The Clayton 'regulator' or the remains of it, are now being removed. How it was to be done was a mystery to me and many others and of course the success of a complete rehabilitation is not certain. The machine being use for this section of the removal work seems better suited to the job than the short reach backhoes used for the breaching of the regulator during the high water. The machine currently being used looks to be able to reach a good 5 meters below the surface and the operators have taken their work platform right down to water level so it looks at times as though they are driving on the surface of the water. The syphon pipes have been removed and as of today they look to have removed half of the remaining regulator.
It is to be hoped that the flow returns to its original path and scoures out the build up of sediment and sand along the Hindmarsh Island shore. It would be a shame if one of the casualties of the regulator construction was the historic Rankine's crossing and the wharf and loading area at Riverside historic shearing sheds. The low water revealed the construction used for the landings on the Clayton side were a corduroy of logs and limestone, with a protective pen of vertical rough cut posts that protected a vessel about 25' long, the remains of which were there on the bottom. At one time the waist high ruins of a limestone cart shed stood on the Clayton side but they were flatted, possibly by teenagers doing the kind of thoughtless damage I did at that age. I understand that a cart was kept in this shed and when the Riversiders wanted to go to Strathalbyn they swan a horse across, hitched up and of they went. Upon return the cart was returned to the shed, the goods transferred to a boat and the horse again swam back to Riverside. It would be nice to have some of this history researched and displayed at the point for locals and visitors to see and appreciate.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Showing off!
Clayton Bay Escapes took part in a display at both the Royal Adelaide Show and The Boating, Fishing and 4x4 Shows at Wayville in Adelaide. We were promoting our own activities, the Alexandrina Waterways and the Wooden Boat Association of South Australia.
Comet with the Canoe in the back ground.
Flaming Galah attracted a lot of well deserved attention....
...but Comet won the heart of the kids!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The 2011/12 Sailing Season begins.
The Royal Adelaide Show display has led to an invitation to exhibit at the comining Boating & Fishing Camping & 4x4 Show again at Wayville from Friday the21st to Sunday the 23rd of October. If you missed us at the Royal Show come and see us at the Boat Show
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Alexandrina Waterways
Many people have heard of the Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, The Lakes District and The Norfolk Broads in England, Lake Rotarua in New Zealand and Lake Tahoe in the US. These are recreational boating playgrounds that are considered significant by the local communities and state tourism regions that they grace.
In South Australia there is a comparable water asset that that remains largely unknown despite being just an hour from the old Toll House out of Adelaide. The region is obscured in the public mind by having too many names, or names to parts that are individually recognised but that do not indicate that the area is one continuous body of water with a great many variations in character and potential usage.
Lake Alexandrina, Lake Albert, River Murray, The Lower Lakes, the Lower Murray, the Lower Murray Lakes, The Coorong, The Lakes & Coorong, Goolwa, The Goolwa Channel are all parts of a single waterway. Geography would describe it as a delta. A major river feeding into two lakes one of which is also fed by two other minor rivers all of which flow into the dis-tributaries between the delta islands, fed by another river and a creek, before being held behind coastal dunes that form a shallow string of lakes parallel to the coast.
The state tourism people put this area as part of the Fleurieu Peninsula at the same time suggesting that River Murray promotion includes this location. Most people who look at a map feel the River Murray ends, as a river, at Wellington where it flows into Lake Alexandrina. However there is no place accessible by public road that you can actually see the river run into the Lake. Nowhere on the road from Wellington to Langhorne Creek is there a good viewing point of Lake Alexandrina. If a visitor follows the tourist signs they are understandably led to Strathalbyn for its range of services and to lighten their cash load. They are then sent down to Goolwa where they see a body of water about the same as that at Wellington. Here it is often referred to as the River Murray though it is actually 'The Goolwa' the town of Goolwa originally being known as 'The Township on the Goolwa'. This puts an image of a continuous river from Wellington to Goolwa.
The visitor following this route has missed the largest tourist asset in the region.
It may be just as well because once having found it they may well want to explore.
Take a short cruise. Hire a tinny, a sail boat or a canoe or kayak. At this stage of development this is not possible at Milang on the lake. There is nothing like this available on Lake Albert either. It may be these lakes present too exposed conditions with the present state of facilities and rescue capabilities on these two Lakes.
However the area between Lake Alexandrina and Goolwa, around Hindmarsh Island and the twenty or so other islands and the northern end of the Coorong present a sustainable recreational boating development opportunity for which the largest part of the infrastructure already exists and no other tourism region is ever going to construct a bigger or better waterway.
The 'Alexandrina Waterway' already exists. This year we will promte this name for this 'mini region' and seek suport for its promotion. It already has boat ramps, jetties and boating destinations, islands, bays, reed beds, lagoons backwaters, creeks, landings, rivers, headlands and swamps. It is a fantastic location for gentle adventuring. It is the ideal 'entry level' boating location in for South Australia.
