The South Australian Maritime Museum occupies a beautifully restored 19th-century bond store on Lipson Street, with exhibits tracing the stories of the ships, migrants, and dock workers who passed through Port Adelaide from its founding in 1836. The museum's strength is its social history — individual stories of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrived at this wharf, often after a three-month voyage from Britain, many of whom went on to found South Australia's farming and pastoral industries.
Exhibits include a restored steam-powered pilot cutter, a lighthouse interior, navigational instruments, and shipping memorabilia from the port's peak commercial period in the late 19th century. The attached lighthouse on Lipson Street (originally the 1869 Port Adelaide Lighthouse, later replaced) can be climbed for views over the inner harbour. Allow two hours. Admission is modest; free for children.