Robinvale, Warracknabeal and Rupanyup

[Brian]

The sight that greeted us as the ftp World Tour rolled into Robinvale.



The next day when we got to the Museum it was all set up.

The museum holds a large collection of everyday items including radios, washing machines and many other household tools from days gone by. There is also a collection of work tools from different crafts and skills like blacksmithing and leather work.

The farm implements on show included ones that were completely strange to me. The area has large vineyards, orange groves, olive and almond groves and orchards so tools and implements on display reflect this.



Howard Rotovator. This at least I did recognise.









Assorted cultivators and rotovators.



A "silly" plough and...



a "silly" hoe. I did ask the reason for the name and was told that these implements were used to plough and weed close to the rows of vines and the shape of the implements enabled the operator to weave in and out of the plants with ease!





Ridger or as we say Baulking ploughs.



Stump or Rock Jumping plough.







Assorted Disc ploughs.



A hand drill! I feel very old! Here is a tool I use every year IN A MUSEUM1



A Wheelwrights shop. These men must have been very important in a developing country with limited roads. Black Horse House once held a wheelwrights shop.



Ann studying a "Malee" roller which was used to knock down trees and clear land in the bush before the coming of bulldozers.



The roller was made from a defunct steam engine boiler. Note the simple bearings and massive "tree" framework.



A machine I have heard about all my working life in combines, a stripper-header.



McCormick-Deering. Not an early Roadless conversion.



Lanz Bulldog.



E27N on Roadless halftracks.



Another style of Disc plough.



Mouldboard plough with cast iron mouldboard.



Implement for lifting vines or young trees.









An extreemly rare (and sad) Emmerson-Brandingham tractor. Think you need to get your toolkit out and get this up and running Leigh, it really is a rare tractor in all sense of the word.!













Petrol Dextas on Parade.



Note the fan. Not the usual one found here.

and specialy for Henk....



A Rest-O-Ride seat.



in really good condition.

(to be continued, the next bit will make grown men weep, I promise you)

[Dandy Dave]

Brian, Cool Photos Man. That Emerson and Brandingham is very rare, even over here. I had a friend that had a one lung engine build by the same company that we would sometime take to gas ups. Thanks for sharing. Dandy Dave!

[Brian]

(part 2)

Bev and the friends of the museum provided a great barbecue lunch and we all sat around in the bright sunshine chatting. Afterwards the tractors were tidied away and secured then the ladies went back to Bev and Leigh's home for tea and fresh baked scones with homemade jam whilst the menfolk were taken, in various cars, by Leigh, to view a semi-redundant farm yard a few miles away. What a sight greeted our eyes.

The farm yard was on a slight slope and full of weeds, paddy melons and a strange plant with white trumpet shaped flowers. I amongst this vegetation was irrigation pipes, lorries and many tractors with Malcolm Moore loader conversions.



IH lorry with a load of ....



Vintage engines, residing outside in the weather in all states of dis-assembly.





Another IH lorry with a strange crane attachment.



Paddy melons!



In here somewhere are a load of irrigation pipes and some Majors, all complete with raised PTO's.





Six cylinder Major conversions



and another!





A Case 600 combine.







Malcolm Moore loaders of every shape and size, on E27N's and E1ADDN's.



Alan wonders if this one is worth saving.






Another paddy melon!



Barry wonders if Dawn would notice another one added to his collection in the paddock!










Anyone need a spare engine?



Not all the tractors were Fordson. This IH AW-7 and the back hoe it is attached to may still be able to do a days work.









There is nothing like visiting other peoples scrap yards and saying "If only".

We returned to Leigh's home and helped the ladies demolish another load of scones and jam that Bev had prepared.

Later that evening we regrouped and had a meal in the Euston Bowls Club, just over the border in New South Wales where a number of us were staying.There was more the next day as we shall see. ( to be continued).

[Brian]

The following day we all met again at Leigh and Bev's home before the chaps all set off to visit another farm and scrap heap. This one was a full working farm and crop spraying was in full swing but the owner allowed us all to just wander through his sheds and yard.



The first sight that greeted us in one of the sheds was this beautiful White Road Boss. As an aside from tractors, the lorries (sorry Barry TRUCKS) (still can't get past the point that trucks are four wheeled containers that my uncles used to push in the coal mines in Staffordshire) in Aus. are something else. Far bigger and with more wheels than anything we see in England. They travel faster too! Many times on this trip I have been traveling at the legal limit only to glance in the mirror and see nothing but a badge and chrome bars! Even on steep hills, when I have pulled over, they go past you like a sports car accelerating away from you and disappearing into the distance!



Tractor and sprayer. I passed a number of these pictures on to my friends at Team Sprayers here in England.





Spool valves on a Ford 5000 Select-O-Speed tractor.







