South Australia's southernmost town is a working lobster port wrapped in volcanic coast, freshwater springs and literary history.
The bottom of the state
Drive south from Mount Gambier and the land runs out at Port MacDonnell, the southernmost town in South Australia. Its harbour shelters one of the state's largest rock-lobster fleets, and the foreshore looks straight out onto the wild Southern Ocean.
A poet on the coast
A short way out of town sits Dingley Dell, the restored cottage of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the colonial horseman and balladist who became one of the few Australians honoured with a bust in Westminster Abbey. The little house and its coastal conservation park make a quiet detour.
Springs and a cone
Behind the town the limestone gives up clear freshwater springs, and the near-perfect cone of Mount Schank rises inland — a reminder that this whole coast was shaped by fire and water in roughly equal measure.
