The small town of Yacka is just north of Clare. Its name is derived from the local Ngadjuri people’s name for the area Yackamoorundie, ‘sister to the big river’. Explorer Eyre, passing in 1839, called it the Broughton River after the bishop of Adelaide.
Yacka township was surveyed in 1869 and prospered central to wheat farming. The severe drought of 1914 followed by the depression of the late 1920s and 1930s strained cash flows. In the last decades Government services have withdrawn from Yacka – called ‘economic rationalism’ – the railway, post office and school closed. The hotel, bank and store also shut their doors.
There is a park next to the river with bbqs and playground. A campground is also there.
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