WEEK 4

Sunday 20 March 2011:  Following mass at Henley Beach we went for a walk along the beach path to view the mouth of the River Torrens.  The Torrens is not one of your "mighty rivers" but has a charm all of its own.  Where it enters the sea at Henley Beach is quite a nice beach.  We spent some time enjoying the sunny morning as we knew rain was on the way.

 Mouth of River Torrens, S.A.

One of the pelicans sitting on the barrage wall had a yellow tag fixed to its wing, identifying it as an "escapee" from the Adelaide Zoo.  Another pelican sitting on top of an old pylon looked a bit "strange" to us.  I have included a photo of this bird.  Can you see the difference?

 Fibre-glass Pelican Mouth of Torrens River, Henely Beach, S.A.

After a pleasant walk along the beach front path, we returned to our vehicle just as the rain began coming down.  Marion wanted to do some shopping at West Beach so we decided to have a "brunch" there as well.  We then drove over to Happy Valley to have a cuppa with Aunty Nat and say goodbye, as we were leaving on Monday for Melrose in the Flinders Ranges.  After another enjoyable afternoon with Nat we returned to the van, where I connected my Garmin GPS Street Pilot to the laptop and downloaded a new set of maps of Australia.  All went well and we had an up to date set of maps to assist us in our travels.  We were glad we had packed up the annexe on Saturday, as the rain did not let up for the rest of the day.

Monday 21 March 2011: 07.51am we departed Adelaide Shores Caravan Park and used the Port River Freeway to take us out of the City towards Melrose.  Passing through Nantawarra we were both struck by the beauty of the misty rain on the hills in the distance, with rolling grazing downs in the foreground.  It is times like these I wish I had a "wide angle" lens for photographing the beauty of our land.   At 09.43am we stopped at a very small town named Lochiel where I took some photographs of an old stone store and a large "pink" lake, which was not shown on the map.

 Pink Lake, Lochiel, S.A.

Unfortunately the rain was persisting at the time and it was hard to get a photograph showing the contrast necessary to highlight the pink colour in the lake.  It can be seen if one looks carefully at the above photograph.

10.06am:  We passed through the town of Snowtown and kept going. 

11.05: We passed through the town of Gladstone, with its historical goal, which we had inspected in the past.

11.54:  We arrived at Melrose. It was still raining a light misty rain and we quickly had the awning up for shelter and placed our tables and chairs out to sit and relax for awhile.   Melrose is a very historical town situated at the foot of Mount Remarkable in the Flinders Ranges.  For many years in the early 1800's it was the northern-most outpost of whte settlement in South Australia.  We had visited once before and found the name of one of Marion's ancestors on a plaque in a park named Paradise Square. The area had once been the site of a makeshift burial ground; however the land was not consecrated and as many of the bodies as could be found were later disinterred and buried in the official cemetery out of the town.

 Paradise Park, Melrose - 1800's.  Note the graves to the left of the large gum tree and the Court House to the right of the tree.

 Paradise Park Melrose 2011.   Note the same large gum tree with the memorial to those buried here; and the same Court House building to the right of the gum tree.

Our purpose in Melrose was to further research Marion's ancestors on the Willington side of her family.  Our first port of call was the old Police Station and Court House, which is now a museum.  The gentleman there put us in touch with Margaret McCullum of the local Family History Society and we arranged to meet her at the society's hall the following day.  I suggested we vist the coiuncil offices in Melrose to see if they had any records of the grave sites of the Willingtons buried at Melrose.  The lady we spoke to was most helpful and provided us with the site numbers and names of all the Willingtons buried in the official cemetery.  She also informed us a family named Nott was related to the Willingtons and hence to Marion, by way of the marriage of a daughter to one Charles Willington.  In addition another daughter of the Nott family married Charles Willington's half brother, William Willington.  We were finding more and more "extensions" to Marions family line.  It turned out that William Nott was the surveyor who surveyed and laid out  the town of Melrose!  The lady at the council office gave us the loan of a book on the history of Melrose; and promised to photocopy any pages we wanted.  So far the town was making us welcome!  The gentleman at the Court House Museum had informed us that one of the Willingtons still lived in Melrose and we determined that we should meet him during the course of our stay; bearing this in mind we decided to extend our stay by another day and let Marina, the park manager, know of our decision.  As soon as she learned of our purpose, Marina also mentioned Laurie Willington  to us.  We were starting to feel Marion was almost being accepted as a "local" by the townsfolk.  This was to be confirmed the next day.  Time got the better of us and we returned to the caravan in the misty rain to retire for the evening in the warmth and comfort or our home on wheels.

