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.
