Around the Rugged Rocks
As this article goes to print, I’m desperately hoping that we are all able to drag out the charts again (or fire up the electronic flight bag if that’s how you roll). But even if we can’t fly, we can always dream of it and have a plan, and the combination of Goolwa/Victor Harbor is one destination that should be on your avbucket list for a variety of very good reasons.
Around 10,000 years ago, Kangaroo Island (indigenously known as Karta or “island of the dead”) situated about 70 nm south of Adelaide as the Warrior flies, separated from the Australian mainland and began drifting infinitely slowly towards the Great Australian Bight. The Fleurieu (FLOO-ree-oh) Peninsula decided to stay terra-firmly behind with its eastern extent forming part of the Murray mouth, the place through which the mighty River Murray (Yorta Yorta), having trickled into being in the Australian Alps over 2508 km away to the east, meanders through three states to finally meet up with the Southern Ocean. Historically, the river has been shown to exit its delta at various spots south-east of the town of Goolwa on the Peninsula, along the coastal dunes that lovingly wrap the aptly named Long Bay.
“whales, sea lions, seals and dolphins are all regularly sighted in Encounter Bay”
Goolwa, population around 2000, translates as ‘elbow’ from the traditional local Ngarrindjeri language, and it is
