Kimba Hotel pub, on our way to the 2002 eclipse across SA

PC020006 see also C41 prints in 2020 Album Kimba. Half Way Across Australia from coast to coast. This Aboriginal word “kimba” means “bush on fire” and so that is the emblem of the emblem Kimba District Council. The town is located in the middle of Eyre Peninsula and it receives around 350 mms of rainfall annually. Around 700 people live in Kimba. Although Kimba is on the edge of Goyder’s Line which demarks the pastoral from the agricultural regions there is an extensive area of grain growing to the north of Kimba towards the Gawler Ranges. It is the Buckleboo agricultural area which runs about 35 kilometres north of Kimba. Buckleboo is also the terminus of the Cummins to Buckleboo railway which passed through Kimba. But the Kimba to Buckleboo section of that railway has now been closed. The line that had reached Kimba in 1913 was extended to Buckleboo in 1923/24 and the town of Buckleboo was created in 1924. Kimba is a busy little rural town and it lies on the Port Lincoln to Ceduna railway which is used for transporting the district grain crops to Port Lincoln. It is also the half way spot for people crossing Australia by road from the Pacific to the Indian oceans. The first white man to visit the spot was explorer Edward John Eyre and when he traversed Eyre Peninsula from July to October in 1839. The purpose of his trip was to investigate the grazing and agricultural potential of the peninsula and to see if there was a great river entering the sea at Streaky Bay. He discovered that the soils were often poor, that there were no rivers or watercourses at all because the underlying tiers are limestone. Most importantly he discovered that there was no river entering the sea at Streak Bay. Eyre and his party waited at a waterhole a few kilometres from the beach at Streaky Bay for the supply ship to visit the bay and retrieve the exploration party. Alas the two groups missed each other and so Eyre trekked across the Peninsula to the top of Spencers Gulf where Port Augusta was later established. Eyre and party eventually reached Depot Creek near Mount Arden in the Flinders Ranges where Eyre knew there was plentiful water. After renewing their supplies of water Eyre and his party was able to travel on to Adelaide. This was not Eyre’s only exploration of Eyre Peninsula and he explored the peninsula again in 1840 after his discovery of Lake Eyre in the north of South Australia, This time he had his Aboriginal friend and guide Wylie with him. He had met Wylie in Albany the year before and had bought him back to Adelaide to join his future exploration trips. Both Eyre and Wylie crossed from Lake Eyre to Streaky Bay in 1840. Then on this third major explorations of Eyre Peninsula he left Fowlers Bay with Wylie in February 1841 in his attempt to cross the Great Australian Bight to Albany in Western Australia. The trip was a disaster and both Eyre and Wyllie were lucky to survive it. Their survival only happened thanks to their chance meeting with a French ship at Esperance. To commemorate this amazing feast the town of Kimba commissioned two enigmatic rusty iron sculptures of Eyre and Wylie which are sited on a hill overlooking the town from the north. The two figures were sculptured by Roland Weight and Marcus Possingham with a District Council of Kimba grant. The statues were erected on 2011. White pastoralists moved into this area in 1872 and they had to cart their wool in bullock drays over the hills to the nearest port on Franklin Harbour at Cowell. Once the railway reached the Kimba district in 1913 the leasehold pastoral runs were terminated and the land surveyed for farming. The town of Kimba was established in 1915. Two small reservoirs were built near the town in 1923 to provide water for the residents. Later the pipeline from the Tod Reservoir near Port Lincoln reached the town and later again the Murray River pipeline. The town of Kimba grew slowly and the community hotel was built until 1920 as the Kimba Hotel. The first town school opened in 1920 on the site that is still occupied by the limestone block school which was built in 1924. It opened with around 50 pupils. That school become a Higher Primary School in 1947 and then an Area School in 1963. The current Area School is in a different location within the town and the original school is now the Seniors Citizens Club rooms. The first Methodist Church was built in 1923 in the Main Street. That has now been replaced by a very modern Uniting Church which was opened in 1978 just after the Uniting Church in Australia was formed in 1977. The Catholic Church was built by the parishioners in 1953 and consecrated in 1954. St Johns Anglican Church was built of stone in 1925. It closed in 1990 and was sold as a residence in 1992. It is now a fine residence with a beautiful swimming pool in front of it. The Anglicans built a modern church of besser block in 1990 which is still in use. Apart from the Big Galah on the main highway Kimba has an interesting historical village on the outskirts of the town with buildings and structures from the early days of the district including the old General Store and Post Office and a One Teacher School typical of many erected in the district in the 1920s and 1930s. It includes the former residence of Mr and Mrs Sam Haskett erected around 1910 and rebuilt in the museum in 1978. The museum was established in 1971 and has a big display of old agricultural implements and machinery, an old telephone exchange etc. It is well worth a visit. Passed through again in 2009 on way to Brisbane! Video 33 on the WD MyCloud