When you visit the once-bustling township of Milang, situated on the western banks of Lake Alexandrina, it’s difficult to imagine a line-up of vessels docked at a 200-metre plus jetty, as hundreds of men work from horse-drawn carriages loading supplies onto barges.
But there was a time when barges and boatmen regularly converged on the docks at Milang.
Communities along the Murray Darling River system were dependent on supplies shipped from its thriving port, and local captains led expeditions that lasted months.
Nowadays, the notion of survival being dependent on the arrival of a barge seems foreign, but less than two centuries ago, this was the reality for settlers along the River Murray.
“In the period from 1860 to 1878, Milang was the busiest river port on the Murray Darling,” Milang and Districts Historical Society president Allan McInnes says.
“This was Milang’s heyday and there were all sorts of goods that went up river from here.
“We had a flour mill at Milang, and everything else you could think of – drapery, household supplies, fencing supplies; all that came to Milang and then up the Darling and Murray.”
Visionary, businessman and eventual politician Albert Henry Landseer was appointed to establish Milang as a port in the late 1850s.
Later in his venture at Port Milang, he partnered with a local carpenter called William Dunk, who was responsible for building some of the region’s renowned paddlesteamers.
For decades, they helped build the port into the busiest along the river.
During its peak, Milang was responsible for more than half of all River Murray exports – and Landseer’s business controlled almost all of it.
But in the 1880s, the paddlesteamer industry started to collapse when the railways rolled in.
“When they put a railway line … up through Kapunda (and) across to Morgan, that took a lot of the trade from Milang,” Allan says.
The P.S. Lady Augusta was a pioneering steamboat which launched in 1853 … opening the River Murray as a viable route for trade.
Landseer and Dunk’s business partnership soon dissolved; however, neither man stopped trading at Milang.
With large river-based hauling all but docked, Dunk started his own venture focusing on local routes across the Lake, and under his own name.
Then in 1898, Dunk’s business bought a decades-old paddlesteamer called the P.S. Jupiter.
“This was a steel-hulled barge repaired with engines from the Lady Augusta, (which had) very powerful engines, and so it was a very powerful, hard-working boat,” Allan says.
The P.S. Lady Augusta was a pioneering steamboat which launched in 1853 and is credited with opening the River Murray as a viable route for trade.
“It was an early boat and very basic, even though it had wonderful engines in it,” Allan says.
“But the Lady Augusta was more or less disassembled for the Jupiter.”
The Jupiter engines were “overkill” for its new role carting mail, feed and livestock to neighbouring Lake communities, but its connection to the Lady Augusta made it a local icon.
Allan says the barge quickly became “part of Milang life”, visiting nearby townships, including Narrung and Meningie, and allowing local traders to flourish.
The vessel even provided short excursion trips on the lake for the Milang community, as well as trips to Goolwa and Port MacDonnell.
For some, the Jupiter was their livelihood as crewmen; for others it hauled their essentials, and for others it was their connection to the outside world.
“The Jupiter, while it was here at Milang, was always captained and crewed by Milang residents,” Allan says.
“It was part of Milang’s life, full stop.”
At the helm was local man Captain Dan Cremer who knew the lakes and how to navigate their sometimes treacherous conditions.
“There’s different stories that some days there’d be a fog on the lake and things like that, rough weather; you know how rough the lake can get sometimes,” Allan says.
“In one instance, they set out from Narrung to come to Milang, and the weather was so bad that they had to turn around and head back into Narrung.
“He had the sense to do that – he didn’t have an app on his phone that told him (the weather).”
Cremer remained at the helm of the Jupiter for 27 years and is believed to have been the longest-serving captain on the Murray Darling.
Four years after his retirement in 1930, he was called back to navigate the Jupiter one last time, when it was sold to a business at Goolwa.
“It’s fair to say it was probably one of the last original paddlesteamers to go out through the Murray Mouth,” Allan says.
While the final years of the Jupiter’s life have been disputed, Heritage SA says the paddlesteamer was converted into what is believed to be Australia’s first floating fish depot, first at Outer Harbor Wharf and later at Corporation Wharf at Port Adelaide.
Its funnels, engines and paddles were removed, and a 40-foot by 18-foot well was built into its old engine room, where crayfish were stored alive until required, helping to regulate the market supply.
Cremer died in 1942 and around 1945 the barge was sent to a watery grave at Mutton Cove near Torrens Island, where it still lies today partially buried in mud.
But its legacy of connecting the Lake communities lived on.
“The Jupiter had become a star,” Allan says.
