Nanutarra Roadhouse is situated in a strategic spot next to the Ashburton River. In the wet season this is a raging torrent, I’ve been told, but today the remaining amount of water in the stream bed is not moving at all. In the early days, before there was a bridge, people driving north often had to wait 2 or 3 days for the water to subside so that they could safely cross. This happened more than once to JL, he told me. There are now 2 bridges, the latest built in 2004 and the first opened in 1966. JL’s colleague Gilbert Marsh designed the first one. Both JL and Gilbert were civil engineers in the Public Works Department and active in the early development of the state: Gilbert did bridges and JL did water supply for regional towns.
The two bridges, with a road train crossing the modern bridge at sunset.
Commemorative plaque mentioning Gilbert.
Looking upstream in the evening light.
Flowers on the periphery.
Spinifex pigeons pecking for crumbs in the caravan park.
Road train just setting off.
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