Yacka’s archives

The Easter Bunny or Bilby did find us!! He hid a big bowlful of Easter eggs around the caravan and annexe that the boys found with great excitement this morning.

“Max! The Easter Bunny DID come!”

After a breakfast of Hot Cross Buns toasted on the now working Weber, we played lots of Uno with Wayne and Marion from next door.


We visited Yacka’s archives after lunch and found a trove of interesting treasures.       Mrs Tilbrook, who we met yesterday at the craft shop, had brought a number of things to the archives for the boys to look at… a large piece of quartz, a piece of granite with a tiny stream of gold running through it, rock with copper inside that had weathered and oxidised to a greeny colour, stones that local Aboriginal people had used years ago to grind seeds into flour …. She was fantastic and had the boys engaged by her stories!


The photos in the archives went back to when the town was first settled in the 1870s. I was able to show Harry photos with ladies in town with high-buttoned jackets, hats and long skirts as well as young girls in pinafores and dresses. We also looked at cars from the 1950s and old school photos through the decades.


A funny part was showing Harry and Max an old library catalogue that was used before computers were invented. I remembered using a similar one when I was in primary school. They found it hard to believe that every publication needed to have its own typed catalogue card!
We were also shown through the Town Hall by a lady called Tracy. Tracy’s mother’s family, the Badmans, had lived for many years around Yacka until Tracy’s grandparents retired to Adelaide in the 1970s. The grandparents had had three children: one stillborn son, one son who was killed in a car accident at 16 years old and a daughter (Tracy’s mum) who left the district when she got married, so the Badman name had left Yacka too. Tracy and her husband live in Adelaide. A few years ago they bought a vacant block in Yacka’s main street to build a small weekender on. It turned out that the block she bought actually belonged to her grandfather many years before.
In the Town Hall were many memories including two old machine guns from World War I. The smaller rooms on the side of the hall have gorgeous pressed tin ceilings. I was able to point out features like old fashioned metal door handles and circular power points to Max and Harry.
It was an altogether fascinating afternoon!


I have to get fired up to cook a roast for dinner as Trevor has “done” dinner the past few nights. It is so warm and still that I am ready for a long nap though! A most wonderful Easter Day.