adelaide, it was all go again as holiday makers poured off the trains.
Now, Port Elliot's Horseshoe Bay is one of the prized jewels in the Fleurieu Peninsula's long list of attractions. The link between Goolwa and Port Elliot and on to Victor Harbor is now a spectacular heritage and holiday railway. The Cockle Train keeps the spirit alive with its regular hauls between what were briefly two of Australia's most important ports.
Drop into the Signal Point Visitor Information Centre for a guide on what to see and do. It's right above the Wharf.
Goolwa Visitor Information Centre
The Wharf
Goolwa
Ph (08) 8555 1144Published 9th September 2007
