Garden Island is an island in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

located about north-west of the capital city of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

in an estuary system within the Adelaide metropolitan area which drains into

Gulf St Vincent Gulf St Vincent, sometimes referred to as St Vincent Gulf, St Vincent's Gulf or Gulf of St Vincent, is the eastern of two large inlets of water on the southern coast of Australia, in the state of South Australia, the other being the larger S ...

. It is notable as being a site for a mangrove forest, a landfill, a part of the site for the Multifunction Polis, a

ship graveyard A ship graveyard or ship cemetery is a location where the hulls of scrapped ships are left to decay and disintegrate, or left in reserve. Such a practice is now less common due to waste regulations and so some dry docks where ships are brok ...

and a venue for

recreational boating Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasu ...

activities. It has enjoyed varying degrees of protected area status since 1973.

Description

Garden Island is located in Gulf St Vincent within the

Port River The Port River (officially known as the Port Adelaide River) is part of a tidal estuary located north of the Adelaide city centre in the Australian state of South Australia. It has been used as a shipping channel since the beginning of European ...

estuary system about north-west of the Adelaide city centre and to the immediate south-east of

Torrens Island Torrens Island is an island in the Australian state of South Australia located in the Adelaide metropolitan area in the Port River Estuary about northwest of the Adelaide city centre. Since European settlement of Adelaide in 1836, it has ...

. It is completely located within the suburb of Garden Island, and lies between the Port River and

Barker Inlet The Barker Inlet is a tidal inlet of the Gulf St Vincent in Adelaide, South Australia, named after Captain Collet Barker who first sighted it in 1831. It contains one of the southernmost mangrove forests in the world, a dolphin sanctuary, seagra ...

. It is surrounded by the following bodies of water:

Angas Inlet The Barker Inlet is a tidal inlet of the Gulf St Vincent in Adelaide, South Australia, named after Captain Collet Barker who first sighted it in 1831. It contains one of the southernmost mangrove forests in the world, a dolphin sanctuary, seag ...

to the north, Eastern Passage to the east, narrowing to Angas Channel, and

North Arm North Arm is a settlement in Lafonia, the southern part of East Falkland, in the Falkland Islands, It is on the south coast, on the shore of the Bay of Harbours, and overlooks Sea Lion Island in the distance. In 2007, the population was 25 p ...

to the south. Access to the island is via road or via boat. Road access from the mainland is via a bridge while boat ramps are located at three places along the northern coast of the island. All three boat ramps are connected to a road system that runs from the above-mentioned bridge. An electric power transmission line crosses the island in an east-west direction to a termination point at the

Torrens Island Power Station Torrens Island Power Station is located on Torrens Island, near Adelaide, South Australia and is operated by AGL Energy. It burns natural gas in eight steam turbines to generate up to 1,280 MW of electricity. The gas is supplied via the SEAGas ...

Formation, geology and oceanography

Garden Island is one of the geographical features in what is now the Adelaide metropolitan area that was formed as a consequence of

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

at the start of the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

. Sea level rise had three consequences. Firstly, watercourses existing at the time were forced to create new mouths in new coastline. Secondly, currents arising along the new coastline formed

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...

es, a coastal dune system and ultimately the spit known as the

Lefevre Peninsula The Lefevre Peninsula is a peninsula located in the Australian state of South Australia located about northwest of the Adelaide city centre. It is a narrow sand spit of about running north from its connection to the mainland. The name given ...

all by the process of longshore drift. Finally, watercourses such at the

River Torrens The River Torrens , (Karrawirra Parri / Karrawirraparri) is the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains. It was one of the main reasons for the siting of the city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia. It flows from its source in the ...

and the Sturt River were forced to flow north to what is now the Port River estuary after being prevented from draining into Gulf St Vincent by the emerging coastal dune system with result of forming features such as

and Garden Island.

Flora and fauna

Flora

The principal plant species is ''

Avicennia marina ''Avicennia marina'', commonly known as grey mangrove or white mangrove, is a species of mangrove tree classified in the plant family Acanthaceae (formerly in the Verbenaceae or Avicenniaceae). As with other mangroves, it occurs in the interti ...

'' (Grey or white mangrove) which has colonized the coastline of Garden Island within the intertidal zone, particularly the island’s east end.

History

European use

Since 1836, the land tenure has mainly been that of crown land. A third of the island on its western side was dedicated to the South Australian Harbors Board and in 1962, the entire island was dedicated as a reserve under Harbors Board control. The first public road was opened for public use in 1968. The use of the island as a base for recreational boating and as a

landfill site A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the wast ...

began in the 1970s.

Landfill site

Garden Island was the site of a landfill from about 1972 until 2000. This activity occupied of the island’s and “served the domestic waste disposal needs for almost half of Adelaide.”

Landfill gas Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane ...

is managed by an extraction system commissioned in 2015. As of 2014, land filling is still permitted by planning statute on the island in sections 463 and 464 of the cadastral unit of the

Hundred of Port Adelaide The Hundred of Port Adelaide is a cadastral hundred covering the vicinity of Port Adelaide, Lefevre Peninsula and the coast of the central Adelaide Plains south of Gawler River and west of Port Wakefield Road. It is one of the eleven hundreds o ...

Multifunction Polis

Garden Island which is located within the Adelaide metropolitan area was proposed as one of the sites for the Multifunction Polis, which was a

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

with a projected population of 250,000 proposed in 1987 and which was abandoned in 1998. As of 2014, land including Garden Island which was intended to be the site of the multifunction polis was still zoned for that purpose.

Garden Island Ships' Graveyard

The Garden Island Ships' Graveyard has 25 identified wrecks. The remains of the

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

and wooden ships that were abandoned between 1909 and 1945 are now bird roosts and a canoeing attraction. The area was also used to house explosives stores from the 1880s. The ships in the ship's graveyard were launched from 1857 to 1920, and include the ''

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

'' and ''Dorothy H. Sterling'', as well as other sailing ships, steamships and iron barges. The ship graveyard is promoted by the Government of South Australia as a canoeing trail.

Recreational and tourism uses

Since the 1970s, Garden Island has been used as a venue for recreational boating activities associated with adjoining bodies of water such as the

and

Protected area status

Garden Island has been located within the boundaries of the following protected areas to varying extents since 1973, 2005 and 2014 respectively - the Barker Inlet-St Kilda Aquatic Reserve covers all of the island below

high water Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ca ...

, the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary overlays the entire island, and the Torrens Island Conservation Park includes some land exposed at

low water Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables ca ...

at the east end of the island.

References

External links

Kayaking at Garden Island, Port Adelaide (sic)
{{Islands of South Australia , state=collapsed Islands of South Australia Gulf St Vincent Geography of Adelaide Canoeing and kayaking venues in Australia