Port Victoria (formerly Wauraltee) is a town on the west coast of

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula is separated from Kangaroo Island to the south by Investigator Strai ...

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 ...

. At the , Port Victoria had a population of 345. Like many other coastal towns on the peninsula, it has a jetty and used to be a thriving port for the export of grain to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Its anchorage is sheltered from westerly weather by nearby

Wardang Island Wardang Island, also known as Waralti (also spelled Waraldi or Wauraltee) is a low-lying 20 km2 island in the Spencer Gulf close to the western coast of the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia. It acts as a natural breakwater, protecting the f ...

. The

windjammer A windjammer is a commercial sailing ship with multiple masts that may be square rigged, or fore-and-aft rigged, or a combination of the two. The informal term "windjammer" arose during the transition from the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam ...

s carrying the bagged grain called at Falmouth,

or Queenstown,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

for orders of where the grain was to be taken. Many of the smaller ports were visited only by coastal

ketch A ketch is a two- masted sailboat whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast), and whose mizzen mast is stepped forward of the rudder post. The mizzen mast stepped forward of the rudder post is what distinguishes the ketch fr ...

es and

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

s. Port Victoria also had an anchorage offshore for the larger

s. These were loaded from the ketches which were in turn loaded at the jetty. The peak of the windjammer trade, the Great Grain Race, was in the 1930s; the last working sailing ships visited in 1949. As a result, Port Victoria is known as the ''last of the windjammer ports''. This era is illustrated in the

Port Victoria Maritime Museum The Port Victoria Maritime Museum is a maritime museum located in South Australia, located on the west coast of the Yorke Peninsula in Port Victoria. It is housed in a cargo shed which was brought out from the United Kingdom in kit form in ...

. It was formerly known as ''Wauraltee'' and was renamed as ''Port Victoria'' in 1940. Today, Port Victoria is predominantly a fishing town. Activity peaks during the holiday season.

In literature

Port Victoria was visited by English travel author

Eric Newby George Eric Newby (6 December 1919 – 20 October 2006) was an English travel writer. His works include '' A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush'', '' The Last Grain Race'' and ''A Small Place in Italy''. Early life Newby was born in Barnes, London, ...

in 1939, while he was crew in the 4-masted

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts having the fore- and mainmasts Square rig, rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) Fore-and-aft rig, rigged fore and aft. Som ...

Moshulu ''Moshulu'' is a four-masted steel barque, built as ''Kurt'' by William Hamilton and Company at Port Glasgow in Scotland in 1904. The largest remaining original windjammer, she is currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Phila ...

''. Sailors on the ''Moshulu'', mostly

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

n in origin, referred to Port Victoria as "Port Veek", and it was their second Australian port-of-call after

Port Lincoln Port Lincoln is a town on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia. It is situated on the shore of Boston Bay, which opens eastward into Spencer Gulf. It is the largest city in the West Coast region, and is located a ...

; Newby did not have many complimentary things to say about the town, but he states that the inhabitants were "kind and hospitable". ''Moshulu'' was anchored off Port Victoria for just over a month, during which time she was loaded with 4,875 tons of grain – 59,000 bags which were manually loaded onto ketches at the jetty, ferried to ''Moshulu'', and then manually loaded into Moshulu's holds. During the 1939 season, '' Olivebank'', ''

Pamir Pamir may refer to: Geographical features * Pamir Mountains, a mountain range in Central Asia ** Pamir-Alay, a mountain system in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, part of the Pamir Mountains *A pamir (valley) is a high plateau or valley surro ...

'', ''

Pommern Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

'' and ''

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

'' were also loaded with grain at Port Victoria – some of these vessels now have streets in Port Victoria named after them. Newby wrote about his experiences on the round-trip from Ireland to South Australia in his book ''

The Last Grain Race ''The Last Grain Race'' is a 1956 book by Eric Newby, a travel writer, about his time spent on the four-masted steel barque ''Moshulu'' during the vessel's last voyage in the Australian grain trade. Background to the book In 1938 the 18-year-o ...

'' (1956), and several pictures of Port Victoria as it appeared in 1939 are included in his photo-essay of his voyage, ''Learning the Ropes''. Port Victoria is also the setting for Phillip Gwynne's classic Young Adult novel ''

Deadly, Unna? ''Deadly, Unna?'' is a 1998 work of teenage fiction and is Phillip Gwynne's debut novel. Set in a small coastal town in South Australia, it is a rites-of-passage story about the interracial friendship between Australian rules football teammate ...

'' (1998) and its sequel ''Nukkin Ya'' (2000).

References

External links

Yorke Peninsula: Port Victoria
{{authority control Coastal towns in South Australia Ports and harbours of South Australia Spencer Gulf Yorke Peninsula

In literature

References

Further reading

External links