St Arnaud was a complete surprise to us. We knew nothing of this town and were only there because of the close access to the Kara Kara NP. But the town is great with so many lovely old buildings, a delight to walk around. And we had an excellent day at the NP. A great combination.
We were at St Arnaud on 08 & 09 March 2019
Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia
Getting There
Bendigo > St Arnaud ~ 112kms
History
The First Nation clans who occupied the country around St Arnaud are the Jaara Jaara people of the Dja Dja Wurrung language community, the Taungurung peoples and the Barapa Barapa peoples.
Taungurung country extended from the Dividing Range to the rivers east of the Campaspe River as they enter the plains to the north. Dja Dja Wurrung country was the forest country that extended from the lower foothills of the Dividing Range northwards towards the Riverine Plain. Barapa Barapa country extended to the lower Loddon River districts.
To the north and west, the Riverine Plain provided particularly rich resources of fish and waterfowl for nine months of the year, which enabled groups such as the Barapa Barapa to live in large village communities. In the winter months, people often dispersed in smaller family groups to eke out a living along the creeks, away from the rivers, or to visit kin and neighbours.
To read more about the First Nations people of the area click here.
The town of St Arnaud lies in the Wimmera region of Victoria. Like so many towns in central Victoria, it was born after the discovery of gold in the 1850s. The resulting goldfield was known as New Bendigo, and mining spread into several hills and gullies. In 1856 a town was developed around the mining activity. The community readily adopted the proposed name, and sales of township lots began in 1858.
The fire station was built in 1883, making it the oldest fire station in Victoria. Inside is the bucket and ladder cart which the firemen used to pull the equipment to the fire. The town features many well-preserved historic buildings which line the main thoroughfare of Napier Street, including a generous collection of pubs. A number of attractive gardens are scattered through the town. In the 2016 census, the population was 2,193.
The Kara Kara national park was proclaimed on 30 October 2002 as the St Arnaud Range National Park, which included the former Kara Kara State Park and most of the St Arnaud Range State Forest. It was renamed the Kara Kara National Park in 2011 to acknowledge the First Nations heritage of the site.
The Park protects one of the most intact remnants of Victoria’s box-ironbark forests. Parts of the national park are relatively unmodified and are a fine example of the type of vegetation that once covered almost 13% of Victoria.
Day 1 – Fri 08 Mar – To and at St Arnaud
Another short drive – only 112km from Bendigo. We are soon driving through rolling brown farmlands, with distant mountains. Pleasant driving on pretty good roads. Interesting groups of exposed rocks, and amazingly large scale irrigations systems.
Then we saw a couple of old churches, crossed the Lodden River, more farms – an occasional touch of green – and some interesting cloud formations – which you see a lot out here.
Then we came to St Arnaud, and were surprised at the range of wonderful looking buildings we saw on the way through.
We got to the caravan park and were soon set up on a site that was adequate, but not large. The Cruiser had to be parked across the front of Mobi, and was partially intruding on the road. But all OK. The facilities were pretty good, although oldish and far too few for the size of the park. The cost is $25.00 per night, very cheap and good value. We got both Optus (our 4G modem plus my phone) and Telstra (Kerry’s phone).
After setup, we went down to town and walked around looking at the wonderful buildings that line the streets. It is a really nice town.
Lots of lovely houses as well.
Day 2 – Thu 09 Mar – Kara Kara NP
It was a cold night but the day was fine. It is a short drive to the Kara Kara NP, heading south down the Sunraysia Hwy, through the brown tinged farming landscape. We turned right onto Thwaites Rd, a narrow dirt road but quite ok, at least to begin with.
We got to the Rostron Picnic Area. There is only a table and chair set, next to a not-very-inviting water hole. But it was so peaceful we just spent some time listening to and watching the birds.
We turned south onto Centre Rd, a pretty rough dirt track, mostly ok but with some patches on which I would not like to take a non-4WD, especially if wet. We were driving along the top of the ranges and got occasional good views over the trees. It was good just to stop and take in the views.
We got to the West of England Fire Tower, which is all locked up. But there are great views in all directions.
Centre Rd became Teddington Rd at which point there are signs on Centre Rd saying 4WD only. There was confusion between the maps and the signposting. The maps said we were on Teddington Rd but the signs said Stewart Mill Gap Rd. Soon after we got to a sealed road and all the signs agreed this was Teddington Rd.
We got to Teddington Picnic area then the camping area. There were about half a dozen campers there despite the fact that the upper reservoir was bone dry. We saw a couple of wallabies jumping up the reservoir wall. We had seen from afar that the lower reservoir had plenty of water but we did not get down to that. This is one of the places where the drought seems quite bad. Seems strange that pretty intensive irrigation is going on not that far from here – but I guess a different river system.
There was no point doing the walk around the reservoir as it was dry and unattractive. But we did drive on to Teddington Hut, in all its splendour. There was a caravan there but nobody around. All that seemed to be in the hut was a fireplace. There was a herd of wild goats nearby, but they got away before I got the camera going. Obviously people can stay here, but you would be better off in a tent in reality.
We continued on Teddington Rd, past the 4WD only sign, and it got progressively worse. We were in 4WD a few times on the steeper hills and wash-a-ways. But all in a day’s fun, nothing serious. We were driving on top of the escarpment, quite a way up. Some of this is captured in our video, click here. It’s been a while since we’ve used the 4WD mode… its easy to forget how simple The Cruiser makes it all.
We descended from the heights and got onto a bitumen road that took us into Redbank. There was nothing there so we turned north to Stuart Mill, and could see the mountains we had just travelled.
At Stuart Mill, we pulled up at the little park outside The Old Malcolms Inn, now a B&B. The town was also born out of the goldrush and at one time had a population of over 7,500 and was the key town in the area over St Arnaud. But after the gold petered out, it progressively declined. There was a nice little picnic table under cover so we had lunch and coffee/tea there. Very pleasant little place.
From there we headed back to town. Back at the van park a fellow camper came up to talk to us about The Cruiser and what we had done to it so as to tow Mobi around the country. It turned out that they were going through all the planning questions we went through about 18 months ago. So we spent some time talking to them about vehicles, vans and travelling. It was a really good session.
That evening we went around to the Sports Club – there is a short cut there from the van park. The food is Malaysian but not so good. But a good for a break from cooking every night.
To see photos from this post, click here
To see a video of some activities of this post, click here