Port Victoria South Australia | |||||||||||||||
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Coordinates | 34°29′48″S 137°29′0″E / 34.49667°S 137.48333°E | ||||||||||||||
Population | 321 (UCL 2021)[1] | ||||||||||||||
Postcode(s) | 5573 | ||||||||||||||
Elevation | 3 m (10 ft) | ||||||||||||||
Location | |||||||||||||||
LGA(s) | Yorke Peninsula Council | ||||||||||||||
State electorate(s) | Narungga[2] | ||||||||||||||
Federal division(s) | Grey | ||||||||||||||
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Port Victoria (formerly Wauraltee) is a town on the west coast of Yorke Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia.
Like many other coastal towns on the peninsula, it has a jetty and used to be a thriving port for the export of grain to England. Its anchorage is sheltered from westerly weather by nearby Wardang Island. The windjammers carrying the bagged grain called at Falmouth, England or Queenstown, Ireland for orders of where the grain was to be taken. Many of the smaller ports were visited only by coastal ketches and schooners. Port Victoria also had an anchorage offshore for the larger windjammers. These were loaded from the ketches which were in turn loaded at the jetty. The peak of the windjammer trade, the Great Grain Race, was in the 1930s; the last working sailing ships visited in 1949. As a result, Port Victoria is known as the last of the windjammer ports. This era is illustrated in the Port Victoria Maritime Museum.
It was formerly known as Wauraltee and was renamed as Port Victoria in 1940.[4]
Today, Port Victoria is predominantly a fishing town. Activity peaks during the holiday season.