Chasing Rainbows in the Rain

A history of Mt. Compass, Nangkita, Tooperang and Yundi

by Ann Riddle

Mt. Compass War memorial Community Centre Inc., 1988, [First Edition], ISBN 073165689, black and white photographs, landscape paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“Repeatedly, we find the history of Mt. Compass to be the story of those who came because there was nowhere else to go.  Their pressing need was for survival.
The land – peat swamps, hungry, thirsty bracken-covered sandhills, ironstone hills – was despised as wasteland, useless, cheap.  Within a few miles all around, the vegetation changed markedly from the low-growing eucalyptus, dense banksias and ti-tree of Mt. Compass to tall, gracious gumtree, the indicators of fertility.
Some who came, the winners, the survivors, stayed and are into the fifth generation.  Why have they stayed?
Others left, many the participants in idealistic social community schemes born, with hope, to provide the very basic necessities of their times.
Initiative, experimentation, determined hard work using hands and simple tools of trade coupled with belief in God, the Christian ethic and themselves, and driven by the need to survive, were the keys that unlocked the hidden potential of the land.  Thus Mt. Compass developed into a bountiful, food-producing area for the nearby towns of the South Coast of South Australia, Adelaide, and indeed, Australia.”