Yorke Peninsula lacks surface water as the first men to explore it discovered. There were however native wells which were enough to encourage some settlement by pastoralists. Another problem was the nature of the peninsula's soil which varied considerably along its length. In the south in particular the soil was not good holding soil and dams were unsutable as water storage.

Some wells were sunk and pumps installed, and water from these could be carted to supply farms and homes. As the number of homes increased with the establishment of the towns, roofs were used as catchments and the water collected in tanks, some of which were underground. Many deep bores were sunk hundreds of feet, but no all successfully reached water; results were also very unpredictable as bores laboriously sunk produced no water, but another sunk close by resulted in water at a much lower depth.

The windmills which dot the Australian landscapes power the pumps which draw the water to the surface ans channel it into drinking troughs for the animals or indeed to the farm house.

When reticulated water reached the Peninsula in the late 1950s, the days of bores and windmills powering pumps were numbered.