Port Adelaide Dolphin and Ships Graveyard Cruise

Port Adelaide and the historic waterfront where you board

Port Adelaide was founded in 1840 as the harbour for the new colony of South Australia, and for more than a century almost everything that arrived in the state came across its wharves. The cruise boards at the wharf on McLaren Parade, in the middle of the heritage precinct, where stone warehouses, the old customs buildings and the red-and-white lighthouse of 1869 still line the river. It is about 20 minutes from the centre of Adelaide by car or train, making the Port Adelaide dolphin cruise one of the easiest half-day outings from the city.

As the boat pulls away you get the best view of the waterfront, with its wool stores, the maritime museum and the Birkenhead Bridge, and the commentary explains how the port grew, declined and was revived as a place for museums, markets and weekend strolls. Board 15 minutes before the 11:00 or 13:00 departure; things to do in Port Adelaide before or after include the maritime, railway and aviation museums within a few minutes' walk.

The Port River and the inner harbour

The Port River is a tidal estuary rather than a true river, which is why its water is salty and clear enough for dolphins and why mangroves grow along its banks. The cruise follows the inner harbour past working shipyards, the historic swing and lifting bridges, old wharves and newer waterfront housing, before the banks open out towards Barker Inlet and the islands of the estuary. The commentary points out the sites of shipbuilding yards, the quarantine station and the ferries that once linked the port to the city.

A Port River cruise is a gentle experience: the water is sheltered, the boat moves slowly and there is plenty of time to move around the deck for photographs. Children enjoy spotting the bridges and the birds, while older travellers appreciate the easy boarding and the seating. About 1.5 hours is long enough to reach the sanctuary and the graveyard and return without rushing.

The Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary and its wild dolphins

The Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary was declared in 2005 to protect the Port River and Barker Inlet estuary and the bottlenose dolphins that live here permanently, a few kilometres from the centre of the city. The estuary's seagrass meadows, saltmarsh, tidal flats and mangrove creeks are rich feeding grounds, and the dolphins hunt fish along the channels used by the cruise. The crew knows the stretches where they are most often seen and slows the boat whenever fins appear, and the commentary explains how individual dolphins are recognised and protected.

Because these are wild animals, dolphin sightings cannot be guaranteed, but they are a regular feature of dolphin watching in Adelaide from this boat. Watching from a stable deck, with a railing and a seat, is the easiest way for young children and visitors with reduced mobility to see the dolphins; if you would rather be on the water at their level, our Dolphin Sanctuary kayaking tour explores the same creeks by kayak.

The ships' graveyard at Garden Island

Along the North Arm of the river, beside Garden Island, lies the ships' graveyard in Adelaide, where dozens of ships were run up onto the mud and abandoned between the early 1900s and the 1940s once they were too old to be worth repairing. Iron steamers, wooden sailing ships, barges and dredgers were left to the tide, and today their rusting bows, ribs and boilers rise out of the mangroves. The oldest wreck is a wooden barque built in the 1850s.

The boat cruises slowly past the wrecks while the commentary tells the story of each vessel and of the trade that brought it here, from coastal steamers to river barges. It is the most atmospheric part of the cruise and the best moment for photographs, especially at low tide when more of the hulls are exposed. The graveyard is reached only by water or by a track on Garden Island, which is why the cruise is the simplest way to see it.

The International Bird Sanctuary and the mangroves of Barker Inlet

On the way to and from the graveyard the boat passes the edge of the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary, a protected stretch of coast, mangroves and tidal flats running north from the Port River that is one of the most important sites in the country for migratory shorebirds. Birds that breed in the Arctic fly to these flats every southern summer to feed, joining the resident Australian pelicans, black swans, herons, egrets, cormorants and ibis that live in the estuary all year.

From the deck you see pelicans resting on the sandbanks, cormorants drying their wings on the mangrove branches and, in summer, flocks of small waders feeding at the water's edge, while the grey mangrove forest that shelters them has been growing here for thousands of years. The commentary explains why the mangroves and seagrass matter for fish, birds and dolphins alike, so the cruise doubles as a gentle introduction to the whole ecosystem of the Port River estuary.