Goroke

Goroke, a rural township in the Wimmera region, is about midway between Horsham and the South Australian border. It is 10 km south of the Little Desert. The name is thought to have been derived from an Aboriginal word meaning magpie.

The area was occupied for pastoral runs in the mid-1840s. In 1864 it achieved fame when three children, Isaac, Jane and Frank Duff, were found, having lost their way after being sent to find heath for broom-making. Their father worked on the Springhill station near Goroke, and the story has been told in the Victorian Education Department’s Grade 4 reader. There is a Jane Duff memorial on the Goroke-Horsham Road.

Farm allotments were taken up in the Goroke area in the late 1870s. A school was opened at Gymbowen, 10 km east of Goroke, in 1881, and the Goroke school was opened in 1885. Goroke township was surveyed in 1882. Within a few years the Victorian municipal directory recorded Goroke as having some stores, a flour mill, a hotel and a mechanics’ institute. An agricultural and pastoral society was formed in 1887. The railway line was extended form Natimuk to Goroke in 1894, connecting it to Horsham.

Goroke

Stretching out along the southern fringes of the Little Desert National Park, Goroke is a relaxed and rural town made of true Aussie outback grit. One of rugged good looks, its wide main street is home to a small and friendly community of farmers, workers and even a prized literary author. As well as a gateway to Little Desert and Mt Arapiles, Goroke has more recently found fame as a stop along the popular Silo Art Trail.

In the local Wotjobaluk dialect, Goroke means ‘magpie’, so it’s appropriate the town’s grain silo art bears the image of this iconic bird. Sharing space alongside a kookaburra and a galah, it’s a beautiful triptych that makes for an essential stop.

Popular as a base for trips into the Little Desert, those with a 4WD (or a good pair of hiking boots) can tackle its sandy tracks to witness spring-time wildflowers, and, if lucky, spot its most famous resident – the Mallee Fowl.