The Secret Past.

Simmonston was surveyed as a town when it was thought the railway would go through here. Some 600 empty blocks and part of an old stone wall and cellars from the teamsters' hotel is all that remains today. The railway when built went past 20 km’s farther east at a place now known as Gordon and a few more entrepreneurs' dreams were shattered.

It is said that this town was surveyed with the view that it would one day become the biggest settlement in South Australia outside of Adelaide. Simmonston is also where the Willochra Creek, Kanyaka/Wirreanda Creek, Mount Arden Creek and Buckaringa Creek all meet as they are flowing through the northern end of the Buckaringa Range. From here the Willochra Creek continues on to flow through a gap in the ranges and into Lake Torrens.

Simmonston

Keep a good lookout while driving through here as I am sure one day Cowboys and Indians in battle will come rushing across this plain to climb the rocky hills beyond. All jokes aside, in the Spring of a good season this area will be covered with a wild flower know locally as Eggs and Bacon. You would not be able to see the ground between the saltbush in this picture when it is out in flower. Just a carpet of small pea like rusty orange and yellow centred flowers would present itself to the viewer.

The Simmonston Cowboy Country

Eggs & Bacon Flowers.

This is an example of what the Egg & Bacon flowers look like in a good season.

Hugh Proby

Hugh Proby was the third son of the Earl of Carysfort and only 24 when he died. He had brought good fortune with him from Scotland and had come to purchase land and run sheep and cattle in the new lands to the north of Quorn. The station, one of the largest in the district was called Kanyaka and its ruins are still very much visible today.

Hugh Proby's grave.

The Flinders Ranges are indeed semi-arid, but from time to time there can be torrential rain, and indeed during the years of Hugh Proby, the Willochra Creek did flood. Hugh was out trying to muster his cattle, to get them safely to higher ground. While doing so, tragedy struck. Hugh, while trying to cross the flooded creek on his horse, was swept away and drowned. Hugh's family shipped out a huge, 1.5 ton granite tablet all the way from Scotland to mark the place of his burial.

Kanyaka Ruins.

The ruins of Kanyaka homestead appear as you travel north from Quorn to Hawker. In 1856 the Kanyaka station leases totalled 365 square miles or 233,600 acres. The earliest records show that the first pastoral lease of Kanyaka was to Hugh Proby on 1 July, 1851. In good seasons the property housed up to 70 workers and their families. The main homestead consisted of sixteen rooms with eighteen inch thick walls of stone and mortar construction.

Kanyaka Homestead Ruins

In 1864 a total of 41,000 sheep were shorn at the Kanyaka shed with hand shears. The ruins of the old shearing shed are a little over one kilometre down the creek from the homestead and are well worth looking at. By 1867 a run of drought years had devastated the flock and only 10,000 sheep were left.

Kanyaka station had over 30 miles or nearly 50 kilometres of dry wall fencing on it. These fences were constructed by using the local sandstone (of which there is plenty) to build a fence three feet high by two feet wide and much of it is still standing today. Approximately 1,200 tons of stone was required to build one mile of fence.

Kanyaka station was reduced to a holding of only 18,237 acres in the 1870's when the government resumed the lease and granted farming leases over much of the area.

Homestead Ruins

Throughout the district there are many hundreds of ruins of old homes where hopeful settlers came from far away to take up land in this once thought paradise. This was thought to be the Utopia of the north and all that was needed was for settlers to take up land, turn it over with a plough and rain would surely follow. Flour mills were being built in every little town and with two or three good seasons the future seemed bright. Every few miles a church was built, this often served as the district school also.

It is now recognised that obviously there had been a run of good seasons just at the time when explorers came here and the guess was made that it would always be like that. By the time that settlement for farming was happening some 25 to 30 years after the first pastoralists came with sheep and cattle there had been some severe droughts but the government of the day apparently decided not to learn from experience. They went ahead to resume large areas of the pastoral leases and turn them into farming leases.

The farmers came in droves all wanting their own little piece of land and in most cases after a lot of hard work, isolation and many years of drought thrown in for good measure they walked away broken hearted. For the few lucky ones who were able to stay there a little longer the opportunity came to either purchase or through special leases obtain more land. It is only these few who survive today and now, where once the usual holding taken up was between 400 and 650 acres today all these farms are now from 2,000 to 10,000 or more acres. In addition two thirds or more of the area originally farmed is no longer farmed and has reverted back to grazing sheep and cattle.

As a result of all these early settlers the area is now littered with ruins of the homes of these early hopefuls. Most of these homes were built of sandstone and as you drive along the roads you will see many of them as little more than a heap of rubble perhaps with a few trees where there would normally be none.

The Evans Home at Wilson

Typical of the ruins around here, this four room sandstone home was lived in by a Cornwall descendant, Dave Evans and his family until his wife died in 1915. The younger children then went to live with his wife's sister down near Willochra. From this vantage point one can see some five or six ruins of old homesteads. Today this country is all owned by one family.

Cradock Church

One more for the ruins. This beautiful old National Heritage listed St Gabriele's Church at Cradock is no longer used. Without the help of National Heritage it would no doubt join its neighbors in this area and become just another pile of rubble.

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