Tuesday 22 March 2011: We were able to stay warm in the van for a late breakfast, before heading out in the misty rain once again to keep our appointment with Margaret McCullum at the Family History Society.  Margaret was there waiting for us and  proved to be a real help.  She retrieved all the information available on the Willingtons and the Notts from a huge data base kept on their computers.  In additon she unveiled a large library of original publications of "The Register" newspaper an old Adelaide newspaper, in which were many death, birth and marriage notices of the families we were interested in.  I was allowed to photograph all these items.  She also retrived a large number of original documents bearing official records such as land grants, surveys, and grave locations. Again I was allowed to photograph all these documents.  As the morning quickly passed and we struck up a good rapport with her, Margaret told us she had a "special treat" for us.  She went to another area of the hall and came back with two items.  One was a small book which had been presented to one of Marions Great Great Grandfather's sons, Thomas Willington, as a local school prize.  It bore the inscritpion inside the front page.  She also brough a large framed document to the table and unwrapped it in front of us. The document was about 3ft x 2ft and was the original survey plan of Melrose, prepared by William Nott.  I was allowed to photograph this document also.  Margaret kept going and produced more and more information for us.  She then apologised for not being able to produce more!  By now it was well after lunch time and we decided to call it a day.  Suddenly Margaret threw up her hands and told us she had almost forgotten a book written by one Robert Flynn on the convict Thomas Humphstone Willington and other members of Flynn family line.  She produced the book and gave it to Marion, on loan, to read and return before we left town.  This book had a complete list, generation by generation, of the whole Willington family! Later that same day I rang the author, Rob Flynn, in Canberra; but sadly he informed me he had only produced fifty of the books and had none left to sell.  He took my name and email with the promise to let me know if he decided to publish again; saying he only need twenty expressions of interest to do so.

We left Margaret and drove a short distance around town to see if we could find Laurie Willington.  He was not at home.  We then went to "Bluey's Blacksmith's Cafe" for a Pie Floater lunch. This tyypical S.A. meal is a home made meat pie "floating" on a bed of mushy pea soup.  It was the right weather for one!  No sooner had we entered the cafe than the proprietor asked us if we were the Queenslanders researching the Willingtons.  We agreed we were and he produced a photo copy of the baptisimal record of Charles Willington and gave it to us.  Margaret had been on the job in our absence!  The proprietor and his wife chatted with us, and we were informed  that the historical old building we were sitting in had once been the shop belonging to one Edgar Willington, another of Marion's relatives, who had a carpenter's business on the spot in the time of the first world war.  We were shown a set of shelves, now used as a display cabinet for all their old china and ornaments, which had been made by Edgar to house his tools.  After a genial meal and cup of coffee, and the mandatory photographs, we decided to take advantage of a break in the rain to drive out to the cemetery and locate the several graves we had information on.

The cemetery is located some 7kms from the town; and when we inquired, we were informed this was so because there had originally been a concern in town that the graves would "smell and cause disease" - how times change.  We easily found the graves we were looking for and I photographed each one for our records.

 The combined Willington-Nott family grave; with the grave of the carpenter, Edgar Willington, in the foregrond beside them.

The rain held off long enough for me to take the photographs I wanted; then down it came again!  We returned to thank Margaret McCullum once again and learnt that her family were pioneer graziers and they still owned most of the land surrounding the town.  We left Margaret with a promise to leave the book she had lent us at the local store for her to collect on Wednesday.  Returning to the van was a welcome respite as the rain was coming down again and we were ready for a rest. Tomorrow would be another day.

Wednesday 23 March 2011:

We woke up and found we had no electricity!  Apparently this was the third time in several days that the power had failed.  After breakfast we went for a drive around town and called in to chat with the proprietor of "Joe's Corner Store" which was located in an old stone building.  We were informed the building had been constructed in 1927 and had been a store from the outset.  We mentioned Thomas Willington's store, but did not obtain any informtion of relevance.  We had already discovered that Thomas had run a confectionary shop next to the local hotel; however that building had long since been demolished and a new business now stood in its place.  From "Joe's Corner Store" we went to Laurie Willington's cottage and found him sitting on the verandah having a snack.  We introduced ourelves and had a very interesting conversation.  We had been previously advised by the locals that "the mayor of Melrose" was a bit of a character; and we would not be invited inside his dwelling. This proved to be the case, but the 85yr old Laurie was happy to talk to us and told us all about his family.  We spent about thirty minutes or so with him, an exchanged notes with our respective details on them.  When it was time to go, I asked him if he would agree to having a photograph taken with Marion.  He had no hestitation in agreeing and the photograph hereunder was taken outsite his cottage.

