The Rock Hill (Yerong by it’s local indigenous name) dominates the town and has a Nature Trail and Rock Climbing for the adventurous.
April 1, 2018
Easter Monday I strolled around the township of The Rock to capture some of the more interesting buildings and some of the “ambience” of the town itself. The Bowling Club provides the town’s evening dining on most nights and some lunchtimes and is where I celebrated my Birthday this year. The Post Office here opened on September 1, 1890 which is the earliest record.
Typical of many rural towns the streets are a good “two chains wide” which was the space considered desirable to turn around a loaded bullock wagon; you can always tell you are in rural Australia when a tractor and sprayer pass you by in the main street (see photo).
The local War Memorial includes exhibits of a personnel carrier as well as the tail fin from an F111 fighter and sits in beautifully kept gardens which adorn the centre of the main street.
There is still a local butcher, supermarket and garage but the Kings Own Hotel had their licence transferred to a modern premises on the Olympic Highway a few hundred metres away in the 1960s; the building, thankfully has been wonderfully preserved and maintained by a private owner.
The Rock is also a railway town being on the Main South Line connecting Melbourne and Sydney and is serviced by the twice daily XPT service.; the line finally reached The Rock in 1881. In 1901 a branch line was constructed through Lockhart and which originally went around 125km to Oaklands. This line was closed to passenger traffic in 1974 and is now in use only as far as Boree Creek and carries almost entirely grain traffic to the silos including the ones at The Rock.
The Police Station is close to the Silos and is an attractive, maybe Edwardian building but I haven’t been able to find any history of this building so far.
The Rock was obviously well serviced by the churches with one now having become a Gift Shop but the Catholic, Uniting and Anglican are alive and well. The School dates from 1884 and is well decorated with murals and has a modern admin block and it’s own sportsfield at the rear. The school sits alongside Burkes Creek which currently more resembles a bike trail.
