Venus Bay

A small tourist and fishing town, its population numbers in the twenties during most of the year, but greatly increases during the summer holidays. The town also serves as an offloading point for professional fishermen, who fish the remote Archipelagos in the Southern Ocean.

Where is it?: Eyre Peninsula. 665 km west of Adelaide; 187 km south east of Ceduna; 76 km south of Streaky Bay




Venus Bay is primarily a fishing and water sport based destination, with the sheltered waters providing small boat users a safe fishing environment. The bay is known to hold whiting, salmon, garfish, snook, tommy ruff, flathead and gummy shark.

The town lookout offers breathtaking views of towering cliffs and booming surf rolling in from the Great Australian Bight. Keen board riders can also view surf conditions of nearby surf beaches from here.



About Venus Bay
Brief history: The first settlement in the area was that at Venus Bay where a whaling station was established in the 1820s. The tiny settlement consisting of a shop, hotel and police station operated until the 1840s. After that time the focus of the settlement turned inland as the surrounding area was opened up for grazing in 1840s and cereal cropping in the 1870s. The township was abandoned by 1900. It was somewhat revitalised in the 1920s when it became a base for a commercial fishing operation.

Like nearly all of the west coast of Eyre Peninsula the first European to sight this area was Matthew Flinders who sailed along the coast in the Investigator in 1802. There is a piece of local folklore which claims that Flinders named Venus Bay after the Roman God of Love but the more plausible, and more pedestrian, explanation is that it was named after a 40 ton schooner named Venus which traded along the coast until she ran aground at Tumby Bay in 1850. Equally Port Kenny was named after the first European settler, Michael Kenny, who, having made his fortune on the Victorian goldfields, moved to Eyre Peninsula where he was one of the first farmers to try to grow grain rather than raise sheep. Talia probably is an Aboriginal word. Some sources suggest that it means 'near water'.

Port Kenny was surveyed in 1912, with Governor Bosanquet naming the town after a local landholder. The town grew slightly with the opening of a local hall in 1934, and then the hotel in 1939. Very little has occurred since these buildings were erected, although the town was pivotal in handling the grain and wool which was produced in the hinterland, with grain still being shipped from Port Kenny until the late 1950s. Port Kenny and Venus Bay have survived because during the early part of this century they were important (if very small) ports. As early as the late 1920s the area had been discovered by recreational fishermen who travelled to these tiny outposts eager to catch trevally and trout.

Content © 2016 Australia For Everyone | Email us