Garden Island

Garden Island is an island in the Australian state of South Australia located about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) north-west of the capital city of Adelaide in an estuary system within the Adelaide metropolitan area which drains into Gulf St Vincent.

Garden Island is an island in the Australian state of South Australia located about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) north-west of the capital city of Adelaide in an estuary system within the Adelaide metropolitan area which drains into Gulf St Vincent.It is notable as being a site for a mangrove forest, a landfill, a part of the site for the Multifunction Polis, a ship graveyard and a venue for recreational boating activities.It has enjoyed varying degrees of protected area status since 1973.

Since 1836, the land tenure has mainly been that of crown land.A third of the island on its western side was dedicated to the South Australian Harbors Board and in 1962, the entire island was dedicated as a reserve under Harbors Board control.The first public road was opened for public use in 1968.The use of the island as a base for recreational boating and as a landfill site began in the 1970s.

Garden Island was the site of a landfill from about 1972 until 2000.This activity occupied 54 hectares (130 acres) of the island’s 150 hectares (370 acres) and “served the domestic waste disposal needs for almost half of Adelaide.”Landfill gas is managed by an extraction system commissioned in 2015.As of 2014, land filling is still permitted by planning statute on the island in sections 463 and 464 of the cadastral unit of the Hundred of Port Adelaide.

Garden Island which is located within the Adelaide metropolitan area was proposed as one of the sites for the Multifunction Polis, which was a planned community with a projected population of 250,000 proposed in 1987 and which was abandoned in 1998.As of 2014, land including Garden Island which was intended to be the site of the multifunction polis was still zoned for that purpose.

The Garden Island Ships' Graveyard has 25 identified wrecks. The remains of the iron and wooden ships that were abandoned between 1909 and 1945 are now bird roosts and a canoeing attraction. The area was also used to house explosives stores from the 1880s. The ships in the ship's graveyard were launched from 1857 to 1920, and include the Santiago and Dorothy H. Sterling, as well as other sailing ships, steamships and iron barges.The ship graveyard is promoted by the Government of South Australia as a canoeing trail.

Since the 1970s, Garden Island has been used as a venue for recreational boating activities associated with adjoining bodies of water such as the Barker Inlet and Port River.