A windmill museum at Penong in South Australia

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Many of Australia’s small country towns came close to dying while others have disappeared off the map. Many have installed a ‘giant’ something or other as a way of attracting tourists. Murals on town buildings are also now a dime a dozen and some are very well done. Penong has decided to build itself a ‘windmill museum’. I remember going through Penong some 35 years ago and remarking on the numbers of windmills in the area. All the farms where I grew up had windmills but Penong seemed to have more than its share. Apparently I was not the only one to think so as it became known as the ‘town of windmills’. Now it boasts the biggest windmill in Australia but this isn’t a make-believe large windmill like some of Australia’s other ‘biggest’ things. It is an original 35 foot windmill, one of only fifteen built to these specifications. I’ll do a separate discussion about ‘Bruce’, the giant windmill. The first restored windmill was erected in 2015 and within less than a year the compound had nineteen windmills of various sizes, makes and heights. The response from the public has been very positive and in the short time we spent there at least another eight outfits pulled up to enjoy this iconic Australian piece of machinery.