Booleroo Steam & Traction Rally: In the Mid North region of South Australia

Working conditions for the modern farmer have certainly changed over the years. The cabins of most harvesters are now equipped with air conditioning, computers and a GPS or Global Positioning System to guide the machine around the paddock.

But travel to Booleroo Centre and you’ll discover what it was like in the early days because the local cockies have collected and maintained much of the State's farming history. The display includes a Colt 45 Crawler, a Benz Sendling and an old Lanz Bulldog. Norm McCallum showed us the unusual way of starting it by heating the Hot Bowl to fire the pistons.

The Booleroo Centre Steam and Traction Preservation Society began nearly forty years ago when a local farmer named Brian Knauerhause started collecting tractors. They've been retrieving and restoring pieces of farm machinery ever since.

In one shed alone there are 70 tractors.

“The importance of keeping a lot of these tractors is that they're very rare. And in twenty years time there's not going to be any left to look after and they're part of our history. They all work too. Every one that's in the shed and on the last Sunday in March we take them all out and put them on the oval and start them all up. We parade them to the people to see how they work and how they run because they make all different types of noises.”

Some of the tractors are very rare. Like the one built in Budapest. One day a bloke who worked in the Hungarian tractor factory, where it was made, dropped by with words of advice for volunteer, Ferg Innes:

“After the war and in Europe there was no brass or copper and they made radiator tubes out of steel and, of course, they rusted out. That's what's wrong with this one. So if it’s leaking you need to keep putting pepper in it.”

Every so often the boys fire up the old 1928 Avelting and Porter steamroller. It once rolled the streets of Adelaide for the City Council but now it's at Booleroo Centre, which is the Centre of all things steam.

“This is your throttle. It's the same with the boiler - it's just a simple valve... The more you open it the more steam goes to the engine and the faster you go.”

Steam played a huge role on early South Australian farms. A small Foos Junior, like the one on display that was made in Springfield Illinois, would be used to cut chaff for the horses. Other machines were used for pretty much everything from running threshing machines to bagging wheat. Some like the 1876 Fowler Steam Plough would find their way onto the big stations way up north where they played a vital role in digging dams. The station owner just needed plenty of wood, plenty of men to run the plough and guide the scoop and away they'd go.

“There's a crew of twenty two people. You had to have engine drivers, scoop operators, people going into the scrub cutting the wood, the water carriers and cooks. It took them two or three months to dig one dam. It was a pretty big project. As far as I know this is the only scooping demonstration in Australia.”

It'll all be happening at the Annual Steam and Traction Rally on the Booleroo Centre Oval next Sunday March 28. Admission is $6 for adults and twelve dollars per family. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au