Encounter Bay

---

title: "Encounter Bay" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["encounter-bay", "whaling-stations-in-australia"] description: "Bay on the south central coast of South Australia" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_Bay" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Bay on the south central coast of South Australia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox body of water"]

Field	Value
name	Encounter Bay
image	Encounter bay pt elliot.jpg
image_size	250
caption	Encounter Bay from Port Elliot, South Australia
pushpin_map	Australia South Australia
pushpin_relief	1
pushpin_label_position	bottom
pushpin_map_caption	Location in South Australia
location	Fleurieu and Sir Richard Peninsulas, South Australia
coords
coordinates_footnotes
type	Bay
inflow	River Murray
basin_countries	Australia
islands	Granite Island, Pullen Island, Seal Island, Wright Island
cities	Victor Harbor
Goolwa, Middleton & Port Elliot
::

| name = Encounter Bay | image = Encounter bay pt elliot.jpg | image_size = 250 | caption = Encounter Bay from Port Elliot, South Australia | pushpin_map = Australia South Australia | pushpin_map_alt = | pushpin_relief = 1 | pushpin_label_position = bottom | pushpin_map_caption = Location in South Australia | image_bathymetry = | caption_bathymetry = | location = Fleurieu and Sir Richard Peninsulas, South Australia | coords = | coordinates_footnotes = | type = Bay | inflow = River Murray | outflow = | catchment = | basin_countries = Australia | length = | width = | area = | depth = | max-depth = | volume = | residence_time = | salinity = | shore = | frozen = | islands = Granite Island, Pullen Island, Seal Island, Wright Island | trenches = | benches = | cities = Victor Harbor Goolwa, Middleton & Port Elliot

Encounter Bay is a bay in the Australian state of South Australia located on the state's south central coast about 100 km south of the state capital of Adelaide. It was named by Matthew Flinders after his encounter on 8 April 1802 with Nicolas Baudin, the commander of the Baudin expedition of 1800–03. It is the site of both the mouth of the River Murray and the regional city of Victor Harbor. It is one of four "historic bays" located on the South Australian coast.

Extent

There are at least two definitions of the bay’s extent:

• Firstly, the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency states that Newland Head is its westerly extremity while the mouth of the River Murray is the easterly extremity.

• Secondly, Australian authorities consider the bay’s extent consists of all of the sea north of a line running east from the southern tip of Rosetta Head to the Younghusband Peninsula. Encounter Bay is one of four bays on the South Australian coast considered by the Australian government to be a "historic bay" under the Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973, and was proclaimed as such in 1987 and again in both 2006 and 2016, with the result that the mouth of the bay is on the territorial seas baseline and the waters within the bay are internal waters as per the definition used in United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

History

Aboriginal occupation

Although traditional ownership has long been ascribed to the Ramindjeri clan of the Ngarrindjeri people, linguist Rob Amery of the University of Adelaide suggested in a 1998 paper that Kaurna traditional lands "may have extended as far eastward as Encounter Bay and that the occupation of Encounter Bay by the Ramindjeri in the late 1830s may have been a response to the activities of whalers in the area". He also notes that the "Encounter Bay people" mentioned in 1836 by Colonel Light and his party at Rapid Bay in 1836 spoke the Kaurna language.

The Ramindjeri language name for Encounter Bay was Ramong, although some sources ascribe this name to The Bluff only.

European arrival

Encounter Bay was named by Matthew Flinders on 8 April 1802 after his encounter with Nicolas Baudin, both of whom were charting the Australian coastline for their respective countries (Britain and France). The encounter between the scientists was peaceful, even though they believed their countries were at war at the time. (Both parties were unaware that the Treaty of Amiens, ceasing hostilities, had been signed on 25 March 1802.) | last = Flinders | first = Matthew | author-link = Matthew Flinders | title = A Voyage to Terra Australis : undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country, and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803 in His Majesty's ship the Investigator, and subsequently in the armed vessel Porpoise and Cumberland Schooner; with an account of the shipwreck of the Porpoise, arrival of the Cumberland at Mauritius, and imprisonment of the commander during six years and a half in that island. | url = http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=229&fk_files=1486723 | access-date = 3 January 2014 | edition = Facsimile | year = 1966 | orig-year = 1814 | publisher = Libraries Board of South Australia | location = Adelaide | page = 263

After British colonisation of South Australia, shore-based bay whaling stations operated on the coast of Encounter Bay from June 1837 at Police Point, Granite Island and Rosetta Head. The last of these closed down in 1855. They were the most successful and longest lasting whaling stations in South Australia. An attempt was made to re-establish the fishery in 1871–72.

Description

The bay's coastline is the site for the following settlements: Victor Harbor, Port Elliot, Middleton and Goolwa.

The Murray, Inman and Hindmarsh Rivers drain into the bay.

Islands located within Encounter Bay include (from west to east): Wright Island, Granite Island, Seal Island (also known as Seal Rock) and Pullen Island.

Protected areas

The following protected areas exist within the bay’s waters: the Granite Island Recreation Park, the Pullen Island Conservation Park and the West Island Conservation Park, while the bay’s waters are within the boundaries of the Encounter Marine Park. The following protected areas adjoin the shores of the bay: the Coorong National Park.

References

References

1. {{Gazetteer of Australia
2. {{cite enroute. 175. 2017. 227
3. "Seas and Submerged Lands (Historic Bays) Proclamation 2006". Commonwealth of Australia.
4. (15 February 2006). "Seas and Submerged Lands (Historic Bays) Proclamation 2006". Commonwealth of Australia.
5. (10 March 2016). "Seas and Submerged Lands (Historic Bays) Proclamation 2016". Commonwealth of Australia.
6. "Map of Indigenous Australia".
7. Amery, Rob. (2016). "Warraparna Kaurna!: Reclaiming an Australian language". [[University of Adelaide]] Press.
8. (17 November 2020). "Ramindjeri".
9. "Ramindjeri (SA)".
10. "Encounter Bay (1840-1848)". [[Griffith University]].
11. (3 June 1837). "South Australian Company.". South Australian Gazette And Colonial Register.
12. (1991). "Whaling and sealing sites in South Australia". State Heritage Branch, Dept. of Environment and Planning.
13. [http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl?mode=place_detail;search=town%3DEncounter%2520Bay%3Bkeyword_PD%3Don%3Bkeyword_SS%3Don%3Bkeyword_PH%3Don%3Blatitude_1dir%3DS%3Blongitude_1dir%3DE%3Blongitude_2dir%3DE%3Blatitude_2dir%3DS%3Bin_region%3Dpart;place_id=101422 Encounter Bay Region, Victor Harbor, SA, Australia], Website Department of the Environment and Energy Australian Government, 27/03/2001
14. "South Australian Property and Planning Atlas".
15. "Island Conservation Parks of Backstairs Passage and Encounter Bay". Department of Environment Water & Natural Resources.
16. "Encounter Marine park". Department of Environment Water & Natural Resources.
17. "Coorong National Park". Department of Environment Water & Natural Resources.
18. "Granite Island Recreation Park". Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::