THE ENCOUNTER BIKEWAY: Goolwa

Encounter Bay is a legendary holiday region for South Australians, with its spectacular surf beaches, a strong sense of history and leviathan visitors in winter. Now, there is a new way of experiencing it all, and so I mounted a hired bicycle for a twenty kilometre or more easy ride all the way from the Bluff (officially it's called Rosetta Head) to the once mighty river port at the mouth of the Murray, Goolwa.

After a run along the Norfolk Pines past Yilki, the path swaps seascapes for glimpses of nature as it detours round the pretty Inman River estuary past rare swamp paperbarks and a host of native water birds. The game, and the native plants made this an attractive semi-permanent camping area for the Ramindjeri people, who wove the reeds into baskets, nets and shelter.

A short ride along the Victor Harbour esplanade brings a smorgasbord of tempting detours as you treadle up to the famous horse tram that crosses the causeway to Granite Island. Its 300-metre breakwater that created a major nineteenth century port here was an engineering marvel. We push on, however, to a recent and more modest construction.

In August 2000, the Hindmarsh River was bridged to complete the Encounter Bikeway, slipping between the old rail and road structures over the longtime pleasure haunt created by the damming of the last leg of the stream by a sandbar. We dug out a couple of century-old photos of boating parties on this paperbark-lined stretch. Between Victor Harbour and Pt Elliot, the pathway sticks close to the Cockle Train line along the top of the steep sandhills. The postcard views back to Victor and the Bluff have enchanted streamtrain passengers for generations.

A slight deviation to Freeman Nob is a must. Sylvester Freeman was a whaler who kept lookout from this promontory. Their prey was all but gone when the aptly named Horseshoe Bay below was declared an official port and the tall obelisk on the nob went up in 1852 to beckon incoming sailing ships. Pt. Elliot thrived briefly on shipping cargo coming down the Murray on paddlesteamers and across to here on Australia's first iron tracked railway.

On our Postcards shoot, the bay was a placid spot for a paddle, but 1856 was a black and stormy year. Four ships were wrecked in the ill-protected cove. The port proved so dangerous that the railway line was pushed through to Port Victor by the 1860's, and Port Elliot lost its job. A meander through the town reveals a cluster of buildings harking back to its bustling era.

Come the winter, and the bikeway will give you mobile viewing of the giant Southern Right whales. They love the strip of bay beyond Basham's Beach on the way to the holiday town of Middleton. Old stone farm outhouses, a chook yard and a dairy, provide shelter on the trail as it sweeps through the paddocks behind the windswept sandhills.

Middleton itself is really two towns. The bikeway clings to the coast where the holiday house subdivisions of the last fifty years are still growing, while the nineteenth century village spans the old railway line up the rise. The long esplanade ride here is softened by endless views of the rolling and pounding breakers of the Southern Ocean.

The Encounter Bikeway then swings inland into a special, significant and far less travelled place. In a nice piece of collaboration, Ngarrindjeri aboriginal groups and the Alexandrina Council have let us into the last wetland eco-system in these parts, the Tokuremoar Reserve. The path snakes past tall and ancient paperbarks and then enters a boardwalk that weaves through a swampy forest. The raised wooden track protects the delicate ground vegetation and brings you quietly into close viewing of the tiny fairy wrens, stilts, egrets and more.

An easy ride through the holiday houses that stretch to the sea from Goolwa, and the great elbow of the Murray that gave the port its name, provides the backdrop for the last part of the bike ride. The yacht club, the boardwalk marinas and then the historic river wharf itself are all picturesque photographic shots.

A modern paddlesteamer has become a floating motel, one of many choices of accommodation at this end, and there is an historic town beyond; it is now on one end of the newly opened and controversial Hindmarsh Island bridge that arcs high over the old riverboat dock. It now provides the means to extend your bike ride all the way to the Murray Mouth.

A new brochure on the path is available from the Signal Point centre across the railway line at the wharf and there are bike hire shops in Victor Harbour and Goolwa. On weekends, you can even make it a one-way ride by putting your bikes on the Cockle Train for the return trip. It is an invigorating way to rediscover the many charms of the popular coastline, and so I hope you too are soon rolling along the Encounter Bikeway.

Thanks to Flinders University Cultural Tourism students Joel Hirsch, Michael Clark, Katherine Smith and Sarah Kenneally for their research assistance.

Details:
Encounter Bikeway brochure from
Signal Point River Murray Interpretive Centre
PO Box 494, Goolwa SA 5124
Phone: (08) 8555-3488
Fax: (08) 8555-3810

Victor Harbor Information Centre
The Causeway
PO Box 1230, Victor Harbor SA 5211
Phone: (08) 8552-5738
Fax: (08) 8552-5476

Steam Ranger Cockle Train
Bookings: Phone: (08) 8332-1401
www.steamranger.org.au

Bike Hire

Goolwa Cycle Hire
C/- AMPOL, Cadell Street, Goolwa
Phone: (08) 8555-1000 Or book at Signal Point - (see above)

Victor Harbour Cycle and Skate
Phone/Fax: (08) 8552-1417

Victor Bike Hire
Phone: (08) 8552-4458