Fleurieu Lures With Freewheeling Charm
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday August 21, 1996
From its Murray River paddle-steamers to its national parks, this South Australian region is a delight, writes NORMAN NORTH .
THE region that spreads out from Adelaide in a sort of triangle with bumps and is known as the Fleurieu Peninsula holds a lot for touring tourists and those who are happy to settle down on a beach and relax for a week or so.
Its long western flank reaches Cape Jervis along the coast of the Gulf of St Vincent. Its southern boundary is formed by the Backstairs Passage, which offers the shortest sea crossing to Kangaroo Island, and by Encounter Bay, running past Victor Harbor to Goolwa.
From there, the eastern edge wriggles inland around Lake Alexandria, the lake into which the Murray River empties before its controlled release into the sea.
Vineyards dot the interior. In autumn, the regimented, irrigated green of rows of vines marching across red-brown earth contrasts with the dry, sandy shade of a backdrop of deeply ribbed hills. More than 20 national parks and wildlife reserves offer brief escapes from urban life.
Victor Harbor is the principal holiday centre, its population of under 8,000 swelling to 30,000 at the height of the season. It has a grove of Norfolk pines that put Manly's fume-poisoned specimens to shame.
The earliest ones were planted to commemorate residents who fell in World War I, each with a name on a bronze plaque chained around the trunk. New links have been added as the trees have grown; more trees have been planted for succeeding wars. Two double rows of pines form aisles like those of a high, green cathedral, the nave a greensward facing a war memorial. It is a restful place.
From near the town centre, patient Clydesdales take turns to pull a double-decker tram across a causeway to Granite Island, which is formed of different types of granite dating back 490 million years.
Introduced in 1895, the horse trams - using a causeway built initially to get freight to and from a deep water jetty - were discontinued in 1954 and brought back into use in 1986. A plaque near the turn-around point on the island commemorates the meeting in 1802 of Matthew Flinders and his rival French captain and explorer, Nicholas Baudin, which gave the bay the name Encounter.
Today, its waters are better known as a trysting place and labour ward for Southern Right whales, whose presence over the past decade has brought a boom to winter tourism and led to the establishment of an informative whale centre in the town.
During school holidays and some weekends, a steam locomotive hauls what is known as the Cockle Train between Victor Harbor and Goolwa and back, Goolwa holding the distinction of being the first place in Australia where trains ran on iron rails.
Goolwa was chosen in the 1850s as the river terminal for Murray River traffic and became an important trading and shipbuilding centre in the heyday of the paddle-steamers. It declined when the railways, around the turn of the century, spelled the end of the river steamers.
Today its old-world charm is a part of its attraction. Restored daytripping paddle-steamers lie along its wharf. You can go for a trip around Lake Alexandria, upstream to Hindmarsh Island, Clayton Bay and Currency Creek, or downstream through a lock to the mouth of the Murray.
There are many protected properties from its earlier days. And where the original signal mast stood there is a multi-million-dollar River Murray interpretive centre which tells the story of the Murray through Aboriginal legends, studies of the ecology and trade, and its taming by barrages.
The five barrages which control the river were built between the mainland and islands of the river delta between 1935 and 1940 to regulate the height of the lake and lower end of the river and to prevent salt water seeping back into the fresh water in dry seasons.
The Goolwa barrage has a walkway of metal grating setting out from the Goolwa side to a lock about 30 metres by six metres, which allows fishing boats and pleasure craft to pass through. Hordes of pelicans perch along the barrage rails or swim on the seaward side, sifting the tiny fish and shellfish that get washed over the barrage.
* More information can be obtained from the Sydney office of the South Australian Tourism Commission, 9264 3375.
© 1996 Sydney Morning Herald