Port Augusta (Goordnada in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a small coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the gulf's head, comprising the city's centre and surrounding suburbs, Stirling North, and seaside homes at Commissariat Point, Blanche Harbor and Miranda. The suburb of Port Augusta West is on the western side of the gulf on the Eyre Peninsula. Together, these localities had a population of 13,515 people in the .
Formerly a seaport, the city supports regional agriculture and services many mines in the South Australian interior to its north. A significant industry was electricity generation until 2019, when its coal-burning power stations were shut down. A solar farm opened in 2020.
History
Port Augusta is part of Aboriginal Australians' Nukunu country, in which the local language is Barngarla. The last speaker of the language died in 1964, but successful efforts have been made to revive it based on a 3500-word dictionary compiled in the 1840s by German Lutheran pastor Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann. Its original Barngarla name is Goordnada.
It is a natural harbour, which was proclaimed on 24 May 1852 by Alexander Elder (brother of Thomas Elder) and John Grainger, having discovered it while aboard the Government schooner Yatala, captained by Edward Dowsett. The port was named after Augusta Sophia, Lady Young, the wife of the Governor of South Australia, Sir Henry Edward Fox Young. Lady Young was the daughter of Charles Marryat Snr., who had been a slaveholder in the British West Indies. Her brother was the Anglican minister Dean of Adelaide Charles Marryat.
Flora and fauna
Marine species include resident species and migrating visitors. Occasional sightings are made of whales, sunfish, swordfish and turtles.
Demographics
The city and its surrounds had a population of 13,515 people in the . It was therefore the fourth largest urban area outside of Adelaide after Mount Gambier, Whyalla and Port Lincoln. 83.4% of residents were born in Australia and 20.8% were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. The most prevalent employment was community and personal service workers (17.7%), professionals (14.9%), technicians and trades workers (14.0%), labourers (13.1%), clerical and administrative workers (11.1%), sales workers (9.3%), machinery operators and drivers (9.3%), and managers (8.3%). The unemployment rate was 6.5% (South Australia: 5.4%). The median weekly household income was A$1277 per week.
Transport
Port Augusta is at the head of Spencer Gulf, a natural barrier to land transport, leading to the city being considered to be the "crossroads of Australia", the junction of major road and rail links.
Road
Port Augusta is located at the eastern end of the Eyre Highway to Perth and at the northern end of the Augusta Highway to Adelaide. It is situated at the southern end of the Stuart Highway to Darwin. Virtually all road traffic across southern Australia passes through Port Augusta across the top of Spencer Gulf.
Twice-daily coach services operate between Port Augusta, other country centres and Adelaide.
Rail
In 1878, the town became the southern terminus of a proposed north–south transcontinental line headed for Darwin away. As part of its commitments undertaken at Federation, the federal government took over this narrow gauge railway in 1911 and named it the "Central Australia Railway" in 1926. In 1929, it was extended to its last terminus at Alice Springs.
Between 1913 and 1917, a long, east–west transcontinental railway, the Trans-Australian Railway, was built from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. It was built to standard gauge as part of a long-term plan to harmonise gauges between the mainland states. The choice created a break of gauge at Port Augusta until the standard gauge track was extended to Port Pirie in 1937. The last component of the all-through standard gauge line from Adelaide to Darwin was only completed in 2003.
Port Augusta is a stopping place of two long-distance "experiential" train services: the east-west Indian Pacific transcontinental service and The Ghan service between Adelaide and Darwin.
The not-for-profit Pichi Richi Railway, established in the 1970s on the southernmost section of the Central Australia Railway (CAR) at Quorn, was not connected to Port Augusta after the CAR closed in 1980. An ambitious project to build a line from Stirling North to the centre of Port Augusta was completed in 2001 and now provides half-day and full-day heritage railway journeys on selected dates from March to November.