Some really big kit on these farms. Versatile.





IH 806 and 1256.



Ubiquitous Raised PTO on another converted 6 cylinder Major



This one has got a few extra gauges!



Nearly all the conversions had the air-cleaner like this.









Some details on the "A" frame modifications to get around the sump of the six. We got a bit excited as one tractor had a cast sump but the owner said it had been made from three Major sumps and was not a success as it leaked on the joins.



Oil filter fitting on one tractor.













Westinghouse skid steer bulldozer with GM diesel resting in the weeds.



With another one for spares.



One of the many semi-dismantled Majors, Super Majors and E27N's laying in the weeds. The climate does not cause major rust even though they are out in the open. There is a vast store of second hand parts out there from what we saw.

After the visit we returned to Leigh and Bev's for a barbecue lunch and a look round Leigh's treasures, some of which came from "K-Mart" (in joke).







Barry and Dawn are really going to have to increase Leigh's "Blue Injections"

He also has a big MM in bits at the moment and a few E27Ns, Dextas and not quite hidden away from my prying eyes, a RENAULT!!!!!

Leigh also has a strange Super Dexta. This tractor was a one owner tractor from new (I think Leigh told me) and is a blue/grey version from about 1964. When he went to get parts for an engine overhaul it came as a bit of a shock to find that Super Dextas were never fitted with a vacuum governed pump and 144 bores! All the engine numbers tie up with the ones in the first registration so that engine has been in there since new. So it seems that Ford Australia were using up their stock of new parts at the end of Dexta production. Wonder how many more are out there. Many years ago, some of us got into hot water with an American gentleman who claimed he had one from around the same era.

After lunch Leigh took us to visit a cold store in a vineyard close to his home. Quite an experience and hard to get your head around the size and the size of the vineyard.





Things getting really serious! Ann and June being instructed by Leigh on how to select and cut grapes.



June is just the right height to fit under the vines, according to Leigh. I have known her 43 years and I would be scared to say that!



The finished product. OK so we did not pick all of these. We ate ours!

I cannot leave the Robinvale part of this report without mentioning Bev's garden. It was here we picked oranges and clemantines from the tree and the smell when we peeled them was exquisite! The taste was also fantastic.





Spot the Avocados! Bev has numerous trees producing these as well as grapefruit, lemons and walnuts.





A Dahlia Tree! We had never seen one.

Once again thank you Leigh and Bev for making our time with you and other members of the Fordson Tractor Club of Australia so special. We will be back!

Now its on to Warracknabeal. ( to be continued)

[henk]

Keep them comming Brian. There so nice.

[Dandy Dave]

Yes, I agree. The photos are vantastic. Someday I would like to see Australia myself. The last photos, The soil looks fine and sandy. Dandy Dave!

[Brian]

The ftp World Tour moves on to Warracknabeal! Most of the locals made the trip in a couple of hours but we, being tourists took nearly two days! We spent the time on detours to see steam boats on the Murray River and other such delights.

We eventually found the Warracknabeal Motel and the rest of the gang were either there or drove in shortly afterwards. We took over the Motel and the caravan site close by!

Ann and I went for a walk by the river and met up with a flock of cockatoos and sitting in a tree ..



A tour of the town revealed some interesting buildings.



The post office, war memorial and details on a roundabout.



The State Savings Bank.

One thing I found very moving in every town we visited was the respect paid to the countries armed forces. Every town has its War Memorial going back, in the case of Robinvale, to the Boer War. Many commemorate those who served, not only those who lost their lives. Many towns have an Avenue of Remembrance, trees planted on either side of the road with the name of the person who served their country on a plaque beside it. The Avenue at Ballarat seem to stretch nearly 10 miles and was still being added to, as Australians are serving in Afghanistan today and many served in Vietnam. A very sobering thought. Australia really supports its service men. We saw in cemeteries, the head stones for servicemen who returned from conflict and lived to a ripe old age, the head stones were provided by Veterans Associations and detailed the persons service record.

The museum at Warracknabeal is the largest town and area museum I have ever seen. Far larger in area than what we have here in England. It has many hundreds of exhibits showing Australian life in Agriculture.



Another type of disc plough





A Chamberlain. The company is now owned by John Deere



Tractors are so crammed in the storage shed that this is the only way to see them.











I tried to get an idea of size and numbers of tractors in this one shed.



Hanomag





Vintage engines waiting their turn for attention.



Another John Deere.



6 cylinder Allis Chalmers. Interesting.







Underneath all this is a tractor.







Case version of a Triple D



Massey Stripper Header. Think they took over Sunshine the original company.





Detroit built Fordson on skeleton wheels.



Detail of a PTO on a Fordson N for a reverse drive application in a harvester.







Then into the Exhibition Halls. British built Austin.





Vickers Aussie.







