Mallee Tourist & Heritage Centre

There is plenty to see at the Mallee Tourist and Heritage Centre which has a variety of displays that provide an educational and historical picture of life in a rural community.

The Letterpress Printing Museum is set up as a typical regional printing office of the Letterpress era and has working printing presses, equipment and type.

The Gum Family Collection consists of restored stationary engines, tractors, farm and household memorabilia, backed by a panoramic Mallee mural.

The DA Wurfel Grain Collection has over 1000 cereal varieties, including interpretive panels concerning developments in the grain industry. As a young boy Don Wurfel was interested in the wheat varieties his father grew on the farm. Throughout his life he conducted trials to test the varieties for yield and suitability to the area.

A dryland farming display, with the theme ‘CONSERVE THE WATER – CONSERVE THE SOIL’, has six landscape dioramas and interpretive panels portraying agricultural development and production in the district over the hundred years.

The Mallee Women display focuses on the theme ‘they stood beside them’. It is an evocative display demonstrating the contribution made by women as they supported the men in the settlement of the Mallee.

The “Spirit of the Mallee” has been interpreted with a series of clay plaques on concrete ‘motor tyres’. The plaques bear information explaining the various aspects common to Mallee communities – Water, Fire, Mallee, Land Use, Settlement, History, etc.

Volunteers make it possible for the Centre to be open for three hours daily from 10am – 1 pm Monday to Saturday.