Renmark is a town in South Australia's rural Riverland area, and is located 254 km (157.83 mi) northeast of Adelaide, on the banks of the River Murray.
Renmark is a town in South Australia's rural Riverland area, and is located 254 km (157.83 mi) northeast of Adelaide, on the banks of the River Murray. The Sturt Highway between Adelaide and Sydney runs through the town; Renmark is the last major town encountered in South Australia when driving this route. It is 31 m (101.71 ft) above sea level. At the 2016 census, Renmark had a population of 4,634.
History
It has been suggested that the name Renmark refers to a local Aboriginal word meaning "Red Mud" – the original inhabitants of the area were the Erawirung tribe. Alternatively, it could be derived from "Bookmark" (later Calperum), the station founded by the Chambers brothers, from which 20,000 acres was excised for the town and irrigation project. The first unambiguous use of the name (as "Renmark Flat") in newspapers was in October 1888.Captain Charles Sturt was the first European to pass through the area in January 1830, as he navigated the length of the Murray River from the Great Dividing Range, eventually reaching Lake Alexandrina.
A settlement began to grow in 1887, when the Renmark Irrigation Settlement was established by George and William Chaffey, who created a system of open drains using water from the Murray River, (called 'Renmark Irrigation Trust') to allow orchards to be planted in the area. By pumping water onto the hot red sand they transformed it into a fruit growing area similar to California. Renmark was proclaimed a town in 1904 and a municipality in 1935.
Bush poet and soldier Breaker Morant worked locally, at J. F. Cudmore's Paringa Station in the 1890s, before serving in the Boer War.
The Renmark Hotel was the first community-owned hotel in the British Empire and became the town's major landmark.
Renmark was connected to Adelaide by rail on 31 January 1927 when the railway line across the bridge to Paringa was opened. It was later extended west as far as Barmera but then closed in 1983 then the last scheduled train to cross the bridge was on 31 December 1990.The process for packaging 'cask wine' (box wine) was invented by Thomas Angove, a winemaker from Renmark, and patented by his company on 20 April 1965.
Weather
Renmark is surrounded by mallee scrub. It is situated in a grassland location, north of Goyder's Line, with hot dry summers and cool winters. Under the Köppen climate classification, Renmark has a semi-arid climate (BSk) with seasonal temperatures a few degrees above Adelaide's temperatures, although it has many more touches of frost in winter, and it also lacks Adelaide's sizeable winter precipitation. The average rainfall of Renmark is233 millimetres (9.2 in) , falling evenly throughout the year, as thunderstorms in summer, with cold fronts in winter, and a combination of the two in spring and autumn. Record temperatures have ranged from 48.6 °C (119.5 °F) on 20 December 2019 to -6.1 °C (21.0 °F) in June 1998.
Things to do