Penong Windmill Museum

The town of windmills

Penong, a wheat and sheep town on the Eyre Highway west of Ceduna, has long been known as 'the town of a hundred windmills' — mills were the only way to draw water in this dry country, and dozens still spin on the surrounding plains. In 2016 the community leaned into the legend and opened the Penong Windmill Museum: an open-air collection of around twenty donated and restored windmills, gathered from properties as far away as Marla, the Riverland and Alice Springs.

Big Bruce

The centrepiece is Bruce, a 35-foot Comet windmill built in 1932 — one of only fifteen ever made, and the biggest windmill in Australia. Bruce spent his working life pumping water for the Commonwealth Railways at McKinnon Dam and later on Coondambo Station, drawing up to a million litres a day before high winds wrecked his fan in 2003. Penong's volunteers rescued, restored and re-erected him, and his ten-metre span now towers over the highway.

Worth the stop

The museum is free to wander (donations welcome) and sits right on the highway, making it the natural leg-stretch between Ceduna and the Nullarbor. Surfers will already know the turn-off — Penong is also the gateway to the fabled breaks at Cactus Beach, 21 km south on the coast.