MORGAN SA and the MURRAY RIVER

  I finally made it to the Murray at the spotless little riverside township of Morgan, just downstream of where the river turns from flowing roughly westwards to roughly southwards. I stopped for a while to explore a bit along the short, almost deserted main street. Morgan was founded in 1878 and grew to become one of the busiest inland ports in SA at the height of the paddle steamer era, with six trains a day departing to carry freight from the Murray to the sea at Port Adelaide. As road transport improved through the early part of the 20th century, river transport declined. The railway to Morgan finally closed in 1969.