[ Road Trip - Part 1 ]

And we’re on our way. To Murgon. The name derives from an Aboriginal word meaning “lilly-covered pond”. It’s about 250 km from Brisbane.

The museum occupies quite a large space – it includes several different parts. The main “dairy” museum part is in an old (from 1902) Bank of New South Wales building. Then there is an old chapel and two houses (one of them is called Castra – it was the first house built in Murgon). That’s what fascinated me in there the most. In those two houses you could see how people lived in different periods of time (beginning with the 19th century). All the items held there were original and I was amazed to see 5 very similar organs (not sure how old) and some of them were still in working order (the one in the chapel is still used).

Darryl, our guide around the premises, showed us a storage room as well. He said quite often local community donates to the museum antique and vintage items because otherwise they dodn’t know what to do with them. We saw many items connected to the milk industry but there were also Singer sewing machines, another piano, typewriters, many vintage telephones and even old telephone switchboards.

One of the buildings even has a connection with the infamous Ned Kelly gang but to find out more about it, you have to visit the museum and ask Darryl!

Just a short drive from Murgon is Wondai (meaning Wild Dog/Dingo). There, we had pleasure of seeing the Wood Museum and its workshop, where volunteers show how they create things out of wood (they weren’t doing anything while we were there, though.) My favourite things in there were mushrooms that were carved out of different types of wood.

Related links:
South Burnett region 
Dairy and Heritage Museum