The sale of canoes, kayaks, sail boards, paddle skis and inflatable craft are booming. Sales of tents and camping gear are robust (even if some of the gear is not). The opportunity to present a truly unique area and experience for the purchasers of this equipment is now before the Alexandrina Council and local boating industry. A couple of Canoe destinations or way points, requiring little construction could be set up at the water end of road reserves or the old 'water' & 'Council Use' reserves. A stop over and portage location in Boundary Creek and possiby Holmes Creek to get over the barrages would open up a number of canoe trail opotunities. Stop over points at Deep Creek, Shooting Creek, half way up the Finniss Estuary, in the Billy Goat Islands Reserve and on the reed island in the eastern passage of Dunn's Lagoon would enhance the experiences open to canoe adventurers.
It is true that the established industry want the return of the larger moored boats in its marinas and this will come with a revitalising of the regions water recreational assets. The industry has recognised the need for boating destinations in the past. Two of these were separated from the Goolwa home of most moored boats during the drought and the one at Currency Creek remains only accessible to tinnies and canoes. A navigation channel needs to be cut in the Currency Creek regulator to restore this destination to our waterway. Boating destinations and the 'Alexandrina Waterways' need to be promoted once again to the boating community and to a new audience to accelerate the rebound from the drought into a future that is a step ahead of where the region was before the down turn and drought.
In South Australia there is a comparable water asset that that remains largely unknown despite being just an hour from the old Toll House out of Adelaide. The region is obscured in the public mind by having too many names, or names to parts that are individually recognised but that do not indicate that the area is one continuous body of water with a great many variations in character and potential usage.
Lake Alexandrina, Lake Albert, River Murray, The Lower Lakes, the Lower Murray, the Lower Murray Lakes, The Coorong, The Lakes & Coorong, Goolwa, The Goolwa Channel are all parts of a single waterway. Geography would describe it as a delta. A major river feeding into two lakes one of which is also fed by two other minor rivers all of which flow into the dis-tributaries between the delta islands, fed by another river and a creek, before being held behind coastal dunes that form a shallow string of lakes parallel to the coast.
The state tourism people put this area as part of the Fleurieu Peninsula at the same time suggesting that River Murray promotion includes this location. Most people who look at a map feel the River Murray ends, as a river, at Wellington where it flows into Lake Alexandrina. However there is no place accessible by public road that you can actually see the river run into the Lake. Nowhere on the road from Wellington to Langhorne Creek is there a good viewing point of Lake Alexandrina. If a visitor follows the tourist signs they are understandably led to Strathalbyn for its range of services and to lighten their cash load. They are then sent down to Goolwa where they see a body of water about the same as that at Wellington. Here it is often referred to as the River Murray though it is actually 'The Goolwa' the town of Goolwa originally being known as 'The Township on the Goolwa'. This puts an image of a continuous river from Wellington to Goolwa.
The visitor following this route has missed the largest tourist asset in the region.
It may be just as well because once having found it they may well want to explore.
Take a short cruise. Hire a tinny, a sail boat or a canoe or kayak. At this stage of development this is not possible at Milang on the lake. There is nothing like this available on Lake Albert either. It may be these lakes present too exposed conditions with the present state of facilities and rescue capabilities on these two Lakes.
However the area between Lake Alexandrina and Goolwa, around Hindmarsh Island and the twenty or so other islands and the northern end of the Coorong present a sustainable recreational boating development opportunity for which the largest part of the infrastructure already exists and no other tourism region is ever going to construct a bigger or better waterway.
The 'Alexandrina Waterway' already exists. This year we will promte this name for this 'mini region' and seek suport for its promotion. It already has boat ramps, jetties and boating destinations, islands, bays, reed beds, lagoons backwaters, creeks, landings, rivers, headlands and swamps. It is a fantastic location for gentle adventuring. It is the ideal 'entry level' boating location in for South Australia.
The sale of canoes, kayaks, sail boards, paddle skis and inflatable craft are booming. Sales of tents and camping gear are robust (even if some of the gear is not). The opportunity to present a truly unique area and experience for the purchasers of this equipment is now before the Alexandrina Council and local boating industry. A couple of Canoe destinations or way points, requiring little construction could be set up at the water end of road reserves or the old 'water' & 'Council Use' reserves. A stop over and portage location in Boundary Creek and possiby Holmes Creek to get over the barrages would open up a number of canoe trail opotunities. Stop over points at Deep Creek, Shooting Creek, half way up the Finniss Estuary, in the Billy Goat Islands Reserve and on the reed island in the eastern passage of Dunn's Lagoon would enhance the experiences open to canoe adventurers.
It is true that the established industry want the return of the larger moored boats in its marinas and this will come with a revitalising of the regions water recreational assets. The industry has recognised the need for boating destinations in the past. Two of these were separated from the Goolwa home of most moored boats during the drought and the one at Currency Creek remains only accessible to tinnies and canoes. A navigation channel needs to be cut in the Currency Creek regulator to restore this destination to our waterway. Boating destinations and the 'Alexandrina Waterways' need to be promoted once again to the boating community and to a new audience to accelerate the rebound from the drought into a future that is a step ahead of where the region was before the down turn and drought.
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