A service town near the Victorian border in the heart of mallee scrub, wheat farming and sheep country.

Where is it?: 243 km east of Adelaide.

Events: Pinnaroo has a show and field days every year at October. The Pinnaroo Show features dog trials, agricultural tents, competitions, horse events, keg tosses, animal judging and fireworks.

Another event Pinnaroo hosts is the Pinnaroo SpudFest. The SpudFest features a black tie dinner, stalls and games, entertainment, and Spud Wrestling.

The railway is not currently available for transport between the states, as the line from Tailem Bend was converted to standard gauge soon after the main Adelaide���Melbourne line was converted, but the line to Ouyen remains as broad gauge. Both sides are used to transport grain from silos along the railway line towards the ports in each state.

Letterpress Printing Museum

Letterpress Printing Museum: a reminder of a time, before computers, when books and newspapers were printed by letterpress. It has a number of old printing presses as well as examples of papers, inks and typefaces.

Farm Machinery Museum: houses a collection of the old farm machinery which was previously used in the area.

D.A. Wurfel Cereal Collection: is recognised as one of the finest cereal collections in the world. It contains more than 1300 varieties including most types of grain crop.

Surrounding Area

Peebinger Conservation Park (42 km north): contains much land that was previously cleared for agriculture. It is characterised by remnants of mallee woodland on low, stabilised dunes. with regenerating open shrubland and grassland on sand plains. The reserve has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area.

Ngarkat Conservation Park (28 km south): part of the Wyperfeld, Big Desert and Ngarkat Important Bird Area.

Natural features: Pinnaroo Animal Park and Bird Aviary; Karte Conservation Park (30 km north-west); Scorpion Springs Conservation Park.

Gum Family Collection (30 km from Pinnaroo): a family run collection of antique stationary engines (mostly tractors and machines) from a bygone era.

Origin of name: of Aboriginal origin, believed to mean 'big men', 'great men' or 'old men' in a number of Aboriginal languages.

Brief history: for many years the area was considered too inhospitable for European habitation. The first settler arrived in 1869 but abandoned the run he established in 1889. With the arrival of the railway in 1906, the outlook changed and wheat crops began to be planted using hardy strains of the cereal.