Cape Borda Lighthouse - Kangarooo Island, South Australia
Posted by: 
bucketeer
S 35° 45.170 E 136° 35.598
53H E 644053 N 6042295
Cape Borda Lighthouse has an unusual square tower
Waymark Code: WMGDCV
Location: South Australia, Australia
Date Posted: 02/18/2013
Views: 5
The lighthouse was built in 1858, and is the third oldest remaining in South Australia. It is also the only square stone lighthouse in South Australia.
It was built to guide sailing ships arriving in to South Australia off the Roaring Forty trade-winds and into the Investigator Straits and on to Adelaide.
In the early days supplies had to landed by boat and hauled up long steel railway at nearby Harvey's Return.
The small cannon was put in place to be fired during fog to signal ships of danger before the introduction of radio. It was also believed that due to the Russian scare the placement of the cannon was symbolic of a small military presence, and therefore seen as a deterrence to invasion from possible enemy ships! Indeed one of the reasons for building the lightstation in that position was to be a lookout for Russian ships.
In late 1999, NPWSA restored the cannon and test-fired it at Midnight 2000 as part of a global exercise of time-signals at maritime locations around the world. The cannon was found to be Y2K compliant and has since fired every day at the traditional hour of 1pm
It is only one three lighthouses in Australia to retain a Deville lantern room.
The light was converted to automatic operation in 1989.
Information sourced from (
visit link) 18/2/2013