Victor Harbor, South Australia, Australia

View of the township of Victor Harbor in South Australia
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20040611_Victor_Harbor_Viewed_From_Bluff.jpg
Author: Ian W. Fieggen


Victor Harbor is a small city on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. Located about 80 km to the south of Adelaide, it has a population of around 10,500 people (2012 estimate).

As with so many of the places in South Australia, the Victor Harbor site was first explored by Captain Matthew Flinders on board the HMS Investigator in 1802. Until the arrival of Europeans, the area was inhabited by the Ramindjeri clan of the Ngarrindjeri tribe of indigenous people. Flinders encountered another explorer, Nicolas Baudin, who was surveying the coast for Napoleonic France. The two men compared notes, unaware that their countries were at war with each other.

Victor Harbor originally referred to the sheltered waters in the lee of Granite Island. It was the name given by Captain Richard Crozier, naming it after his ship, the HMS Victor. The town established on the shore was established in 1863 and given the name Port Victor. The name is almost similar to another town, Port Victoria, not too far away. A confusion that almost caused a shipwreck in 1921 persuaded the local authority to rename Port Victor to Victor Harbor.

Victor Harbor seems to follow an American way of spelling Harbor, without the "u" in the spelling of harbor in Australian English. The same is seen in a few other places in South Australia, for example Outer Harbor. This is due to a spelling error made by an early Survey General of South Australia, and since the spelling has remained.

The horse-drawn tram of Granite Island
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20040610_Victor_Harbor_Tramway.jpg
Author: Ian W. Fieggen

Visiting Victor Harbor

You can reach Victor Harbor from by road. It is a one-and-a-half-hour journey from Adelaide on the A13 (Victor Harbor Road).

Places of Interest in Victor Harbor

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