Wellington, in South Australia, is where the River Murray makes its last ferry crossing before it spreads into Lake Alexandrina. The boat is Heron, one of the department's big 30-metre ferries, and it is free at any hour. Searching from New Zealand? This is not the Cook Strait.
Status read on 13 October 2026 from the South Australian government's ferry table, itself stamped 'Last updated: 8.56 am, 7 October 2026' Government of South Australia – Ferry locations and operational status · 2026-10-13
Summer, not winter, is when the Wellington ferry has been hardest to rely on. In the warm months of 2022–23 the River Murray rose until the state closed Ferry Road on the Wellington East side at midday on Wednesday 28 December, and with it the crossing; only emergency and service vehicles were still allowed over. The ferry stayed shut through the whole January holiday season and reopened at 9am on Saturday 25 February 2023, and even then Ferry Road took light traffic only at first, so that heavy wheels would not break up a road surface that had been sitting in water.
In an ordinary year the place is far simpler. Heron, hull number 870-006, works a cable across about 290 metres of river between the township of Wellington and Wellington East. It is one of the department's largest ferries, licensed for 101 people and twelve sedan-sized vehicles, and the state counts roughly 500 vehicles a day on it. Little Ferry Services crews it on contract to the state's transport department, and it costs nothing.
Our most recent look at the state's ferry table, on 13 October 2026, found the edition dated 7 October (8.56 am) marking Wellington as running normally, its closures cell blank. The only alternative crossing named on its row is the Tailem Bend ferry, upstream.
South Australia charges nothing to cross the Murray by ferry, and Wellington is no exception. What deserves attention here is size rather than money: Heron belongs to the state's largest class, with 30 metres between its roadway gates, and it accepts up to 45.5 tonnes in one vehicle combination.
| Car, ute or motorbike | Free |
| Caravan, boat trailer or horse float | Free |
| Truck within the 45.5 t limit | Free |
| Walking or cycling | Free |
No charge, as published by the South Australian government and read on 13 October 2026 Government of South Australia – Ferry locations and operational status · 2026-10-13
The state files Wellington under Below lock 1, and it is the bottom of the river list: the table gives only one alternative, upstream, because downstream there is no other Murray crossing at all, just the open water of Lake Alexandrina. The next ferry up is at Tailem Bend, whose own row names Wellington in return; further upstream the river is crossed by road bridges at Swanport and Murray Bridge, and beyond them by the pair of boats at Mannum. Across the lake to the south-west, the Narrung ferry links the two Lower Lakes.
The town ramp sits at the foot of Ferry Road, a few steps from the stone police station and courthouse of 1864, which still houses the old ferryman's quarters. Coming from Langhorne Creek or Jervois, you drop straight through the township to the water.
On the far side the same road name carries on as Ferry Road, Wellington East, out across low flats. That low ground is the weak point: in the 2022–23 flood it was this approach, not the ramp in town, that went under water first.
The one long stoppage of recent years came in the hottest weeks: the eastern approach went under in late December 2022, and Heron stayed idle until the morning of 25 February 2023.
Your alternative is weather-exposed as well. On 9 January 2023 the department reported the Tailem Bend ferry stopped by high winds, at a time when Wellington was already out of action.
Recent programmed closures have been announced for a Tuesday or Wednesday, inside a window of 10am to 2pm. Night and weekend drivers have rarely been affected.
When the crossing reopened in 2023, Ferry Road was first limited to light vehicles to spare its waterlogged pavement. Expect the same caution after any future high river.
Long before Murray Bridge existed, this was the way over the lower river. The state's 1984 heritage survey of the district calls Wellington the earliest and the most important crossing of the lower Murray, a status it kept until the late 1870s, when the bridge upstream drew the traffic away. In 1849 running the ferry passed to the colony's Central Board of Main Roads. The Wellington Hotel dates its oldest part to 1846, when it was the second inn built to serve travellers at the river, with G. Bell as its first licensee, and in 1864 the government finished the stone complex that still dominates the western approach: police station, court house, stables, store, telegraph office and a residence for the ferryman, all in one building, at a cost of £1,435.
The other enemy was sand. Residents complained of drifting dunes from the early 1850s, and by the 1880s they had very nearly buried West Wellington; one traveller in 1889 described stone walls six feet high on each side of the road, drifted full of sand. A line of stones along the old route to the first landing is all that is left of those walls. If you have arrived here looking for a ferry in New Zealand's capital, the sibling site for that country covers the harbour and Cook Strait services; this page is about a small river town in South Australia.
Heron was in service on our 13 October 2026 reading: the government's table, in its 8.56 am revision of 7 October, had Heron working with no posted stoppage. For the day itself, ring Little Ferry Services on 8542 1155.
Then you want the Cook Strait sailings of the Interislander and Bluebridge, in another country and on another sea. What is described here is a 290-metre river crossing in the Murray lands of South Australia.
Just under two months. Rising water forced the state to shut the eastern approach road at midday on 28 December 2022, leaving the crossing to emergency and service crews alone; ordinary traffic came back at 9am on 25 February 2023, light vehicles first.
At Tailem Bend, upstream; it is the only alternative the state lists for Wellington. Downstream there is no other Murray crossing, because the river runs straight into Lake Alexandrina.
Up to a point. The state's figures allow any single combination up to 30 metres long and 45.5 tonnes, and the landings limit width to 5 metres. Those numbers put Heron among the largest ferries on the South Australian Murray.
Because Wellington was once the main crossing of the lower Murray. The government's 1864 building at the western approach combined police station, court house, stables, store, telegraph office and the ferryman's home, and it is now a National Trust museum.
No. South Australia carries cars, trucks, cyclists and walkers over the Murray without charge at all of its ferry crossings, this one included.