Best 24 Real Estate Agents In Port Noarlunga [2025]

Port Noarlunga Suburb Overview

Port Noarlunga is a suburb in the City of Onkaparinga, South Australia. It is a small sea-side suburb, population 2,549, about 30 km to the south of Adelaide and was originally created as a sea port. This area is now popular as a holiday destination or for permanent residents wishing to commute to Adelaide or work locally. There is a jetty that leads nearly all the way to one of South Australia’s few natural reefs. The beach is large and very long and has reasonable surfing in the South Port area whose name is taken from its location – ‘South of the Port’.

The suburb is bounded to the south by the Onkaparinga River, including a tidal estuary. It is bounded to the west by the Gulf St Vincent and to the north and east by artificial boundaries.

In pre-European times, this area along with most of the Adelaide plains was inhabited by the Kaurna tribe.

The first record of the area was provided by Captain Collet Barker who explored the Onkaparinga River on April 15, 1831 in his search for a Gulf outlet from Lake Alexandrina. In early 1837, while camped by the Sturt River near Marion, South Australia’s only two horses slipped their tether ropes during the night and the overseer of stock, C.W. Stuart led an expedition to recover them. Taking a botanist to record the plants encountered, the expedition searched much of present day Noarlunga before finding the horses near the Onkaparinga River. The men being on foot were however, unable to capture them. In June 1837, Colonel William Light led an overland expedition to arrest whalers who had been abducting native women at Encounter Bay, 100 km south of Adelaide. Cresting Tapleys Hill they named the valley Morphett Vale after expedition member John Morphett. They reached the southern end of the Mount Lofty Ranges before impenetrable scrub forced them to return to Adelaide. The following year, John McLaren of the Survey Dept. divided the area south of Adelaide into three districts based on the reports made by the Stuart and Light expeditions. B and C districts, the present Noarlunga District, was opened to public selection in February 1839 and by 1841 the population was estimated to be about 150. The government town of Port Noarlunga was surveyed and offered for sale on 14 April 1859.

The township was originally settled as a port for the produce from the proposed market town of Noarlunga a few kilometres upstream. The Onkaparinga River mouth proved unsuitable to coastal ketches, so produce was barged down river to the sandhills and then taken by horse drawn rail trucks to the jetty. The current jetty was constructed in 1921 and is the second jetty to have been constructed on that site. The original jetty, 30 metres south of the current jetty, was constructed in 1855, but was destroyed in several severe storms in the early 1900s.

In the early 20th century Port Noarlunga was a popular coastal holiday destination, with the beach proving an attraction with its natural beauty and in summer amusement fairs were run, as well as row boating on the river estuary. Port Noarlunga Post Office opened around November 1909.

With the gradual incursion of urban sprawl, and in particular immigration-fuelled expansion in the 1960s and 1970s, the township eventually became an outer suburb of Adelaide. The South Australian Housing Trust in particular developed housing in the nearby areas of Christies Beach and O’Sullivan Beach and with the extension of the metropolitan rail line to adjacent Noarlunga Centre in 1978 the township of Port Noarlunga had largely lost its attraction as a holiday destination.

It is now largely occupied by permanent residents, although it still retains much of its early village charm. The City of Onkaparinga council has assisted with maintaining this spirit of the old township, working with the State government in the late 1990s to divert through road traffic around the town centre.

The beach and the jetty are the biggest attractions to visitors. The close proximity of a diverse range of aquatic features making this area stand out from other coastal locations. A narrow reef about 400 metres offshore is approximately 1.6 km long and was formed from a consolidated Pleistocene sand dune. The reef runs parallel to shore and has two sections, with the area separating them called The Gap.

In 2012, kayak rentals became available next to the Canoe club on Wearing Street through Easy Kayaks Rentals & Sales, re-creating the fun and recreational experiences of boating on the estuary during the early part of the 20th Century.

There is also a small main street that serves visitors and locals in this beach area. It has several cafes, a pub, a fish and chip shop, a surf shop and several other businesses providing services to the locals. The old “Institute” building, built in 1924, is now the community centre.

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