Central Business District of Port Augusta

Port Augusta - Port Augusta visitor guide showing a virtual tour of 'Port Augusta' linked to an interactive map with local and travel information. 360° panoramas from South Australia.

Port Augusta with a population of approx 13,000 is the fifth biggest city in South Australia located on the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula at the head of the Spencer Gulf, 322 km north of Adelaide.

Port Augusta is a genuine crossroads with roads heading north to Alice Springs and Darwin, west to the Nullarbor and the Eyre Peninsula and east to Adelaide. It is natural seaport which was settled on 24 May 1852 by Alexander Elder and John Grainger. The port was named after Augusta Sophia, Lady Young, the wife of the Governor of South Australia, Sir Henry Edward Fox Young.

The area was probably inhabited by either the Banggarla or Nuguna Aborigines prior to European settlement. The area was first explored by Matthew Flinders who came up the Spencer Gulf in 1802. In 1839 Edward Eyre led an expedition from around Port Augusta north to Lake Eyre and in 1846 J. A. Horrocks discovered a pass (Horrocks Pass) through the Flinders Ranges and down onto the coastal plain.

In 1878, the town became the southern terminus of a proposed North South transcontinental line, headed for Darwin 2,500 km away. This 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge railway was later taken over by the Commonwealth in 1910 and later renamed the Central Australia Railway. In 1929 it was extended to its last terminus at Alice Springs, Northern Territory.

Between 1913 and 1917, a 2,000 km long east-west transcontinental railway (the Trans Australian Railway) was built from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. This was built to standard gauge as part of a long term plan to harmonise gauges between the mainland states, causing a break-of-gauge at Port Augusta until it was extended to Port Pirie in 1937. The standard gauge Adelaide-Darwin railway was finally completed in 2003.

Port Augusta is a stop on the Indian Pacific trans-continental train service on the Sydney and Perth railway and on the Ghan service between Adelaide and Darwin. Two services a week for each train in each direction serve the station.

Port Augusta Tourist Information Center
Wadlata Outback Centre
41 Flinders Terrace
Port Augusta SA 5700, Australia
Phone: (08) 8641 0793
Email: wadlata@portaugusta.sa.gov.au
Web: wadlata.sa.gov.au/

Road: Port Augusta is at the junction of the A1, A87 and B56.