Port Augusta is known as a ‘working class town’, which is
ironic because no one there has a job. The city has been redundant since its port ceased to operate in 1973, making half of its name a
lie. Attempts to resuscitate ‘Portagutter’ by kick-starting a new economy predicated on polluting the atmosphere with copious amounts of carbon ended with the closure of all of its coal-fired power plants in the 2010s. Now little more than a blight on the South
Australian desert landscape, Port Augusta exists purely so
people can confuse it with Port Pirie and Port Lincoln.
Port Augusta’s most famous feature is its putrid stench, courtesy of a dried-up tyre-filled mud puddle called
Bird Lake, which makes the entire city smell almost as
bad as its residents. The place is also cursed with a punishing climate that sees the
mercury push 50 degrees, forcing feral locals to cool off in the flooded rubbish tip known as the Spencer Gulf. 500 algae-encrusted shopping trolleys were recently fished up from waters near the wharf to prevent jumpers from landing on them, but a sizeable trolley reef remains.
