A quick visit to Quorn

 Yesterday morning we drove 63 km north to Quorn, in order to see how the town had blossomed since we were there in 2020/21.    Covid meant border restrictions, both between states and also tourists from other countries.    The town struggled and only essential shops were open.    A very sad time.

But now, it is buzzing, with new shops opening, buildings painted, planter boxes along the side of the pavements, new shops opening up.    Even the local IGA (grocery shop) has a new frontage.   We had a choice of three cafes.  So we chose this very buzzing place, with a great selection of cakes and their own roasted coffee beans.    And we were not disappointed.

Quorn is the home of the Pichi Richi Railway, a heritage steam train which is based there, and runs between Port Augusta and Quorn or to Woolshed Flat and back again.

Once Quorn was one of the stops on the old Ghan Railway line that ran between Port Augusta and Alice Springs.    When the new line was finished in 1980, the Ghan travelled from Adelaide to Port Augusta and then on to Alice Springs via a more direct route on the western side of the Stuart Highway.   Sadly this spelled the end of most of the towns along the old route, Marree and Oodnadatta being two of them, plus a now deserted town called Farina.    Luckily tourism has revived these towns to a certain extent, with Marree being at the start of the Oodnadatta and Birdwood tracks.    Three years ago we travelled on the Oodnadatta track, a fascinating but rough experience.

Quorn is also the main town, other than Hawker, in the Flinders Ranges.   

A photo of some rock wallaby sculptures (no they are not real) in the foreground and the railway station in the background.

Wire sculptures by the war memorial.

A very old hotel, built in the mid 1800s I think.

Another very old hotel, now used as a shop.   Both of these buildings, and another hotel, faced the railway station.   Early on the train stopped here for the night, and passengers had to find accommodation in the hotels.   Later on a sleeper carriage was attached to the train.

One of the streets in Quorn.

Plus a spruced up looking lodge.

One of the many ruins along the road.  Dreams that ended in failure and a need to move away.   

Melrose is on the edge of the Goyder line, which is an invisible boundary line that runs through South Australia.   It is an agriculture boundary which depicts the edge of the area suitable for agriculture.  The surveyor, George Goyder, drew the line in the 19th century, but people did not believe him at first, due to plentiful rainfall and good crops.  However, this changed very quickly as we now know.    

The night before brought strong winds and heavy rain, after two days of very hot weather.   The new cover on top of the pull out bedroom flapped madly all night even though I had tied it down.   The clothes that were nearly dry after being washed in my new washing bag received an extra rinse.   

It was so lovely revisiting Quorn.   We were especially pleased to see the service station/garage/shop was still operating and appeared to be very busy.   In 2021 we had the wheel bearings redone on the caravan there, and the then owner was considering closing up the garage/shop as he could not find anyone to buy it.   Thankfully this did not happen.   Good news there.