Gulf cruise on the Moonta |
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| Title : | Gulf cruise on the Moonta |
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| Source : | South Australian homes and gardens, August 1937, p. 9 | ||
| Place Of Creation : | Adelaide | ||
| Publisher : | Shipping Newspapers | ||
| Date of creation : | 1937 | ||
| Format : | Manuscript | ||
| Contributor : | State Library catalogue | ||
| Catalogue record | |||
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| Description : |
The advertisement for the Adelaide Steamship Company's popular Gulf Trip features the MV Moonta which operated from 1931 to 1955. The Gulf Trip was one of the most popular South Australian holiday tours for fifty years. Moonta is the best remembered of the several ships which operated on the Gulf Trip, which in addition to passengers, carried cargo. The ship visited Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie, leaving Port Adelaide on Saturday and returning on Friday morning. Tours would be arranged in each of the towns in addition to the relaxation and entertainment offered on board ship. Good meals and service, comfortable accommodation, deck games, swimming pool and fancy dress dances provided all the ingredients for a romantic holiday. Life partners were met, honeymoons taken and anniversaries celebrated aboard the Moonta and her sister ships Rupara and Paringa. The Moonta was built by Burmeister & Wain of Copenhagen in Denmark in 1931. She arrived in Adelaide in November of that year and made her last run of the Gulf Trip in January 1955. At 2,693 tons gross, Moonta carried 150 passengers was 288 feet long and had a cruising speed of 12.5 knots. Eventually road and rail transport damaged the profitability of the cargo trade and hence of the Gulf Trips. A press release at the time of the withdrawal of the Minnipa in 1960 said 'Rising costs, industrial troubles and competition from subsidised forms of transport have recently caused a serious decline in the trading of companies predominantly in the coastal shipping of general cargo.' In the summer of 2008, MV Athena the flagship of Classic International Cruises operated a number of short cruises out of Port Adelaide. The ship visited Kangaroo Island and Port Lincoln, a shortened version of the classic Gulf trip once offered by Adelaide Steamship Company. Athena is a 16144 tonne vessel capable of carrying about 600 passengers. Originally built in 1948, the ship underwent an extensive refit in 1994. In the summer of 2009 the cruise line intends to return and will also offer cruises to Tasmania and to Fremantle in Western Australia. |
| Subjects | |
| Related names : | Moonta (ship) Adelaide Steamship Company |
| Coverage year : | 1937 |
| Place : | Spencer Gulf (S. Aust.) |
| Region : | Eyre Peninsula and Far West Coast |
| Further reading : | Page, Michael F. Fitted for the voyage: the Adelaide Steamship Company, 1875-1975 Adelaide: Rigby, 1975 The Gulf trip edited by Dieuwke Jessop Port Adelaide, S. Aust.: S.A. Maritime Museum, 1988 About the Gulf trip [Adelaide]: Adelaide Steamship Coy. Ltd., [1907?] |
| Internet links : | |
| Exhibitions and events : | State Library of South Australia: Mortlock Wing exhibitions. Wooden Walls and Iron Sides August 2004- |
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