About Port Victoria
Port Victoria is located on the western side of Yorke Peninsula and is a comfortable 2 hour drive from Adelaide. Port Victoria is now a quiet sea side fishing village but was once a busy port exporting grain to England. Nearby Wardang Island provided shelter for the large windjammers to anchor with ketches transferring the bags of grain from the jetty. The last working sailing ships visited in 1949 and Port Victoria is often referred to the last of the windjammer ports. This era is illustrated in the Port Victoria Maritime Museum located in front of the jetty.
Today Port Victoria is a paradise for fishers and divers with eight shipwrecks around Wardang Island. It boasts beautiful sandy beaches, some of which are accessible by 4WD. In summer the town swells with fishers keen to catch King George Whiting, Squid, Garfish, Snook and Blue Swimmer Crabs. If you want to try some local seafood pay a visit to Gill fisheries
The arrival of Marine Parks in 2014 nearly destroyed the local tourism with the Department of Environment establishing no fish zones for most of the bay and Wardang Island without consultation with the township nor with Fisheries. The locals rallied and through the Marine Park 11 Action Group provided a comprehensive report which highlighted the area was not under fishing threat, the increased risk to forcing small boats to fish in un-protected waters, the reduction in town facilities and the significant loss of tourism to the town. Thankfully common sense prevailed with the Department of Environment listening to the advice of the local Action Group and the placement of no-fish zones has not impacted on recreational and commercial fishers.