When the pandemic hit in 2020, we all needed something to fill the extra time we had due to being cut off from our normal lives. One of our distractions was binge watching seven series of "McLeod's Daughters", filmed somewhere in Australia. Turns out the fictitious town of "Gungellan" is actually Freeling, a town not far from Adelaide. The working farm that 'Channel 9' had purchased as their live set for filming the series was close to Freeling and for the series named it "Drover's Run". And we were excited to learn, several months before our trip to Australia, that there was a local tour operator running tours of shoot locations around Freeling and many areas nearby. Everywhere but the actual series farmstead that is, which, once the series ended, had been bought by a local millionaire and turned into a very expensive boutique hotel and event destination (Kingsford). Long before leaving Canada we booked one of these tours with the local lady, Dal Long and although excited, set our expectations at a modest level.
We caught the commuter train from Adelaide to Gawler where Dal picked us up in her small SUV with 300,000 kilometers on it. She also picked up an Australian couple who were even bigger fans of the series than we were and announced that by some freak of the Universe she had managed for the first time in many months obtained permission to drive onto Drover's Run and access a number of the buildings for her tour. For us this was the equivalent of visiting Cape Canaveral and finding out that we could actually take a short flight on the space shuttle!!
The farmhouse on Drover's Run
We started at the farmstead, toured several of the buildings, then proceeded to drive through the countryside to a multitude of shoot locations. At each one we stopped and Dal showed a series of photos on her iPad of applicable episodes and shared anecdotes about the actors and behind-the-scenes stories.
Sheep Shearing Shed on Drover's Run
Karla in the famous tub (you'll have to watch the series to absorb the significance)
We capped off the tour with lunch at the "Gungellan Hotel".
The Gungellan Hotel
Truly a memorable experience of a series far more real than the surreal COVID series we were all forced to endure. Dal was a great story-teller and we left the experience misty-eyed, vowing to re-watch the show!
I wrote a comment but it seemed to disappear into the outback, We have not seen this show but will look for it in reruns. I did say that if you head home the wrong way around we are off to the UK a week from tomorrow and you could stay with us in Richmond. Cheers, G&G