|
| A four wheel
drive on the beach at The Coorong
|
Coorong, The (including Policemans Point,
Salt Creek and Woods Well)
A beautiful National Park along a narrow 145
km spit of sand.
The Coorong, a narrow neck of sand dunes
stretching 145 km along the south-east coast of
South Australia, is part of the Australian
consciousness largely because it was the
location for the children's book (and later
film), Storm Boy by Colin Thiele.
In fact the essence of the area is
beautifully caught by Thiele in his book
'Coorong' when he writes: 'The Coorong is
wilderness. For that reason it is of inestimable
value to South Australia and the whole of
humanity.
'It is an elemental region, a place of wind
and water and vast skies, of sandhill and
tussock, lagoon and waterweed, stone and scrub.
It is a place of softened contours, muted
colours and sea haze - and of glaring saltpans
so intense that our brows pucker and our eyes
wince. A place of winter storms and summer
sunglades, of shorelines soft with sand and
sibilant reeds, and of limestone outcrops
sharper than teeth. A place to sense the
universal in the particular, the infinite in the
infinitessimal, the verities of life in blowing
seeds and grains of sand.'
Located 152 km from Adelaide (that is the
distance of Meningie at the northern end of The
Coorong) it is now a 46,745 hectare National
Park. The word 'coorong' is generally accepted
to be a corruption of the local Aboriginal word
'kurangh' meaning 'neck'.
Geologically The Coorong is a set of complex
and ancient sand dunes. The oldest was probably
formed about 120,000 years ago. Then there is
another dune formation which is about 80,000
years old. Some of that dune still remains on
Younghusband Peninsula. The modern day Coorong
was formed between 6,000 and 20,000 years ago
when the sea rose to form an island on top of
the 80,000 year old dune. This produced a lagoon
behind the present line of seaward dunes. At the
time there were probably many access points from
the sea to the lagoon but over time the wind and
the sands filled these in creating this unique
neck of land.
|
| Walking
across The Coorong at the northern edge
|
Historically there were five Aboriginal
tribal groupings living on The Coorong. They are
still known as the Ngarrindjeri people (they are
the same people who fought over secret women's
business at Goolwa. They made bark and reed
canoes, lived on the fish and molluscs in the
area, and built shelters against the cold
Southern Ocean winds.
The Ngarrindjeri people were decimated by the
arrival of Europeans. The combination of
smallpox (which raged all the way up the Murray
River) and massacres saw the numbers of
Aborigines on The Coorong drop from an estimated
3200 in 1842 to a mere 511 by 1874.
The discovery of The Coorong by Europeans
occurred by accident. None of the sea explorers
- notably Matthew Flinders and Nicholas Baudin -
located it. Neither did Charles Sturt, the first
European to reach the mouth of the Murray River.
It wasn't until 1837 that two men, Strangways
and Hutchinson, discovered the narrow lake and
the following year a Captain Gill, having been
wrecked near the mouth of the Murray, rowed a
dinghy up the Coorong.
By 1839 Charles Bonney had overlanded sheep
along The Coorong and in 1840 a Lieutenant
Pullen had surveyed the mouth of the Murray
River.
By 1840 there was a ferry across the Murray
at Wellington which offered access to the
Coorong and by the mid-1840s there was a stock
route and a mail run down the coast. In 1856 Sir
Charles Todd surveyed a telegraph line from
Adelaide to Melbourne which ran the length of
The Coorong and that same year a Captain Cadell
managed to take a steamer down as far as Salt
Creek.
The area's commercial potential was always
restricted. Over the last half of the 19th
century sheep farmers moved into the area but
they were hampered by rabbit plagues and the
mysterious 'coast disease'. There was an attempt
at salt mining and, in 1892, an oil well was
drilled (unsuccessfully) near Salt Creek.
