Adelaide, South Australia

Outer Harbor is essentially an industrial suburb, consisting mainly of shipping and transport related infrastructure. Until the 1970s Outer Harbor was a relatively isolated locality, separated from Largs Bay and Taperoo by several kilometres of sparsely occupied sand dunes and scrub. Apart from the railway, only a single loop road gave access to the port. Since the 1930s a singular feature of this road has been that it is bordered by an impressive avenue of Norfolk Pines. Today the Outer Harbor railway line which connects the area to the centre of the City of Adelaide. The terminus of this line is the Outer Harbor station, situated next to the North Haven Golf Course and Overseas Passenger Terminal.



Outer Harbor was established at the beginning of the 20th Century, due to the increasing size of ships and the length of time it took to sail up the Port River to the inner harbour of Port Adelaide. The first ship to dock there was the RMS Oruba. on 16 January 1908. It was through Outer Harbour that thousands of migrants from Britain and mainland Europe arrived to begin a new in South Australia. This influx commenced after World War I and continued until the early 1970s, when air travel took over from the migrants ships of earlier decades. The Outer Harbor passenger terminal saw a big decline in useage until recent years when an increasing number of cruise liners began visiting Adelaide, with 27 arrivals in the 2012 cruise season.

North Haven is near the tip of Lefevre Peninsula, which lies some 15 kilometres northwest of the Adelaide Central Business District. It is a thin peninsula of about 30 square kilometres north from its connection to the mainland. Lefevre Peninsula was named by Governor Hindmarsh on 3rd June 1837. Sir John G. Shaw-Lefevre, one of the SA Colonisation Commissioners. It did not take long for the locals of the area to begin referring to the area as "The Peninsula".

The peninsula has a maritime culture due to its proximity to Port Adelaide. Collins class submarines are built at the suburb of Osborne. Cement production also occurs on the peninsula at Birkenhead. In 1999, the Pelican Point Power Station was established on the peninsula adjacent to the Port River.

The Peninsula is skirted by a walking and bike riding trail. With the coast on the western side, the eastern side of the Le Fevre Peninsula consists of the Barker Inlet and Port River. Adelaide suburbs located on the peninsula include West Lakes Shore, Semaphore Park, Glanville, Semaphore, Exeter, Birkenhead, Peterhead, Largs Bay, Largs North, Taperoo, North Haven and Osborne. Port Adelaide's Outer Harbour sits on the western side of the Peninsula to the north of Largs Bay.

The development of the Lefevre Peninsula began in 1849 when the Semaphore area was surveyed by the Government, even though Semaphore was widely used a harbour as early 1837-38. Two years later the original Semaphore Hotel opened on the south corner of Blacker Street and The Esplanade. In 1856 a telegraph line was extended to Semaphore from Port Adelaide. Three years later, Port Bridge opened, connecting Semaphore and Port Adelaide. The District Council of Le Fevre's Peninsula was formed in 1872.

In 1878 after the completion of the Jervois Bridge, a railway line from Semaphore to Port Adelaide was opened and Semaphore began to grow. It became popular both as a residential suburb for Port Adelaide as well as a seaside resort for metropolitan Adelaide and towns near the country railways.

The Port River is the western branch of the largest tidal estuary on the eastern side of Gulf St Vincent. It extends inland through the historic Inner Harbour of Port Adelaide, to the constructed salt-water West Lakes in the north-western suburbs of Adelaide.

The lower reaches of the Port River flow between the Lefevre Peninsula, and the Section Bank and Torrens Island, and form the sea entrance to the port facilities of Adelaide, and connect to the Barker Inlet to the east via the North Arm and Angas Inlet which surround Garden Island. Before European settlement of Adelaide's western suburbs and the construction of various flood mitigation channels and levees, the Port River formed one of the outlets of the River Torrens.

The banks of the river are largely industrialised and have some of Adelaide s wharves, bulk cargo and container handling facilities, although there are some remnant mangroves. One of its main attractions other than transport is the Port River dolphins, which are the only wild dolphins in the world that live within a city.

Besides shipping using the river's main channel, a fishing fleet operates out of the North Arm which also has a speed boat club. Recreational boating marinas are located in the Angas Inlet and on the Lefevre Peninsula.. The ASC (formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation) has its construction and maintenance facility and dock at Osborne, and there is a heritage-listed former Quarantine Station on Torrens Island. Several power stations including the Torrens Island Power Station and the Pelican Point Power Station, draw seawater from the Port River for cooling purposes. The Port Adelaide Rowing Club has rowed on the river for one hundred and thirty years, and the river was formerly a frequent venue for the Intervarsity eights race.