THE TOWN OF MIDDLETON

Today, it is an Encounter Coast holiday retreat, sprawling along the relentless surf of the Southern Ocean. But its industrial origins hug the railway line as it crosses a little creek which runs into the sea at Middleton Point, of surfing fame. Middleton is enjoying a second heyday 150 years after the first, as it's become synonymous with south coast surfing and more recently with winter whale watching.

Close to Port Elliot, it's the site of a land purchase in 1849 by Lt. Col. Thomas Higgins for a cattle run. Soon after came the idea that the nearby Murray River might act as a flowing highway to take South Australian flour upstream to the diggers at the Victorian gold rush, while produce could come down to the "Mississippi of the South". And so came the first iron-railway in Australia, linking Goolwa the riverport with Pt Elliot, the ocean port to send colonial wool bales to England's mills.

The good Col. Higgins saw a real estate opportunity - he created his own surveyed town next to the new line, calling it Middleton after a place in Ireland. Officially, it dates from 1856, but there were several cottages already here by then.

To the Ramindjeri aboriginal people of the Ngarrindjeri nation, this part of the south coast probably meant good tucker, with fishing grounds along the shore. To those remarkable marine explorers, French Commander Baudin and English Captain Flinders, this was the site for an extraordinary encounter 10,000 miles from home 200 years ago, come April 2002. And their charts soon brought European and American sealers along here. With South Australia's settlement came whalers, then farmers and finally the small town on the pioneer railway.

Back to the 1850's, and Batson's Cottage was built to mark Middleton's famous brickyard. Paddlesteamer loads went up the Murray to satisfy government building tenders, and some went a few metres up Middleton Creek to build "Brooklands" cottage that still stands next to the old level crossing after 130 years. The clay pughole is now reclaimed as a linear park.

On the hills side of the main road to Goolwa, there are more remnants of the original village, including Mr. Yates' Old Schoolhouse and the government-built school that has been sensitively expanded to become the town's Pioneer Hall.

Victor Harbor at Whale of a Tail The Middleton section of the Encounter Bikeway is one of the prettiest and most rustic on the ride. It passes the old farm "Pleasantbanks" which has been home to the Basham family since the 1850's. Some of its paddocks are now subdivided to become part of the holiday-town side of Middleton. Its original lifeline, however, was the historic railway linking the "New Orleans of the South", Goolwa, with its ocean port outlet.

Eventually passengers from its siding joined supplies, flour and thousands of bales of wool travelling past the ill-fated Pt Elliot and onto the new port facility at Victor Harbor. With the arrival of steam-trains, the town's stabling and horse-shoeing role was lost, but it brought the first south coast holiday-makers to give Middleton a new life. The Cockle Train still billows and puffs its way through.

The town has moved with the times. The century-old Institute on the main road, houses an art and craft association gallery and the old butcher shop now serves up meat cooked into curries. A beautiful and striking Georgian building well known to passersby has been post office, temperance hotel, art gallery and antique shop. "Fortuna" is now for sale, looking for its next role. A walk around town is made much more enjoyable, by the way, with the help of a 100-page "History at a Glance" that's for sale at the general store.

If Middleton was privately surveyed to take advantage of the 1854 south coast railway, then its mighty mill was surely built with the same idea in mind. A spur line swung under two gantry cranes mounted in its third storey. The wheatbags were hauled in one end of Bowman's Mill, and the flourbags were loaded onto trucks from the other.

The steam-driven grinding stones fell silent forever in 1915, killed by drought and a lack of labour - the historic town's menfolk enlisted to go to The Great War. The mill still stands strong and ivy-clad and Mill House and Millbrook are accompanying cottages. At the other end of town, the holiday side of Middleton loomed large a century ago, with the construction of a dominant two-storey building on a bend overlooking the bay.

"Mindacowie" was built to be run as a temperance hotel by the spinster sisters, Jessie and Ruth Abbott, and they welcomed guests for twenty-one years. For the last two decades its doors have been open again for fine heritage holidaying.

The Southern Right Whales have come back again each winter into Middleton Bay, adding a natural heritage show. No timetable here, though, and so whale mothers and calves close into shore are an extra bonus on a beachcombing walk. The stormy surfscapes are a well-known feature of the holiday town that's expanded along the sandhills. Next time you call, or even better, stay, spare some time to seek out the old railway town that's hidden among today's Middleton.

Details:
Book featured - Middleton, South Australia History at a Glance, 1849-1999, Peter Humby
(available at the General Store, Goolwa Road)