Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas

Crossing the Murray River by ferry at Wellington

We have been slowly exploring the Fleurieu and Yorke Peninsulas in South Australia for the last month or so and have got as far as Port Pirie.

There were some really picturesque little coastal townships, all with a history as ports when the sailing ships loaded tons of bagged wheat and barley from local areas for shipment to England. What surprised us was that the sailing ships still operated in considerable numbers up until around 1950. The other thing we hadn’t realised was how big they were! The Pamir was 3000 tons and loaded 4000 tons of wheat and none of the models and picture give you a true idea of how tall the tall ships were. At Port Vincent you can get some idea as they have compared the Pamir to the town for example the masts were twice the height of the Norfolk pines in the main street; the spars were the width of the street and the deck the width of the median strip on which the pines are planted. The ships raced to England to get the best prices for the wheat crop – the record was 83 days.



Old horse drawn double decker trams still run on a bridge to this
island at Victor Harbour 



The Fleurieu Peninsula is quite hilly with some dairy farming but the Yorke Peninsula is much flatter with miles and miles of farms growing wheat and barley. The coastal towns are all within reasonable distance of Adelaide nowadays and so they are all growing rows of big holiday homes near the beaches, but the old parts of the towns are full of beautiful old buildings ranging from the old civic buildings to old mansions with tower rooms and verandas all round, to quaint little stone cottages.

We decided not to visit Kangaroo Island as the ferry pricing is too high for a day trip and there would be no question of taking the bus over unless we had a Lotto win!

Copper Mines ruin at Moonta

As we headed north on the Yorke Peninsula we found more mining activity with copper being a big early industry round the Moonta area known as the copper triangle. This lead to the strong Cornish heritage in the area.  Further north at Port Pirie is the biggest lead smelter in the southern hemisphere also producing zinc and some gold and silver. The ore processed here comes from mines further north.



Decorative detail above an old shop in Port Pirie