After a quick look around Port Augusta and some oif its old buildings on Sunday, we drove south towards Adelaide planning to visit two of the port towns along the way.
Port Germein is just down the road and has one of Australia’s longest jetties. Unfortunately, a section of it was damaged in a storm a few years ago and it is now closed. Port Germein was once a very busy port exporting grain to Europe. It was not uncommon to see 12 to 14 sailing ships at anchor 800 metres offshore waiting for a good tide or berth at the jetty.
The jetty was constructed in 1881 and in 1883 it was extended another 400 feet to measure 5,459 feet or 1,680 metres, making it the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at the time. It would rival the one that we saw at Busselton in Western Australia.
From there, we deviated into Port Pirie, South Australia’s seventh largest city after Adelaide, Mount Gambier, Victor Harbor, Whyalla, Murray Bridge and Port Lincoln. The city’s economy is driven by the huge smelters which process the raw silver, lead, gold, copper and zinc ore brought from Broken Hill.
The Port Pirie Railway Station was built in a striking Victorian Pavilion style in 1902 and now forms part of the Port Pirie National Trust Museum.
There are a number of fine old buildings in Port Pirrie despite its industrial economy including the Church of Fish and Chips.
The gates to the sports ground were erected to commemorate those who died in service or were killed in action in World War 1. Around 200 soldiers from Port Pirie paid the supreme sacrifice.
The gates were officially opened in 1924 with a large crowd of spectators. Returned soldiers, many of them still showing scars from the war, marched along with the Salvation Army Band, from the Town Hall to the memorial for the occasion. Gates at a second entrance commemorate servicemen from WW2.
Across the road is Memorial Park which was dedicated to veterans of the Korean, Malayan, Borneo, Vietnam and Middle Eastern Wars. It’s very peaceful place in which to sit under the shade of a tree and contemplate whatever is on your mind.
Travelling south through Crystal Brook, we headed towards Claire. It is the biggest towns in this wine growing area that is famous for its Reislings. From there we headed through very scenic pastoral country to the northern edge of the Barossa Valley.
The gently undulating hills made this part of the trip really interesting and a pleasure through which to drive. The countryside was covered in a low green crop with a tinge of yellow that we believe might have been Chick Peas.
Along the way, we passed a cute little stone ruin that I recognised passing on a previous trip. South Australia had fewer forests than Victoria, so its early buildings were constructed from stone rather than timber. This actually means that they last longer.
We reached our intended destination at Truro by 3.45 to pm to find the small motel where we had an accessible room reservation to be locked with no one in attendance. Eventually at 4.00 pm someone turned up and showed us to one of the five rooms of the motel. It was clearly unsuitable as it, nor any of the rooms, were accessible as advertised.
I know that sometimes you don’t get it right when booking online. The hotel was not as nice or as clean as shown in the photographs on the booking site. I am quite prepared for little country motels to be more basic and lacking in some standards but in this case there was a clear misrepresentation of the Truro Weigbridge Motel. (photo from Visit Barossa Website)
We contacted Booking.com to ask for a refund so we will see what eventuates. In the end, we decided to cut our losses. Fortunately, we still had a few hours left in the day so after calling around, we eventually found that the Blanchetown Caravan Park could provide us with a cabin for the night. It was some 50 kilometres away (and on or intended route). I was so pissed off with this situation that I didn’t even take a photograph.
Blanchetown is a tiny township on the Murray River which was an important transportation centre during the nineteenth century. It is now a mixture of historic buildings which date from the 1850s and 1860s, huge holiday homes and temporary shacks built by holidaymakers on the banks of the river.
The Murray River at Blanchetown is only 3.6 m above sea level yet it is 274 km from its mouth.
The caravan park was right on the river, just downstream from the weir and and lock number 1. It was the first of the series of locks and weirs that provide year-round navigability for river boats below the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers.
The old Blanchetown Post Office, listed on the SA Heritage Places Database, is located on top of the hill as you enter the town. It was built in 1865 and is a fine example of Georgian-style architecture.
This morning, we crossed the high Blanchetown bridge which was opened in 1964 to replace an original ferry crossing of the Murray River. It claims to be the first major pre-stressed concrete girder highway bridge built in South Australia.
We were still driving through enormous grain fields.
At Waikerie, we stopped for coffee and a look at the town’s grain silos.They are part of South Eastern Australia’s Silo Art Trail and like others, the artwork depicts local wildlife and bird life.
Further along, we found the tiny town of Barmera. By now grain fields were being replaced with vineyards and citrus orchards,
The most signicant feature in this town is Lake Bonney where Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record in 1964. He had already set a world land speed record of 403.10 mph at Lake Eyre in his Bluebird car. His aim was to achieve a “Unique Double” by setting both World Land and Water Speed Records in one calendar year. On the 23rd November 1964 he set an Australian Water Speed record of 216 mph on Lake Bonney. (Later, in. December 1964 he finally achieved his goal by setting a new world water speed record of 276.33 mph).
We realised that we were ony 17 kilometres from Overland Corner so we made a deviation to see this iconic historic pub. It was bustling with activity when I saw it on a previous vist but it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The Overland Corner Hotel is a locally owned country pub located on Old Coach Road in Overland Corner, South Australia. It was built in 1859 by the Brand Brothers for pastoralist John Chambers. It is now the oldest standing building in the Riverland and owned by the National Trust. It previously operated as a police station, post office, general store, and drovers stopping point.
We continued on to Renmark which again had some interesting archtecture. The large Renmark Hotel established in 1897 and became the first Community Hotel in the British Empire and is still operating today as a Community Hotel.
It must have been rebuilt, or renovated, in the Art Deco priod of the 1930s. There are colourful stories of Harry “Breaker” Morant riding his horse into the bar. Articles often appear in travel sections of the newspaper listing the Renmark Hotel as one of the haunted locations in South Australia to visit.
We spent some time looking for Lock 5 which is just downstream from the town but it was closed for renovation. We were still able to take some iconic river views from a snady beach nearby.
By now,it was mid afternoon and we were heading to Mildura where we will spend a few days. Leaving Renmark, we crossed the river on the Paringa Bridge which forms part of the Sturt Highway.
I believe that this bridge is one of only four suspension bridges still spanning the Murray River. It opened in January 1927. The lift-span section of the bridge continues to operate to this day with the bridge scheduled to lift at 9.30am and 2.30pm daily (depending on river traffic).
The bridge is of particular structural significance due to its advanced engineering which allows a section of the bridge to be raised to allow larger river traffic to pass through. It was built to cater for both road and rail traffic, though you could be mistaken for thinking the road carriages were an afterthought, especially after driving across the narrow traffic lanes. Rail no longer operates in the region and the track section of the bridge has been converted to a pedestrian walkway and forms a part of the district’s Tracks and Trails network.
Along the rest of the way to Mildura, the landscape was as flat as could be. It reminded us of some parts of the Nullabor but this is the huge Murray River flood plain.
