Visit Mutton Cove Ship's Graveyard, Adelaide, South Australia

Add to My List Check Off

Mutton Cove Conservation Reserve is located on land adjoining the Port River and including a bay named Mutton Cove in the suburb of Osborne in the Adelaide metropolitan area. There is a ship's graveyard site at Mutton Cove, there being the wreck of a former steel steamship, later used as a coal hulk, at the northern end of the cove, near Pelican Point. This is in one of the 5 "ships graveyards" at Port Adelaide, where a number of old ships were simply abandoned at the end of their useful lives. After working in New South Wales and Tahiti theExcelsiorwas bought in 1908 by South Australian flour millers, then later by the South Australian Farmers Union. After being sold in 1933 to the SA Harbors Board it was used as a coal hulk to supply dredges until being abandoned in Mutton Cove in 1945. The paddle steamerJupiter, assembled at Port Adelaide in 1866. Originally built as an iron barge, it was later converted for use as a paddle steamer. In 1933 theJupiterwas converted to a crayfish depot at Birkenhead and moored at Outer Harbour. Fishing ships would discharge their catch of crayfish into the flooded well of theJupiter, which could hold up to 10,000 crayfish and keep them fresh until needed by the market. Finally around 1945, it was abandoned to decay at Mutton Cove. The remains of thePS Jupiterare mostly buried in mud, and lie about 500 metres south of theExcelsior. After the seawall at the reserve was breached by a huge storm in 2016, the area is now regularly flooded by the river, and is also threatened by rising sea levels. This will cause the samphires to die off and the mangroves to increase.

Write a Review

No Ratings Yet

Flag as inappropriate ›