Small Lanz







This is an Australian tractor not a Rumley as I first thought.



Minneapolis-Moline







Another Australian tractor.





And another. Names we in Europe have possibly never heard before.



Avance. This one is from Sweden. Note the exhaust spark trap.

Many thanks to the Museum Commitee who opened and closed the Museum for us and special thanks to John Wood who walked and talked me through the exhibits. Next time John we will have them outside so that I can get some better pictures of this wonderful collection.

(to be continued)

[JC]

I'm really enjoying all of your pictures and stories, Brian. I can't wait to see the full write-up, after you get back.

[Dandy Dave]

We had several of those early Minnapolis Moline Universal tractors around this area at one time. I haven't seen one at a show in a while though. Some very cool and rare stuff there. Dandy Dave!

[henk]

I like the cab design. Very simple. Was it local, because the JD has the same cab as the Chamberlain.
The small Lanz is a very early one.
Brian, the thing in the background of the first picture is that a bridge or some kind of crane?

[Brian]

Henk,
I cannot answer the cab question at the moment. I suspect you are right but the answer is winging its way to me at the moment. Barry has sent me a book on a local cab manufacturer which is somewhere between Australia and England as we speak.

The structure in the picture of the Dextas at Robinvale had us all puzzeling. It was near to a rail line and we wondered if it was a crane for lifting off containers from rail trucks and loading them onto lorries. The answer is even more interesting.

The Murray River flows through the town and is the boarder between Victoria and New South Wales. In the past it was much like the rivers and canals in the Netherlands, the main transport highway, with many steam boats going up and down its length. At Robinvale there was a crossing by bridge and that structure was mounted in the centre, where the bridge crossed the river, and it raised and lowered the road to allow boats to pass underneath. Now the steam boats are tourist atractions and no longer are used for transport so there is no longer a need for an opening bridge, and anyway the new bridge is much higher above the river.

The township did not want to loose its old bridge so the structure was moved to the Victoria side, close to the end of the new bridge, for presevation.

[Brian]

Before I finish these pictures and comments in Rupanyup, I must apologise to Michael and John Woods who's company we enjoyed from Robinvale onwards. Michael and John started the museum here and have done a magnificent job in arranging all the exhibits of an Australian township and home life. Unfortunately our visit was on the last day of our time with The Fordson Tractor Club of Australia and we were moving on as our trip was also coming to an end.

For these reasons many people wanted to talk and of course I met Eric, Frank and Barrie for the first time and wanted to spend time with them, others wanted to show me items of interest and so I did not get too much time to take the quality and number of pictures that this museum deserves.

All three museums we visited had wondrous treasures and displays, Robinvale showed the life and times of the fruit growers and township, Warracknabeal has the finest collection of tractors and machines I have ever seen and now Rupanyup with its collection of items from home, shops. workshops and businesses, as well as tractors and machinery just blew our minds. We are going back, there is no doubt and we will be spending more time in these townships, and even then, it will not be enough! If you get the chance to visit anyone of these museums, go, but be prepared to spend a lot of time in them.

And chaps, did Barry really get his radio?



Michael and John's latest purchase. It got home without falling off the lorry then chaps.







Another plough with slatted mouldboards of a different design.











A collection of the most beautiful containers I have ever seen. The pictures and detail on these tins are just out of this world. This collection on its own makes this museum a "must see".



Hand made bricks made by convicts.



Just an idea of the workshop display from all the local trades.



Tool collections.



More workshop tools. This picture gives an idea of the size of the building and the displays housed there.











A town garage, much as I remember it from my early days in the industry. We had a number in Swaffham that looked just like this.



Detail from the bonnet of a very fine Farm Major.



This old girl is awaiting restoration.





But these two have to be finished first.



Its picture time.



The takers taken,

The end (for now) of a most enjoyable time with spent with great people. I keep saying it, but I really mean it, thank you all for making our trip and time with you so special, and strengthening the links with fordsontractorpages.



Oh!!! I forgot to show the beautiful framed tile that the Fordson Tractor Club presented us with. Here it is, safely home and hanging on the wall along with other tractor memorabilia at Black Horse House. We have been back in England for 10 days now and can't wait to go back.

[Dandy Dave]

Have a safe trip home Brian. Thanks for Sharing. Dandy Dave!

[Pascal]

Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for sharing all these pictures! They are great!
It must have been a great trip!

I wonder which tractors you will ship to the UK...

[Brian]

Cannot afford to buy one and ship it back Pascal. However, we will be going back next year for another look at some we missed,

[Nick]

Wow, some brilliant pictures there! I think im going to steal a very large container ship, and sail to australia. Then save ALL those poor old machines and bring them back and restore them......anyone want to come?

Looks like you had quite a time brian, im sure im not the only one that is jealous! Top picture taking