Voyages around South Australia's Spencer Gulf a popular cheap holiday (or honeymoon) from 1906 until 1955
Adelaide Steamship Company advertisements for the Gulf trips, with the comforts of a voyage on calm waters on the MV Moonta promoted. Ships on the voyages around South Australia's Spencer Gulf also carried cargo, particularly superphosphate.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
The Gulf trip was a popular holiday, as a cheap and accessible alternative to ocean voyaging, for South Australians between 1906-1955. The fare of £6 for six days enabled many South Australians to experience the romance of a sea cruise.
The Adelaide Steamship Company by 1900 was running a weekly service between Adelaide, Port Lincoln, Port Augusta, Wallaroo, Port Hughes, Cowell, Tumby Bay and Port Victoria. The service combined a booming cargo in superphosphate, introduced to iimprove sandy soils, and sea travel for holiday. The Adelaide Steamship Company ordered a passenger/cargo ship especially for the Spencer Gulf trade.
The first Gulf trip vessel was the Rupara, built in 1906. The popularity of the six-day trip, taking in Port Lincoln, Tumby Bay, Wallaroo, Cowell and Arno Bay, saw the Adelaide Steamship Company order another ship, the Paringa, in 1908. Her six-day itinerary took in Port Pirie and Port Augusta. But boom times predicted for the Spencer Gulf region didn't eventuate, due largely to chronic water shortages and, in 1912, Rupara and, in 1916, Paringa were removed from the Spencer Gulf run, partly to cover the service gaps created by Adelaide Steamship Company's larger ships being requisitioned for World War I service.
Paringa returned to the Gulf trip in 1920 until 1930, and the service was replaced in 1931 with the MV Moonta, built by Burmeister & Wain of Copenhagen in Denmark and, at 2,693 tons gross, carried 150 passengers was 288 feet long withd a cruising speed of 12.5 knots.in 1931. Her six-day itinerary was: depart Port Adelaide on Saturday and call at Port Lincoln, Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Port Lincoln again with visits as required to Kingscote, Whyalla or Port Hughes returning to Adelaide on Friday morning.
Tours would be arranged in each town plus relaxation and entertainment offered on board ship. Good meals and service, comfortable accommodation, deck games, swimming pool and fancy dress dances provided ingredients for a romantic holiday. Life partners were met, honeymoons taken, anniversaries celebrated, along with some notorious party ships for young men.
The Moonta continued the Gulf passenger trips until January 1955. Eventually, road and rail transport also damaged the profitability of the Gulf cargo trade that ended in 1960 with the Minnipa. An Adelaide Steamship press release explained: “Rising costs, industrial troubles and competition from subsidised forms of transport have recently caused a serious decline in the trading of companies predominantly in the coastal shipping of general cargo.”
