Port Augusta

At the head of Spencer Gulf, Port Augusta is a unique blend of modern-day industry and historical diversity.

Where is it?: South Australia: Outback/Flinders Range. Port Augusta is 328 km north east of Adelaide at the head of Spencer Gulf.




Within South Australia, Port Augusta is the most northerly point accessible by sea - apart from the far west coast. Being located at the the meeting point of the major roads and railways from Australia's west, far north and east, Port Augusta is very much the country's transport hub.


Because of its strategic position as the meeting point of Australia's major highways, Port Augusta is for most travellers a town one travels through on the way to somewhere else. The closest 'somewhere else' to Port Augusta are two of the most interesting regions of South Australia - Eyre Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges.

Gateway To The Outback

Port Augusta is recognised as the gateway to South Australi's Outback region. To the west lie the beautifully contoured, undulating slopes of the Flinders Ranges. They are magical in their beauty and, in spring, they are impossibly green and fertile. At sunset they are gently coloured with a purplish hue. Yet this is only one angle on Port Augusta. The town is literally on the edge of the desert. Drive north along the Stuart Highway and only a few kilometres to the north, the edge of town gives way to flat scrubby land which stretches to the horizon. To the west lie five huge plateaux and their are dry salt lakes beside the road.

Wadlata Outback Centre

Things to see and do

Wadlata Outback Centre: Located in Flinders Terrace (turn off Highway One) this is one of the finest and most comprehensive tourist information centres in Australia. Not only does Wadlata allow the traveller to plan for for their trip into the Outback it also offers a wonderful opportunity to experience what lies ahead. It provides information about the animals which roamed the area thousands of years ago, about the Aborigines who moved through the area, about the early European explorers and of the stockmen, pastoralists, miners who opened up the Outback. It looks at the great challenge of transport and communication in the desert and alerts the traveller to the unique set of forces which created modern day Central Australia.

School of the Air: One of the fascinating aspects of Outback Australia is the way education and health are provided to people in isolated communities. Port Augusta, being located on the edge of the Outback, is one of the many bases for both the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air. It is possible to visit the School of the Air (located in Power Crescent contact (08) 8642 2077 for details) to see teachers interacting with their outback students via the new high quality broadcasting equipment.

Royal Flying Doctor Service: Located on Vincent Street this is one of the many bases which is open for inspection by the public. It is one of 20 bases currently offering medical services to people in distant parts of Australia. It is open to the public on weekdays between 10.00 a.m. - 3.00 p.m. Contact (08) 8642 2044.

Homestead Park Pioneer Museum: Take Howard Street north off Victoria Parade and you will reach the large Homestead Park Pioneer Museum, an excellent railway and farming museum in an attractive park. The centrepiece, and a symbol of the hardships of the early settlers, is the 130-year-old Yudnapinna Homestead which was moved to the site from over 100 km away. It is the only genuine log cabin in South Australia and has been furnished to reflect the kind of lifestyle which was common 130 years ago.

McLennan Lookout on Whiting Parade (at the far south-eastern extremity of the city) was the site where Matthew Flinders landed in 1802. It offers excellent views across Spencer Gulf towards the Power Stations.

Water Tower Lookout is just across the bridge to the west of the town (turn south west into Bond Street). This old iron water tower offers good views across Spencer Gulf to the city centre.

Pichi Richi Railway

The Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society Inc. has, since its formation in 1973, been dedicated to the preservation, restoration and operation of the Pichi Richi Railway, the first leg of the old Central Australian Railway to Alice Springs - the old Ghan route. The society has built up a collection of historic narrow gauge rolling stock of the old South Australian and Commonwealth Railways. These are restored and operated on a voluntary basis. The line has been extended through to Port Augusta, so trains now depart from both the Quorn and Port Augusta Railways Stations on a regular basis. For more details contact (1800) 440 101.


Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden: Located 2 km north of Port Augusta on the edge of the desert this 200 hectare site offers excellent views across the Flinders Ranges and provides an insight into the rich diversity of flora on the Australian desert. As the Botanic Gardens' document states: 'The Arid Lands Flora endemic to Australia provides many thousands of species of plant life which are unique to the world. It is essential that such flora be preserved for future generations ... This rich and unique heritage must be conserved for the benefit of our country and its future inhabitants.'

The Port Augusta School of the Air is one of the many bases for both the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air which service the remote communities of the Australian outback. Visitors to the School of the Air (located in Power Crescent contact (08) 8642 2077 for details) can see teachers interacting with their outback students via the new high quality broadcasting equipment.

About Port Augusta
At a national level, Port Augusta has become the central point of a vast web of communications, where highways and railways from Adelaide and Melbourne to the south, Queensland and New South Wales to the east, Western Australia to the west and the Northern Territory in the north, all come together - due to the unique nature of Port Augusta's geography.

That national significance has become the powerhouse of the town's economy, but it had nothing to do with the town's reason for its existence in its formative years. As pastoral properties were opened up further and further away from Adelaide during the 19th century, a port closer to these outback properties from which to overland cattle, sheep and wool, became a vital necessity, and Port Augusta came into being to fulfil that role.

Formerly mostly sandhills backed by scrubland of mostly black oak, the tiny settlement took on a role of vital importance to the pastoral properties of outback South Australia, beginning in January 1854 when the schooner Daphne took the first cargo of 100 bales of wool from Port Augusta to Port Adelaide. From being a one-person white settlement in 1854, Port Augusta soon grew into a boisterous frontier-like town with bullock drays arriving regularly with loads of wool bales and a steady stream of ketches, schooners and then ocean going clippers coming and going.

Because of its strategic location at the head of the Gulf, Port Augusta has long been a major service centre. By the 1860s it was a vital transport node with its own troopers barracks and brewery. In 1860 10,000 bales of wool were despatched from the port. The Town Hall was completed in 1866 and the first consignment of camels arrived from India. The Greenbush gaol was completed three years later and in 1872 the Overland Telegraph Line linking South Australia with Port Darwin and the rest of the world was opened.


For the next century Port Augusta was primarily a port shipping the wool and wheat from the surrounding area. This activity continued until 1973 when the port ceased to operate. The town was officially proclaimed in 1875 and the railway from Adelaide arrived in 1882. The first power station was opened in 1954 and was supplied with coal from Leigh Creek. This became the basis of an expansion which saw Port Augusta become a city in 1963.

The port fell into decline during the early years of the 20th century when rail transport took over from coastal vessels, but Port Augusta did not suffer, as it re-invented itself to become a vital cog in the country's rail network and home to a major South Australian power station. Today, despite all the trappings of a city of 15,000, Port Augusta retains a hint of the early empty landscape into which it was created a century and a half ago.

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