THE AGE OF MOTORING ALONG THE COORONG ROAD

taken from European Heritage of the Coorong, Penny Rudduck May 1982

The Coorong road developed a reputation as a difficult track becoming the challenge of early south Australian motorists.

In 1903, Ben Thomson, a founding member of the R.A.A., was the first person to drive a motor vehicle between Adelaide to Melbourne, in a 6 h.p. De Dion Bouton. The 596 mile trip took three days, nineteen hours and he arrived at Melbourne with eyes so sore he could hardly see and cut and swollen lips. John Steel, who in 1904 rode a 23/ 4 h.p. Clyde motorcycle between Adelaide to Melbourne described the track as a "continuous series of fearful sand patches ploughed up by cross tracks in all directions through vehicles vainly endeavouring to find a place where the ground was firmer" (Nicol, S. 1978 p.l7) Nicol reports the tribulations of one early motorist who covered twelve metres in four hours and took eighteen hours to cross a single sand drift.

Perhaps one of the most well noted trips is that of Murray Aunger and Bertie Barr Smith, who on 8th February, 1909, made a successful attempt in their 60 h.p. Napier on the Adelaide to Melbourne record, setting a new time of twenty two hours twenty four minutes. These motoring pioneers made a stopover at Cantara Homestead.

Early road maps give the mileage distance from Meningie and Kingston and the mile posts along the lengthy Coorong stretch became landmarks for travellers. The road maps also warn of the hazardous sections of the road and of the various gates along the route. One landmark was the cove or Titree Archway where teatrees enclosed the motorist. This was located near the southern tip of the southern Lagoon. At the second gate from Salt Creek, the traveller was told to look for the pipeclay lakes. The smooth pipeclay lakes, which gave respite to the early motorist, witnessed speed trials in the 1930s. Triumph motorcycles and Alfa Romeo racing cars were put through their paces on the southern-most lake of the Coorong.

After the First World War, the motoring traffic along the Coorong road increased and Mr. Jim Trevarrow, who lived at Policemans Point, had an adjunct to his income, helping motorists tow their cars from the sand drifts and potholes. Even after the Second World War, the Coorong Road could be a gruelling crossing with sections of the road being unmade tracks. It was the completion of the new road in 1957 that facilitates the motorist's present ease of access along the Coorong.