Woakwine Cutting

Woakwine Cutting is an attraction in South Australia that is renowned for being a significant feat of engineering.

Its name is derived from an Aboriginal word that means bent arm or elbow; referring to the shape of the large watercourse located near the Woakwine homestead.

The project, which started in May 1957 and took three years to complete, was done singlehandedly by two men named Murray McCourt and Dick MacIntyre. They used a D7 tractor for cutting through the range with the intention of draining swampland and turning it into a fertile horticultural and farming land.

Today, such an act would be on the receiving end of outrage from environmentalists, back then, it was part of a land management approach and its success elicited praise from the local community.

The cutting features information boards, a viewing platform, and machinery on display for all visitors. The cutting is 1-kilometre long and reaches up to 28.34 metres deep. Its width at the bottom is just 3 meters, while it’s 36.57 meters wide on top. It’s estimated that 276,000 cubic metres of material was successfully removed with the tractor in 5,000 hours.

You can find this attraction at the Woakwine Cutting Road in Bray – near Beachport, South Australia.