A somewhat misleading title. Anomalous even.

I do have a number of things to say about the corellas of Strathalbyn. If you’ve been to Strathalbyn it is very likely you will have too. They are simply unavoidable to the extent that South Australia’s Department of the Environment has been disposed to post about them. ‘Little Corellas [their formal name] can damage crops, recreational spaces, vehicles, electrical wiring and wooden structures, defoliate trees and can generally be a social nuisance – think poop, squawking and chewing everything. Particularly large populations – hundreds of Little Corellas – can be seen at Strathalbyn.’

And, just for example, if you look at the palm tree, the long skinny one in the middle of this photo, it no longer has a crown — no fronds, no nothing, just a trunk. A palm tree! So apparently unappetising. And the corellas did that over the course of one year. The punishment of the Norfolk Pines to which we will return is also in evidence.

But there’s more to Strathalbyn and surrounds than the corellas. So much more we have made it a waystation of our summer holidays for four consecutive years and it still holds mysteries.

Is Strathalbyn worth a visit? South Australia’s Department of Tourism thinks so.

‘Unearth the quaint, country-style markets, boutique shops and beautiful heritage buildings in the historic main streets, enjoy brunch at one of the many cafes and restaurants or stroll through the picturesque parklands on the banks of the River Angas.’

[Just incidentally, isn’t that an interesting piece of prose. The verb ‘unearth’ (from where or what? A mine?), the adjectives ‘country-style’, ’boutique’, ‘beautiful’ coupled with ‘heritage’, the reference to ‘brunch’. Brunch. Who’s writing? And for who? Prue from Portsea? Just which travellers would that persuade to visit … and would you want to have them stay? I think you could probably be confident about the certainty of their disappointment.]

We come for the pool. Love the pool (when it’s open; has been required to be hotter than 25C in the past).

Then there’s the wine at Langhorne Creek with very honourable mentions to Bremerton and Lake Breeze. Below, from the cellar door at Lake Breeze, we have Follett’s paddock from which Arthur’s Reserve is harvested.

And we like to check on the mouth of the Murray at Goolwa (see below) which is within easy striking distance. The Strath Motel is most hospitable, and the meals at the Vic Hotel reliable. We also enjoy brunch at one of the many … hang on. Whooops.

But one of its major attractions to the (fairly ignorant) visitor is the town’s anomalous nature and the nature of its anomalies.

Strath, let’s say Strath, that’s what they say — Strath. Strath is at the confluence of Dawson’s Creek and the Angas River, sufficiently viable watercourses to make you wonder if the town isn’t some sort of ‘corner of a foreign field that is for ever England’.

Look at this! High summer… in the middle of a series of wide brown plains.

And that’s someone’s front yard. What’s that house anyway … and just how old is it? I have a suspicion that, even with its avenue of agapanthi, it might be less than a decade and that its heritage — in a town famous for its heritage — may just be a masquerade. But I could be way wrong, and if I am I’d like to apologise profusely. (Great aggas …if that’s your thing, and it does seem to be most people’s thing round here.)

They do roses here too.

In fact, let’s use collective nouns. Strath and its alluvial soils provide an edifice of gardens, a galleria of gardens, a delight of gardens.

The access to steady water made it an important meeting place for the Permanangk and Ngarrindjeri peoples who had lived here for some considerable time prior to the arrival of the Rankine Brothers and their cattle in 1841. In fact their primary camping spot, then and until the late 1880s, seems to have been exactly here in what are now the Soldiers Memorial gardens.

Commercial Strath is divided by that river. The, as we refer to it, ‘Heritage Area’ runs along High Street and was used in the film of Picnic at Hanging Rock as a location to indicate ‘olden days’. Despite the considerable charms of the Appleseed Cafe, this side of the river doesn’t seem to draw much business. (Quiet … too quiet … said he, reaching for reassuring feel of the peacemaker in his trouser band.)

The feature of its northern end is this,

a quite formidable sculpture by a citizen of Goolwa, James Stewart. (That Goolwa, a town of 2000 in the high season, has someone who could produce this is interesting in itself.) It’s just not quite what you expect as a bookend to remnants of the 19th century.

It is a memorial to Kenny Blake, son of Strathalbyn, who successfully raced motorbikes from 1969 until he slid off a wet track at the Isle of Man circuit in 1981. He sounds like a very nice person who for ten years could also ride a motor bike at an average speed of 150kph for six hours more successfully than almost anyone else.

Perhaps it’s suitable. This photo was also taken in High St.

Three highly polished Harleys on tour with their ageing riders. Strath is on a very fertile alluvial plain left by drainings from the Adelaide Hills. So you have your ride through the Hills, maybe a coffee at Hahndorf and then head on to Strath for lunch before going back a different way. You might, for example, want to drop in at McLaren Vale and cruise along the coast road. And regardless of the day of the week, in the morning and round lunch time (on the other side of the river) the Bean Machine and Hammer ‘N’ Tongs will be serving men older than 50 in leathers, and at the weekends it will be overrun with them. The town developed because it was a terminus for various forms of transport between Encounter Bay, the lake, Mount Barker and Adelaide itself, so perhaps this is some sort of atavistic cultural remnant. It’s fun of course, but gives the town an unusual flavour. Anomalous.

Still in the Heritage Area is the old church, very old for one version of Australia. It was finished for use by 1844 with some additions in 1869. (Melbourne became a town in 1842.) Grand, and dominant, for a small Scottish and Presbyterian town.

