The+South-East+and+water+drainage

Please click here to return to Year 5 Topics The rich farmland of the south-eastern part of the colony of South Australia was swampy near the Victorian border. George Goyder wanted to drain the South-Eastern swampy land. Farmers were threatening to secede from South Australia if nothing was done to help them. A system was established so that fresh water from swamps could be pumped out to sea through deep drainage channels. This drain system is still continuing. The biggest channel was cut near Robe.

Lieutenant Grant in the //Lady Nelson// had seen Mt Gambier and Mt Schank. As a result Robe was established in 1846. It became the port for the wool and cattle rich South-East once the CSIRO had discovered that the land needed copper and cobalt to keep the stock healthy.

Chinese immigrants arrived in Australia at Robe after1855 because the Victorian governmentt taxed their arrival when they were going to the goldfields. Riots onthe goldfields had killed many Chinese so they were smuggled in at Robe.

Robe and the Chinese immigrants

Kingston was founded in 1858. Millicent was founded in 1870. There was good land at Padthaway, and later good land was developed at Coonawarra.

Further north land was poor in the Ninety-Mile Desert until it was discovered that the soil needed trace elements.

Please click here to return to Year 5 Topics