Hawker - an old railway and farming town

Hawker. A small town in the middle of the Flinders Ranges, with a population of roughly 450 people plus an extra few hundred per day who pass through or stay in the camping ground.   A busy place during winter and spring when the weather is cool, as against in summer when the day time temperatures reach high thirties or low forties.    

A lovely evening sunset, so going to be a sunny day tomorrow plus an extremely cold night, probably minus or just above zero.    Thank goodness we are in a caravan with heaters.

This is a very large, and expensive camping ground, but the sites are of  reasonable size, for Australia.   There are some enormous vehicles in here, both caravans and vehicles.   

A view of some of the ranges.

Hawker started off, in the mid 1800s, as a centre for farming. 

 It was also a railway town on the narrow gauge line that was built, from Port Augusta in the 1880s, to Quorn, Hawker,  Farina, Marree, and Oodnadatta.   It finally reached Alice Springs in 1929, 1241 km in total.   

    

 For the first few years Hawker was a prosperous town, with supporting businesses for farmers. and railway   Wheat was mainly grown and for a few years the crops were excellent.   Two mills were built and the grain was milled here, and the flour transported by train to other places.   But then the inevitable drought came along, plus plagues of grasshoppers and locusts.   And that was the end of the dreams of most farmers.   Those that remained on properties went over to sheep grazing and wool production.

But back to the old Ghan.    The service ceased operation in 1980 and the lines taken up in 1981.   Hawker, like the other towns along the line no longer had a railway service.   

The new Adelaide/Port Augusta/Alice Springs/Darwin standard gauge line , built on the western side of the Stuart Highway, opened in 2004.   Although there are goods trains, the only passenger service is an expensive tourist train, also called The Ghan, 

The old water tank which was used to fill the engines.

The old railway station, now  a private residence.

The beautiful old Catholic Church, with the Presbytery beside it, is no longer used sadly.    

The hotel, still used and very popular.    There is also an excellent cafe further along the road, plus a general store/cafe/post office around the corner.    The petrol station is opposite the store and also sells camping gear and is a tourist centre too.   There is an enormous garage which does vehicle repairs and sells hundreds of tires of all descriptions.   So needed on the rough roads around here.   I believe the general store, garage and petrol station are owned by the same family.   A bit of a  monopoly going on there.   Tourists are catered for very well in Hawker.    In fact tourism is the biggest money earner for the region now.   

An old derelict store, all boarded up and with a definite lean on the verandah.    An interesting contrast - old crumbling building with a modern telecommunication mast behind it.

A magnificent dog park, with grass.   I know it does not look much, but very welcome to a dog.   Piper of course loves this area, especially when there is a ball to catch as well.

A view over the land from the hills opposite Hawker.   It was this flat land that was initially used for growing wheat.    

An old farmhouse, now in ruins.    A farmer that was not able to continue in such a harsh environment.

We visited a small settlement called Cradock, with one house still standing and being repaired at this moment.

There were two old churches, one of which is now a residence.   The pub is open and offers accommodation and meals, and there is a beautiful war memorial garden.    Other than that there were some new sheds/temporary houses and plenty of dry and dusty land.     An interesting place to visit, all the same.

The dry creek bed.

A street!

In Hawker there is a magnificent panorama gallery, which is part of the Jeff Morgan Gallery.    Jeff Morgan is an artist and this is his gallery where people can buy his paintings.   The gallery is very good to visit, but after paying $15 you can also visit the panoramas.       He has painted three huge displays plus a circular one which you can view from a raised platform, and another huge circular one. They are massive, and he has added stones, rocks, dried trees and plants at the bottom of the paintings, which adds to the effect.   It is sometimes difficult to see where the painting ends and the natural display starts.   

And with this panorama the rocks, stones, earth and trees blend in perfectly.   Such talent.

As well as the panoramas Jeff has also collected stones, mineral rocks, plates, cups, cars, teddy bears and many other objects.   Amazing place.

Tomorrow we travel further north east to a town called Copley.    We will miss Hawker.