A couple of blocks away, nestled adjacent to and unconnected with the Good Shepherd Catholic Church and the Anglican Church of Strathalbyn, are two schools: the Tyndale Christian School where ‘God’s Truth Prevails’ and the Murraylands Christian College where ‘all children will be encouraged to personally commit or rededicate their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ’. And you sign up to that on entry. The latter has an enrolment of round 385, the former 320; 700 kids in a town of 6,052 are going to non-gov Christian schools with a pentacostal evangelical edge. The government school (Reception – Year 12) nonetheless appears to be thriving with an enrolment of 1400. Trevor Fletcher, former Carlton footballer and middlingly successful Victorian bureaucrat, was a recent and distinguished principal. He has left behind the ‘Trevor Fletcher Performing Arts Centre’. Unusual.

And then there’s the other side of the river, not a simple concept really due to its meanderings. It is not a confident straight-ahead type river, more a study in rambling repose.

So, about 500m away, this is the non-Heritage side (from the Hammer ‘N’ Tongs’ deck as it happens).

Looks a bit heritage-y to me. Maybe ‘Live the Dream’ Travel might be seen as a bit of-the-moment, but that veranda, that stonework … gotta be heritage. Surely. The buildings below are all on that side too and within a couple of 100 metres of that view of Albyn Terrace: private house, pub, what is now a very nicely kept real estate agents’, the Angas mill now in quite specific decline, and an 80yo bank building. (For a better view you can click on these.)

For that I’d go to the Woolies in that same clump of buildings. The Woolies is not heritage at all but in this context shockingly up-to-the-moment and resolutely so like all good supermarkets, and commonly packed as nowhere else in town. If you want action I’d hang out the front of Woolies.

Strath has not just clubs but venues and facilities for show jumpers, archers (yes, archers!), polo players (! again), skate boarders and soccer players. But where are they coming from these people and how are they earning their money? Just who is living here and why? They can’t all be growing grapes. And 6,052 do, with six percent more women than men, explained to some degree by the average age of 47. Where do they even live? They’re not all tucked away in those quoined cottages, picturesque but not especially roomy. So very South Australian with their maroon brick corners and their sandy-coloured rock fill. (Even the schools can look like houses.)

I knew there was a new development on the south side but we followed our noses around the place this time and to the north found ‘Pipers Crest’, fronting on to the line of the river. Strath, where the people are, where I have said the people are, is in the red loop to the right.

The scores of houses of Pipers Crest and other developments sprawl north. I didn’t even know they were there. And still, why? What are they doing there? Maybe the housing is cheap and it is, comparatively if not absolutely; but they can’t all be retirees or making coffee for ageing bikies. Someone who said they didn’t know also said maybe they commute to Adelaide. Maybe they do. But until I find out I’ll consider it an anomaly to add to Strath’s attractions.

The corellas? Ah yes, the corellas. They are diligent, persistent, … incessant really and so incredibly bloody noisy. We’ve been watching their progress on these Norfolk pines over time. We have no special brief for the Norfolk pine although Warrnambool would be a different place without them. They grow resolutely and slowly and can accommodate maritime climates and conditions, but they’re introduced, and not in fact pines at all. But the corellas, they just seem to love them. When there is so much else to eat, why?

Note also the corellas’ attraction to the southern side of the trees, and no I have no idea why that is either.

I did mention the skinny palm earlier. Here it is as of Jan 2024 on a sunny day. Two anomalies.

And there’s Strath: pool, gardens, Children’s Bridge (constructed in 1919 at a cost of £561) and heritage building, once a bank now home to Cutting Ronksley & Associates, accountants. Bit of everything really. Just how we like it.

* * * * * * *

We’ll continue strong. You may or may not know Kingston’s Big Cray. But that’s it. And in better condition than sometimes. And we will stay strong.

Two from Millicent: the blade from a wind turbine (yes, THAT big), and the summer weather of 2023-24. It was raining gently at the time. You may have already noticed the very different skies.

Goolwa, not big, also has its moments. One of them is the Moreton Bay fig in the front garden of this stately home.

A strong statement from Goolwa. But topped, swamped, by another one from its bakery: The Donut Roll.

And just for authentication and scale:

Not to be missed. Tuck in.

But one purpose of this blog was to provide an update on the Mouth of the Murray. Previous blogs — this one from 2019 (bad news) and this one from 2023 (good news) — have noted some of the associated dramas. So join me strolling up this track to the viewing area and we’ll see what we can see.

Quoting from one of the very good info boards at the viewing site, let me remind you of why the closure of the Mouth is so important.

If the Mouth closes, it will have a major impact on the Coorong environment. An open Murray Mouth allows cool, oxygen-rich seawater to enter the Coorong and mix with the waters of the North lagoon. This is important for maintaining the right salinity and temperature levels for a healthy estuarine ecosystem. It also allows the rise and fall of the tides to expose mudflats, used by wading birds each summer in their search for food. Many fish species need to enter the estuary, the Coorong and the lakes to feed and breed, but cannot do so if the Mouth is congested.

As we climb up the track we can hear the thud thud thud of an engine on the dredge (at right in the photo) which works all year round to move between 600,000 and 1,000,000 cubic metres of sand and silt at a cost to the taxpayer of $6 million. It wasn’t a good omen, however just to the left of the headland on the horizon, a gap is discernible. That’s The Mouth.

Further south we were moved by watching squadrons of hundreds of pelicans wheeling and playing in the south-westerly coming up the Coorong: a very good sign. One of the best.