Guide to Port Adelaide South Australia Australia

Port Adelaide‘s ornate former bank and office buildings, humble warehouses and bond stores, and wharves and hotels tell the vivid story of colonial maritime life. One of the state’s most acclaimed museums, the South Australian Maritime Museum, celebrates the stories from settlement to today in its collections and exhibitions. The Port is also home to the National Railway Museum, South Australian Aviation Museum and the National Military Vehicle Museum.

The mangroves, estuarine waters and wetlands form an aquatic reserve and are richly endowed with birds and marine life, including a substantial colony of much-loved Bottlenose Dolphins.

The Ships Graveyards is a rare and unusual heritage collection: more than 40 ships dating from 1850s have been abandoned here over the years, as local waters were generally too shallow for scuttling.

Must See and Do:
. Meet the dolphins on a cruise or kayak tour of the mangroves
. Visit the museums, walk the wharves and see the tall ships One and All and Falie, which offer day or evening cruises or trips out into the gulf
. Take a Ships Graveyard Cruise on the 1942 police launch Archie Badenoch
. Walk the Port or Semaphore on a self-guided tour or with one of the Port’s volunteer guides
. Ride the carousel and the steam train at Semaphore
. Explore the bustling weekend markets

A short drive from the Port is the charming seaside suburb of Semaphore, its name reflecting its vital communications role in the 19th century. The tower on the hill was an official signal station where signalmen relayed information to about all ships in the gulf.

Semaphore retains a nostalgic beachside holiday atmosphere, with a charming foreshore with an old carousel and a steam train that runs a 2km route along the coast.