From Yacka to Cudlee Creek

Easter Friday was supposed to include and ecumenical service in the park adjacent to where we were camped. However, the day turned out to be one of the few wet ones we have had since we set off, with the service moved the the Yacka Institute building (the town hall).

On arriving I found it was being taken by the local area Anglican priest – Gunnar Ripon – who had retired there from home. He had previously been the Dean of the Bunbury Cathedral and was now back working full time due to the absence of anyone else in the area. Even more unexpected was finding that the service had actually been put together by the Bunbury Parish!

The town hall is a lovely old building, in very good condition.

On Saturday we decided to follow the Yacka Historic Trail, a walk around the town. One of the other campers had commented the day before that it seemed to cover nearly every building in Yacka .

The walk itself was very interesting, although the highlight for the kids seemed to be stopping at the craft shop mid-tour for an icecream (the craft shop is the only shop still open in town). Some of the building are absolutely beautiful, with Yacka’s heyday seeming to be the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. It was interesting to see that the town had been of a size to justify a Holden dealership at one stage, a far cry from today.

While talking to Mrs Tilbrook at the craft shop we found out that he archives were going to be open on the Sunday (Mrs Tilbrook was almost an archive in herself, with the Tilbrook’s having opened up the local blacksmith’s in the early days and her and her husband still occupying the original family home in the main street).

Following the obligatory Easter egg hunt we ventured up to the archives on the Sunday afternoon. It turned out that Mrs Tilbrook had set up some special displays for the kids on the off chance we did visit. Included in that was one of the original day books from the blacksmith’s, which showed how versatile it had been in the early days. Not only did they construct coffins when required, they also organised and carried out the funerals themselves.

The archives themselves were housed in the old bank building (which had closed in the 1990’s). The original fittings were still, for the most part, there. On top of the archival information we were also lucky enough to get a tour of the town hall. This was fantastic for Liz and the kids as they hadn’t accompanied me on the Friday, and good for me as we got to see areas that hadn’t been open on the Friday.

The kids were fascinated by the projection room from the days of movies being screened there. Two machine guns, captured on the Western Front during the First World War, and hanging on the wall of the hall were also a highlight.

Easter was finished off sharing a giant Easter egg with our neighbours of the past few day Marion and Wayne, who had almost become temporary grandparents to the kids. Wayne and Marion are also travelling around Australia, but starting in the East and there travels can be found at http://www.cruising2.blogspot.com/.


Wayne and Marion with Max, Harry and two friends Harry made from Adelaide, Callum and Ronan

 Anzac Day as a little surreal, as Yacka has a war memorial, with over 40 men joining up in the First World War and almost a third of them not returning, however turned out to not have a service. This would be the first year for as long as I can remember that I wouldn’t attend an ANZAC service.

Tuesday and we ventured off to the town of Burra. Burra was the most significant of the South Australian towns in its formative years. Apparently it had around 6000 residents a thte time Adelaide consisted of only about 1000 due to copper being discovered in the area. This discovery also saved South Australia from bankruptcy at that time and several of the early community leaders were very important in the early days of South Australia. Both South Australia, with two of the early South Australian premiers coming form Burra. One went on to become the first speaker of the National parliament. The other was by the very auspicious name of Sir Henry Ayers.


The original Burra minesite

 Burra is reasonably well set up to take advantage of its heritage and manages to provide something for all budgets. A ‘passport’ can be purchased that provides access to a vast number of museums and other sites of interest for just $50 per person. Alternatively people can visit attractions individually and pay on the spot where required, with a range available free. The town hall is open, with a dress up area set aside in the old stage dressing rooms – with the clothing being reminiscent of that worn in Burra’s early days. The only cost of this is the request of a donation to assist with the upkeep of the hall. A large amount of historical information is also contained within the hall and i think it ended up being the highlight of our visit. The biggest two disappointments were the unavailability of access to the fossil of the giant wombat (the Diprotodon) discovered in the area. At 120kg and being a predator I think it would have been quiet fearsome in its day. The remains are now on display in the Council offices, however being a public holiday the offices were closed. Also, we decided to finish our visit at the local bakery, only to find that it had closed at 3pm, again due to the holiday.

All in all we found Burra to be a fascinating place and well set up for tourists, but a trifle disappointing due to a reasonable number of the places of interest being unavailable due to the holiday. This appeared to be counter-productive given that there was a large number of people wandering around and lots of travellers stopping on there way home from holidays. It was still worth the visit though.

Following the visit to Burra it was time to move on. Yacka had provided a beautiful Easter location and we had ended up basing ourselves there for longer than we originally anticipated. By the time we left we had had a couple of discussions about what could be done in the town to add some activity and better take advantage of the current facilities (not enough to make us seriously stop our travelling however). It appeared to be a place with a number of opportunities, but lacking in a couple of people with the motivation to take them by the throat and squeeze more benefits out for the town as a whole. The caravan park was a prime example, with the location being magnificent, the facilities and price attracting people who were interested in getting away from the major population centres and not being too demanding, but still being a very enjoyable site to spend a few days. There was however very little opportunity for the town to capitalize ant further on the visitors attracted to the town. An opportunity to provide some basic services to these visitors by way of simple food stuffs (bread, mild etc.) or a coffee shop given the number of people that also stopped off their as a break on their way further afield appears to be just sitting there.


At the Yacka campsite

 The next destination was the Adelaide Hills. Liz had already come across a caravan park in a place called Cudlee Creek that we had booked into for the next week (a little bit of a risk as it was site unseen but appeared to again be a little off the beaten track, but well located and pleasant.

Cudlee Creek turned out to be not far from Gumeracha, one place in SA that I had stayed before - with the O’Dea’s in the early 90’s when I had come across to visit for Easter while working in Melbourne. The day after arriving we trekked up to Gumeracha and visited The Toy Factory, which is the site of the world’s largest rocking horse. Initially we had also intended to carry on and also go through the National Motor Museum in Birdwood, but we set off a little late and then stayed at The Toy Factory for a lot longer than originally anticipated. Max was just captured by the games especially things like Solitaire and Nine Man’s Morris) while Harry spent ages in the animal petting enclosures. Climbing up and down the big rocking horse also took up a good hour.

All in all The Toy Factory is very simply, but well set up, with the number of people wandering through the toy outlet and cafe suggesting a very successful business. In addition, at $2 to climb the rocking horse and $3 for a bag of feed when visiting the animal enclosures, they appeared to be doing a roaring trade when we were there.