To the traveller.........

You are now entering the historic pioneer way of our early settlers.

Just 75km north of Clare you enter the Rocky River Valley at Gladstone, a major crossroads with Burra and Jamestown to the east, Highway One and Crystal Brook to the west.  From Gladstone you travel north through the town of Laura situated on the banks of the Rocky River.

The tiny village of Stone Hut is just 7kms north of Laura and is the home of the Old Bakery.  From Stone Hut you can access a bitumen road all the way to Jamestown in the east.

Just 7kms north of Stone Hut the township of Wirrabara is situated on the banks of the Rocky River with its beautiful and historic forest.  Continuing north along the pioneer way you reach the crest of the Port Germain Gorge at Murraytown and then on to Melrose at the foot of Mt. Remarkable. 

With the Flinders foot hills to the west you now enter the Beautiful Valley and finally the township of Wilmington at the northern extremity of the pioneer way.  Wilmington is a crossroads with Orroroo and Broken Hill to the east, Quorn and Wilpena to the north and Port Augusta through Horrocks Pass to the west.

 The way we were.....

 When a young married newspaperman, Joseph Elliott, wrote home to his mother in England describing his family life in their Adelaide cottage in the 1860's, he was simply reinforcing an established way of life perpetuated by ordinary people;  "Well, after Church we dine in our sitting room, and come when you will, you will always find the same dinner!  We consume 52 legs of mutton a year!  Baked in the oven and also a few baked potatoes.  After that we have English jam tarts or something of the sort but generally the tarts are preferred, at all events six or seven months out of the twelve.  After that we generally have a few apples or something of the sort".

Old Bakery Stone Hut  -  GREAT FOOD AND COUNTRY HOSPITALITY