Twilight Ships Graveyard Tour

The remains of at least 40 abandoned vessels lie embedded in silt and partially hidden by mangroves in the backwaters of the Port River, in Adelaide's north west. The collection includes large and small sailing, steam and motor vessels, barges, pontoons and dredges. The Port Adelaide graveyards are made up of five abandonment sites (ships' graveyards), including Garden Island. The Garden Island ships' graveyard is the largest site, with 25 known vessels to have been abandoned between 1909 and 1945. As vessels within the Port fell into disrepair or were no longer viable, harbour authorities needed to cater for their disposal. South Australia's relatively shallow gulf waters meant that scuttling at sea was not generally an option. The alternative was that most obsolete vessels were beached and broken up at various sites around Port Adelaide - some were completely salvaged but others were only partially scrapped.

The Ade­laide Dol­phin Sanc­tu­ary is one of the gems of met­ro­pol­i­tan Ade­laide. Locat­ed only 20 min­utes from Ade­laide, this marine park is home to around 30 res­i­dent bot­tlenose dol­phins, with anoth­er 400 tran­sient dol­phins that vis­it at var­i­ous times. These wild dol­phins come here to feed, play, socialise and nurse their calves. Inside the Sanc­tu­ary you will find a 10,000 year-old man­grove for­est, as well as sea­grass, salt­marsh, tidal flats and tidal creeks, which all pro­vide habi­tat and food for the dol­phins. The Sanc­tu­ary is a part of South Aus­trali­a’s largest port, and has a num­ber of Abo­rig­i­nal and Euro­pean cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal places of interest. The area is also a pop­u­lar bird watch­ing site and shares most of its north­ern coastal habi­tat with the Ade­laide Inter­na­tion­al Bird Sanc­tu­ary.

The area now known as Port Adelaide was traditionally inhabited by the Kaurna people, who also occupied the Adelaide Plains, the Barossa Valley, the western side of the Fleurieu Peninsula, and northwards past Snowtown. The Kaurna people called the Port Adelaide area Yartapuulti, and the estuarine area Yertabulti, which means ‘land of sleep or death’. Port Adelaide was founded by European settlers January 6th, 1837, although it was originally known by the title Port Creek Settlement. Shipping began one month after foundation although at that time it was unsuitable for large ships who had to instead land at Holdfast Bay until the port was chartered.