Well it was time to hit the road again and this time it was a sunday drive, to the little sleepie bush township of Wongan Hills. This trip was gonna be with the fellas as the little sheilah wanted to stay in bed..... bloody woman! But our story doesn't start in the town as we drove straight through the town, and drove another 8kms to a place called MT O'Brien.
And here we are.... the three Paul fellas Oscar, Harrison and Jacko, just about to hit the top of the lookout of MT O'Brien. I would of liked to go to the next mountain as it was called MT Matilda, because then you can say 'Well I went and Mount Matilda on the weekend' ha,ha. But if you
say 'Well I mounted O'Brien last weekend' just doesn't sound quiet right (call me old fashion!), And here is the view from on top of O'Brien lookout... well actually it's called "The Centenary of Federation Wheatbelt Lookout"(somebody's been doing his homework). In the back ground is Lake Hinds
So after a ripper view we went back to the main street and had a gander at some of the old farming machinery on show, like this ripper old rusty farming thingummyjig that Oscar just loved.
Here is Oscar next to the Twin-City 17:28 model tractors purchased from the USA for 500 pounds ($1,000 each) in 1926, the tractors would travel at 2.9mph in high gear and 1.5mph in low. The machine's 28 horse-power (19.6 kilowatt) capacity was used to pull a 10-disc, 6 feet wide plough, at speeds of up to 3.5 mph, covering approximately 22 acres during a day's light. Today the main tractor for many farmers can be 500 horse-power (350 kilowatts) Strewth!, capable of pulling a 60 feet implement at 6 mph, covering 700 acres per day(using lights to work).
Those Twin-city tractors use to pull this old Sunshine Harvester for reaping, and fair dinkum this harvester is in real ripper condition.
Another photo of the old Sunshine Harvester, with an old windmill in the background.
Now every bush town that you drive through has one thing different then the other, lik
e Dowerin has a rusty Dog, Wyalkatchem has a rusty fence and Konnongorring has.... well Konnongorring is just rusting! But Wongan Hills has a ripper home made Tractor! Fairdinkum this old tractor was made by a bloke by the name of Ron York in 1975, he was educated for four years via correspondence but never had any formal mechanical training.
It took Ron about 700 hours using second-hand parts, a Cummins 855 motor (200 horse-power), plus axles, chassis and cab from a Terex scraper, and a truck drop-box, 10-speed transmission, plus good second-hand tyres. Top speed was 11.25 mph, and it served well as the farms main tractor for a decade.
But that was about it for Wongan and it's hills and it was time to start the two hour drive back to Middle swan, but I couldn't help but stop for a photo when we came to this town. What a ripper bush town name hay, pity this was all that was in the place.