Our quick overnight trip to the mid-north of South Australia.
It was a Wednesday morning when we bundled up three dogs and all the dog stuff into the car, and remembered to pack a backpack for human-clothes, and we left for our quick overnight trip to the mid-north of South Australia.
The first place we stopped was Port Wakefield. Many people only know Port Wakefield’s highway, with all the food and petrol shops. But if you drive along the main street, you’ll end up at the water.
I love this little spot. I often will stop here when travelling with dogs to take them for a quiet walk, or let them paddle in the water. We did on this trip, too.
On Wednesday, we met some lovely young tourists from Norway. They had apparently driven from Melbourne the day before (a drive of about eight hours), and were now driving up to Darwin! Hubby and I gave them survival tips and avoided any conversations on drop bears or Wolf Creek.
Travelling further up the highway, we stopped in at Snowtown. My husband had never been to Snowtown and I thought that was a bit remarkable… But also understandable. They do have, however, the Big Blade – part of the tribute to the wind turbines nearby.
They also have the bank. Sadly, Snowtown has become synonymous with the ‘bodies in the barrels’ crime, especially following the movie by the same name. However, none of the murders took place in Snowtown, and the murderers weren’t Snowtown citizens, either. It was just a holding place for the bodies. We took a picture of the bank, despite the locals disdain for the practice.
Recently, the bank was for sale and I had dreams of buying it and running movie-nights where I’d charge people to watch the movie Snowtown while in the Snowtown bank. Unfortunately, I’m poor, and my dream was never actuated. If you do this, though, I’ll definitely be your first client. (And I wouldn’t be the only one – when the place was for sale, they charged a $5 admittance for the open inspection and made $700. This is a profitable idea I tell you!) Apparently the new owners think they’ll, more respectfully, put a plaque up for the victims in the vault.
After viewing the bank we continued up the highway to Crystal Brook, which was where we were to be staying the night. My grandmother lives there. We luckily found this guy in the yard before we unleashed the dogs.
After a quick lunch, it was time for some gravestone viewing. Jesse, my husband, had relatives who lived and died in the mid-north, and hence they lie to rest in the area. I’ve started a little bit of family tree snooping, and thought it’d be fun to collect data from the graves. Our first stop was Caltowie.
It was so difficult to find the cemetery here! We did two laps of the town looking for a sign anywhere. We stopped at the town’s map – nothing. We tried to get into the pub to ask someone, but it was closed. And it was like a ghost town with no people walking about. Following a lot of Googling, we did eventually find it. Hurrah!
It took us a little while to find the graves we were interested in, but we did. So mission was accomplished. This cemetery had many little tomb markers for what I presume were previously unmarked graves.
I’ve been to country cemeteries before with plenty of unmarked graves and was really pleased to see that the community cared enough to commission these little plaques.
We left the cemetery and then carried on to Jamestown. I had never been to Jamestown before and was pleasantly surprised at how large of a town it was.
Jess and I were so taken that we went for a walk up and down the main street. There was quite a few murals in the town.
We also visited the graveyard and fluke-ish-ly parked the car practically on top of the tombstone we were searching for. Score!
The next stop was Tarcowie.
Tarcowie is a tiny tiny town that also has a very difficult to find cemetery. However, I did manage to find a guy and get directions! (Good, because there was no reception in the area for Google to save us!) We eventually found the cemetery.
We had a kangaroo observer (but my photo of him didn’t turn out) as we tried to work out where we could find the rello in question. I had actually seen a picture of this gravestone before, so that helped narrow down the search and we found the tombstone in question. Mission complete, the sun was getting lower in the sky.
We took the drive back to Crystal Brook to spend the night with my grandmother. The next morning, we had a coffee in the township at this cool little place.
We then strolled back to the house, loaded all the dogs and our one backpack and then a week’s worth of food, because grandmas, and then took the drive back to Adelaide.
This trip was mostly a fact-finding trip for me, but there are many places in the mid-north that I know and love. I frequently visit Port Pirie, and I love Alligator Gorge (Wilmington), and Melrose‘s stunning views of Mount Remarkable. I think my next holiday-style visit will be to Quorn for the Pichi Richi Railway.
I’m a big fan of South Australia. The mid-north of SA has so many great towns to visit and enjoy.