 Marion and Laurie Willington, 85yrs., outside his cottage, Melrose, S.A. March 2011.

We left Laurie in good spirits vowing he would come and visit us in Queensland in the near future.

We decided to have a "tourist" look at the town; and using a map provided at the caravan park, we took a self-drive tour.  Our fist point of interest was the old brewery where the Jacka Brothers had brewed "the best beer ever" from the late 1800's to the early 1900's when the depression put them out of business.

Thursday 24 March 2011:

08.28am: We departed Melrose in misty rain, a condition we were getting used to by now.  It was only 68km to Port Augusta via Wilmington and Horrocks Pass.  As we descended from the mountains towards the coast the rain finally ceased and we had a clear view of the ocean as we approached Port Wakefield Road from the heights of Horrocks Pass.  We arrived at Port Augusta at 09.25am and kept going towards Whyalla, turning left onto the Lincoln Highway a short distance out of town.  At 10.55am we arrived at Whyalla, South Australia and found our way to The Foreshore Caravan Park, where we quickly set up and tied down the awning in anticipation of strong winds which had been forecast for later that day.  Peter, our neighbour, advised the location of a good fish and chips shop in the CBD. We had no trouble in finding "Barnacle Bills" and sat down to a great meal of King George Whiting at a reasonable price.  From there we drove out to the Information Centre and gathered up all the tourist information available. The RAN Corvette "HMAS Whyalla"  was on display as part of a maritime museum adjoining the Information Centre, and I took a couple of photographs of this impressive vessel.

HMAS Whyalla, Whyalla Information Centre, South Australia.

After our visit to the Information Centre, we drove out to the other side of town to purchase fuel, before calling in to the shopping centre to have Marion's glasses fixed.  A lens had come out of the frame and was in danger of being lost.  The optometrist was most obliging and restored the glasses to their original condition without cost to us.  When we arrived at the caravan park we found the wind was really blowing a gale!  A strong wind warning had now been issued and it was time to fold up the awning to ensure it wasn't damaged.  This was to be our lot for the next three days!  The strong winds averaged forty knots continuously and we were also treated to some more rain for the duration of our stay.  Of course it all cleared up on the day of our departure; although the wind was still blowing when we left.  The locals informed us Whyalla was known as "Windy Whyalla" and laughed off the conditions. The poor tourists were all suffering from cabin fever as we could not sit outside and enjoy the ocean view.  Some of the oldies got quite cranky about the weather and complained bitterly to all who would listen.  It was a real shame, as our site was right on the beachfront and had a lovely view out to sea; which could not be taken advantage of.

The view from our caravan, Foreshore Caravan Park, Whyalla, South Australia.
Friday and Saturday - 25 and 26 March 2011:

We holed up  in our van for most of the time, but each day we made the effort to drive out and take a look around the town.  Marion took advantage of a sunny Saturday morning and did some washing; it did not take long to dry in the wind!   I noticed some die-hards walking around with fisherman's wet weather gear on, and carrying brand new rakes together with the obligatory bucket!  Inquiries on my part revealed that at low tide these fishermen were walking out on the flats exposed by the receding waters, and raking up sand crabs!  Most were very secretive  about the methodology involved; however one kind Italian informed me thus: One had to walk about on the flats looking for a small blue circle in the sand. This was the back of the sand crab, which was usually just exposed and indicated where it had buried itself whilst awaiting the return of the tide.  A quick rake with the implement described and hey presto! Crab for dinner!  He had caught ten that day, using this method.  I was not that desperate for crab meat and decided to stay warm in the van, whilst others braved the elements for their feed.  One day I struck up a conversation with the park gardener and he told me how he had planted several seedlings of Sturts Desert Pea a couple of years back and how all had died except one.  From that one plant he had managed to raise three more, but try as he may most of the plants he attempted to raise would die off before reaching maturity.

Sturt's Desert Pea, Whyalla, South Australia.

The photo above does not do the plant justice as the flowers were dropping off at the time.  When seen blooming in the desert this plant is spectacular and creates a lasting impression.

END OF WEEK FOUR.