You never know what interesting finds you’ll discover when you take the roads less travelled to destinations less known.

We happened across one such discovery recently when driving around Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. In our travels we visited Bluff Beach on the west side of the peninsula, around 16 kilometres south of Port Rickaby and found a unique piece of boating history.

In the 1920s Bluff Beach was the site of the only land based boat storage system in the southern hemisphere, with remnants of the davit and winch systems still visible today.

The system operated by using upright timber supports embedded into the sand, cables and winches to raise and lower boats from the cliff top to the water. This meant that the wooden fishing boats could be raised safely out of the water and away from storm damage in a time before boat trailers were commonly used.

A number of these supports were erected over the years and were used frequently until ironically they sustained major damage from a storm in 1954. They were rebuilt by local residents and continued to be used until the 1980s, when eventually lighter fibreglass and aluminium boats with trailers became popular and the davits were no longer needed. Storm damage has eventually caused the loss of most of the remaining structures over the years.

Today the small community of Bluff Beach has a display of some of the old equipment, but like most of the peninsula, shacks have given way to larger homes used by holiday makers. Recreational fishing is still a popular pastime however.

Keep taking those roads less travelled, you never know what interesting finds you’ll make.

Cheers

Glenys