A Week in Loxton, South Australia

Get your hair done 12 different ways with the Historical Village People

Loxton, located in the Riverlands outside of Adelaide, is one of many farming communities in South Australia. Come here to find any farming work and live cheaply and comfortably as a traveler. Getting right down to business, the town of Loxton has just two pubs to service the town and a only couple hotels to lay your head. If you're lost or looking for fruit picking work you will likely end up at the Harvest Trail Lodge. Really though, besides fruit picking, why else would you go to Loxton?

Activities are here to keep you busy in case the fruit picking isn't happening. Go canoeing on the Murray River, if it's not flooded, that is. Also check out the walking trails down by the river. Unless that's flooded too. It actually doesn't rain a lot here, we just went on a particularly odd year for weather.

What I love about small towns are their quirks of originality. Loxton, for example, plays easy listening music throughout the day from randomly placed speakers around the main road. Walking through town you can catch stray notes of Mariah Carey, the Bieb, and Billy Joel.

The town itself literally centers on a roundabout which bring the town together. For a town of just over 4000 people, they have a surprisingly large number lot of places to get your hair done. A simple walk through town you cross at least a dozen hair dressers. None appear to be too busy, but all must have a solid customer base. Perhaps its all the rain they got makes hair grow better too.

Then, butting up to the Murray River, there is Loxtons Historical Village and the reason I love tacky tourist sites in off the beaten path places. Back in the 1970's the good people of Loxton recreated this small, historically accurate town as a tourist attraction.

It includes a barber(of course), blacksmith, bank, and all the basic buildings you could expect. Then to my utter delight, they populated this town with mannequins, apparently also from the 1970's. For the sake of conversation let's call them Loxtons Historical Village People.

Part tack, part practicality and a huge part creepy and slightly unnecessary. I don't know why I find these funny, but it seems a bit redundant to have them. Take this barber for example. I know what a barber looks like in real life, thus I can imagine what he looked like back in 1920. Funny though, I pictured him with better hair. You think it's a toupée?

Always the good wife, she tucks her mannequin in for the night. Still a bit creepy...

This guy is standing next to a car. Odd, and a bit creepy. And that would be Loxtons Historical Village People.

And here is a photo of the kids.

The unexpected treat of Loxton Historical Village was the kangaroo that inhabits the property. This old roo also brings the official Kangaroo count to 11. She's old, and I can only hope she is historically accurate to what kangaroo's looked like back in 1926.

The Historical village is going to run you $10 per person, and I think I just saved you that much by highlighting the important parts of the town. Is it worth it? I suppose if you have a penchant for history or mannequins.

We heard it through the grapevine: picking grapes in the Riverlands.