Country tours in the 1950s – Don Creedy

A very pleasant duty of the ASO was to visit country centres in South Australia, and to give concerts for school children in the mornings or afternoon with night concerts for the adults. In the early 50s we enjoyed some very interesting modes of travel.

We travelled from Port Adelaide in the “Minnipa” to Port Lincoln and then boarded the “Moonta” to continue our Gulf tour to Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla. It was really like a holiday on board and then we gave concerts which were much appreciated by the country audiences.

Another splendid tour in 1951 was on the paddle steamer “Marion” on which we travelled from Murray Bridge and gave concerts at Loxton, Barmera, Waikerie and Renmark. It was fuelled by wood and it was quite exciting travelling on the Murray River in the warm sunshine with the paddles pushing the boat along.

We went by train to Terowie from Adelaide which had a broad gauge line, played there and then boarded a narrow gauge line train to Broken Hill. Several times we went by bus from Broken Hill to Renmark. Twice we caught a Commonwealth narrow gauge train to Woomera from Port Augusta.