A Relaxing Day in Wallaroo
It is Sunday, and therefore a day of rest, so long drives are off the agenda and it is time for a game of golf at the local golf course, which from our travelling observations on the peninsula seems to be the only one with grass greens, and green grass on the fairways.
The Golf Course is part of a bigger Sports Club, but it does have a small office and a sign
The lady in the office is extremely helpful and guides us on our way to join the few others that are enjoying the course today. We are warned that there is a championship match being played well ahead of us, but it is unlikely we will catch up as they hit off at 8.30am, and it is now 10 am.
It is a challenging place to have a golf course on the peninsula, as water is valuable. so the green fairways occur some distance off the tees, assuming that a decent golfer can hit their tee shot far enough to hit the grass.
View from one of the tees, showing they do not waste water on the carry distance to the fairway
From the Men's tee on one hole
We were grateful that there were no bunkers, and only a few waters hazards. Surprisingly, the green parts of the fairways were wet and soft. They must have poured a lot of water into these to keep them green, but no run and preferred lies to clean the mud off the ball. Also the greens were small and very hard, making it difficult to get a ball to stop on a green.
Nevertheless, we had a good walk, played the course in a bit over 3 hours, and I managed to claw back much of the lead Carole achieved on our first round at Murray Downs, so there is now only one point between us for our next round at Victor Harbour.
Finding a lunch spot in Wallaroo on a Sunday is not easy, but there are a couple of pubs, so we chose the closest one to our caravan park, Weeroona Hotel. The food there was good and the clientele interesting. It has been a long time since I have seen people drinking 7 oz glasses of winecask port, but they were sitting outside and it was cold and it would have gone down well with the large plates of hot chips and gravy.
There are no long drive plans today, so after lunch, which was actually quite good, we stopped at the local museum to get an understanding of the history of Wallaroo and surroundings.
As we have found a number of times now, these small museums are well worth visiting. They seem to be mostly staffed with enthusiastic volunteers, and the amount of exhibits they have collected is generally in excess of their ability to display it all. This one was no exception. We learned that Wallaroo was a quite industrial centre with a large copper smelter until 1923, and all that is left now is a large stack and a few ruins. It was also the base for a fertiliser factory, Wallaroo Mt Lyell Fertilisers Ltd, which went through various mergers and ownership changes it supplied superphosphate.
The museum has collected so many exhibits, it is a bit cluttered trying to fit it all in. In the first building, which concentrates on the industrial side of Wallaroo's development, there is an amazing range of items, including these two calculators that were recovered from the offices of the fertiliser company.
1955 Calculator, from Mt Lyell Fertilisers ( Incitec Pivot at the time this was acquired)
1907 Calculator
Moving into the next building gave a great insight into the Maritime history of this part of South Australia, where the only mode of transport around the gulfs was by ship, as there were no internal roads on the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas, and all transport was by coastal freighters. The wealthy towns had jetties and some of the lesser ones were serviced by flat bottomed centre board ketches that would sit aground in the shallow waters taking advantage of significant tidal ranges, loading at low tide and refloating on the high tide to continue on. Interestingly, most of these vessels were built in Tasmania and were called Derwent River Ketches.
There maritime part of the museum was overwhelming, with too much history on display to absorb. Many stories of shipwrecks, the wheat trade with Europe and the visiting Windjammers from Europe, and tales of locals who became coastal mariners.
There are all sorts of nautical displays in the maritime museum, the one below of a full size rowing racing four caught my interest, as I used to row in one about half this size.
One of the highlights of the maritime display, is the preserved remains of George, the Giant Squid. It seems George was swallowed by a whale and recovered from its stomach when harpooned in Albany in WA.
The connection with Wallaroo wasn't clear from the display, but clearly it is used as a major attraction to get people inside the museum.
Outside the maritime building, there are more displays related to the industrial history of Wallaroo. The photo below of a Sturtevant Fan caught my attention, dating back to my old career days making rockwool using a cupola and blowers similar to these.
What's left of the smelter site, and the grain terminal in the background
Back at our cabin, we decide to eat in tonight and watch the incredible sunsets which seem to turn up here each day.
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