On the edge of Australia's steel city, a boardwalk winds through some of the most southerly mangroves on earth — a fragile nursery beside heavy industry.
Whyalla is known for steel and ships, but step onto the boardwalk at its edge and you enter a different world entirely — a hushed forest of grey mangroves rooted in the tidal mud of upper Spencer Gulf, among the most southerly mangrove communities on the planet.
Mangroves are usually a tropical sight, so to find them thriving this far south is remarkable. The cool, salty waters of the gulf and the sheltered shoreline allow the grey mangrove to hang on here at the very limit of its range, forming a vital nursery for fish, prawns and crabs.
A nursery worth protecting
The boardwalk lets you wander out over the mud without disturbing it, watching crabs scuttle among the breathing roots and birds work the shallows. Interpretive signs explain how the whole upper-gulf food web — including the famous giant cuttlefish that gather nearby — depends on these unassuming trees.
It is an easy, flat walk and a quietly profound one: living proof that even on the doorstep of heavy industry, fragile and extraordinary ecosystems can survive when given a little room. Come at high tide for the full effect, with the water lapping among the roots.