As early as 1914 sections of The Coorong were
being set aside as a National Park. However it
wasn't until 1966 that the official Coorong
National Park was established. In 1968 an
additional 6840 hectares were set apart as a
game reserve. Today the Coorong is designed as a
wilderness to be enjoyed by people who love its
peacefulness and isolation.
Things to see:
![[Top of page]](smlArrow.gif)
|
| Pelicans
abound on the edges of The Coorong
|
Bird Watching
Central to the appeal of the Coorong is the fact
that it has some of the most spectacular
birdlife displays anywhere in Australia. The
lakes which characterise this low-lying area
abound in birdlife. Huge cranes, swans,
pelicans, sandpipers, terns, white-faced herons,
ibis, kites, galahs, rosellas, wattlebirds and
currawongs. An endless variety of freshwater and
saltwater birds. It has been estimated that
there are more than 240 species of bird which
use The Coorong as their home. Some migrate from
as far away as Siberia, China and Japan.
Fauna
Equally important are the fauna. In the region
it is possible to see western grey kangaroos,
echidnas, wombats, possums, a variety of snakes
and the waters are still rich in mulloway,
mullet and bream.
Exploring The Coorong
There are a number of lookouts which offer
excellent views over The Coorong but the real
challenge is to get across The Coorong onto
Younghusband Peninsula and to then clamber
across the dunes (at various points a 4WD will
get you across - the best place is 42 Mile
Crossing - but the roads are still very
difficult) so that you can experience the
extraordinary sense of being on the long beach
which is so integral to the area.
Woods Well
An inconsequential settlement Woods Well is
famous for murder surrounding a certain Malachi
Martin. Martin drove the mail coach between
Kingston and Encounter Bay in the early 1860s.
He stopped at the inn at Woods Well and
obviously developed a passion for the
innkeeper's wife. Strangely the innkeeper
disappeared and Martin married the widow. Then
the maid, a woman named Jane McNinamen,
disappeared. Her body was subsequently found
shoved down a wombat hole. Martin was arrested
for the two murders and was hanged on Christmas
Eve, 1862.
Policeman's Point
Policeman's Point is literally nothing more than
a caravan park and a motel. It was named because
it became a camping ground for the mounted
police. At low tide it smells decidedly
unpleasant as a result of the salinity of the
lake.
Salt Creek
Salt Creek is nothing more than a Mobil service
station with a dining room and a Shell service
station with overnight and holiday
accommodation. It is also the location of the
Coorong National Park Information Centre which
has suitable maps and information. Of particular
interest is The Lakes Walk, a 30 minute walk
which allows the visitor to experience the full
range of flora in the district. There is a
useful brochure with both a map and a
description of the plants. The ranger in charge
of The Coorong can be contacted on (08) 8575
7014..
The Old Oil Rig
At Salt Creek there is a replica of an oil rig
because it was here, in 1892, that a group of
entrepreneurs, believing that a compacted
vegetable substance (known as 'coorongite') was
an indication of oil further down, drilled
Australia's first oil well. They were not
successful.
|
| Chinaman's
Well |
Chinaman's Well
Some 16 km south of Salt Creek is Chinaman's
Well. It is a simple well dug by one of the
thousands of illegal Chinese gold prospectors
who were shipped ashore on The Coorong with the
expectation that they would walk from South
Australia across to the goldfields in Victoria.
42 Mile Crossing
At the 42 Mile Crossing it becomes very obvious
that The Coorong is not so much a waterway as a
series of mudflats, low-lying vegetation and
lakes. This is a very important place for anyone
who wants to understand the nature of The
Coorong which lies to the north of Kingston S.E.
and to the south of Salt Creek. The road crosses
the lakes and leads to a car park where, if you
have a 4WD, you can continue over the sand dunes
to the beach. The interesting thing is that from
the top of the sand dunes (which are like small
hills) you have wide and panoramic views which
allow the visitor to appreciate the structure of
The Coorong. It is easy to see the beach, the
very high sand dunes, a series of low lying
marsh and scrubby areas, and finally the
mainland. This is the essence of this complex
system.
