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Greenough
SLWA (in Facebook):
A NOD TO THE REMARKABLE GREENOUGH TREES
Of course you know Greenough - a place of long, low lying flats and where an old river fringed by river gums, meanders (when there’s water in it).
Greenough was once a very busy place. There was the constant sound of two busy flour mills grinding for the local farmer, his daily bread, and there were long teams of horses and sometimes of bullocks, piloted by bearded teamsters.
In the evenings these men would gather at the old Golden Sheaf Hotel and tell weird yarns of the back country, swap lies and wrangle or swear eternal friendship over brimful pots of amber ale.
Today the wistful-eyed teamsters are reckoned among the things that used to be. The mills are silent and on the roads where the teamsters urged their teams with vivid oaths and cracking whips, motor horns toot and people are so busy that they haven't time to remember, let alone yarn, about the olden days.
Only the old trees, bent double with years of wind, serve to remind us of times gone by. What yarns they could tell us, could they speak, those old, bent foresters that litter the Flats with their gnarled and complaining arms.
(Source - E. C Eves, Geraldton Guardian, 1928.)
The Minister for Agriculture in 1926 likened the trees to women with flowing hair, riding on a bolting horse. He also observed that the farmers would not dare fallow (plough) their lands, for the soil would be blown into the next parish. Leaving behind only limestone pinnacles, resembling the icy steppes seen by the Mawson Antarctic Exhibition.
Today Greenough is a quaint historic village of eleven original stone buildings. It's peculiar leaning trees, owning to the strong southerly winds, part of its charm.
ABC Mid-West and Wheatbelt Geraldton Guardian Greenough, Western Australia ABC Perth Central Greenough Historic Settlement, Cafe & Visitor Centre Greenough Cafe & Visitor Centre
References and Links
Greenough, Facebook
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 14 May, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/places/greenough.html (it was last updated on 17 April, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.