Dry Creek (South Australia)

Dry Creek at Walkley Heights
Dry Creek at the rear of Yatala Labour Prison, March 2008

Dry Creek or Dry Creek Drain (34°47′40″S 138°34′39″E / 34.79444°S 138.57750°E / -34.79444; 138.57750) is a seasonal stream in South Australia[1] which passes through the Adelaide suburbs of Modbury, Walkley Heights and Pooraka. The nearby suburb of Dry Creek and Dry Creek railway station are named after the stream.

Description

In season Dry Creek flows from its source near Yatala Vale in the Mount Lofty Ranges to the Barker Inlet of the Gulf St Vincent via a manufactured drain near Globe Derby Park. The flooded state of the plain either side of Dry Creek after heavy rain is presumed to be the source of the local place name 'Yatala' (as in Hundred of Yatala and Yatala Vale). The name is likely derived from the indigenous word 'yertalla', which means "water running by the side of a river".[2]

Yatala Labour Prison was established in the 1850s next to Dry Creek and was alternately known at the time as the Dry Creek Prison or the Stockade. Dry Creek is mostly dry in summer and flows through a deep gully at the rear of the prison with outcrops of exposed pre-Cambrian rocks that were extensively quarried as part of prison activity.[3]

Notes

  1. ↑ Whitworth (1866) p. 69
  2. ↑ Rob Amery (March 2009). "Weeding Out Spurious Etymologies: Toponyms On The Adelaide Plains". In Luise Hercus; Flavia Hodges; Jane Simpson. The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous Origin in Australia (PDF). ANU Press. p. 165-180. ISBN 9781921536571. Yatala most likely derives from yertalla 'water running by the side of a river; inundation; cascade'. As Manning (1986:238) observes 'in winter when water flowed from the hills, over the plains, the Dry Creek area became a morass'.
  3. ↑ Lewis (1985) pp. 174–175

References

  • Whitworth, Robert Percy, ed. (1866). Bailliere's South Australian gazetteer and road guide: containing the most recent and accurate information as to every place in the Colony. F.F. Bailliere.
  • Lewis, H. John (1985). Enfield and The Northern Villages. The corporation of the city of Enfield. ISBN 0-85864-090-2.


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