The town of 500 people half an hour from Albury was settled by a group of German Lutherans in 1869 who had travelled nearly 1000 kilometres from South Australia.

Many of the families who were on that original journey, including the Lieschkes, Wenkes, Schmidts and Fischers, remain well-known names to this day.

Yesterday morning a group of descendants set off to retrace ‘The Trek’.

Dorothy Brinkmann and her husband Tony, among the core group who have been organising the event, have done extensive research to find exactly out what the journey looked like.

“From newspaper reports we have definitive dates for Blanchetown and Deniliquin; for other areas we think we’re close,” she said.

“Tony researched when they all arrived in Australia – only one was born here; many had come as religious refugees from Germany in the 1800s.

“We also found out that about half of them weren’t German, but Wendish.

“When they arrived in Australia, they couldn’t speak English, so they assimilated with the Germans and it was a group of Germans and Wendish that come to Walla.”

It was buying cheaper land, made possible by the 1861 John Robertson land act, that led various groups of immigrants living in the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley to seek greener pastures.

150 years on – Ebenezer, South Australia to Walla Walla, NSW

One of the largest groups, led by Lutheran lay preacher Johann Gottlieb Klemke, left Ebenezer for the Riverina on October 13, 1868.

Horses pulled 14 German-style wagons that operated both as sleeping quarters and transportation for supplies and luggage.

Heavy farm implements like plows, winnowers, strippers and drays loaded with furniture and other boxed goods were loaded onto the riverboat, PS Queen, at Blanchetown, which was unloaded in October, 1868 at Corowa.

They followed the north bank of the Murray through Blanchetown, Morgan, and Wentworth, crossing the Darling by punt at Euston, and doing so again across the Murrumbidgee River after Balranald. 

After crossing a bridge over the Billabong Creek at Moulamein, it was a dry run down to Deniliquin, Tocumwal, and eventually Albury, where they arrived on November 19.

Most of the party camped just north of Jindera at Four Mile Creek for 10 weeks – a member of the Wenke family welcomed a baby there – while the men headed off to look for a suitable place to settle.

At some point during the 10-week search for land in January of 1869, some of the men camped under a tree where the Walla cairn is now on property owned by the Kotzurs.

The tree is long gone, but the plaque on the cairn reads “The first Lutherans to settle in this district arrived at this site, January 1869”.

The land that was chosen was south of the large station called “Walla Walla”, owned by the Stitt brothers.

It was hoped the new settlement would be known as Ebenezer, but when the need for a post office arose, the name Walla Walla was used as there was already another Ebenezer in NSW.

“It’s been really fascinating to think what it must have been like to walk all 900 kilometres – as most of them did walk – over the five-and-a-half to six weeks,” Mrs Brinkmann said.

“There were no roads except for a designated run Cobb and Co Coaches was using as a mail route. 

“We found a lot of droving routes were Aboriginal travel routes that were then followed by the explorers.

“We hope at Balranald to have Indigenous speakers talk about the custodians of the land.”

There are 90 people in total who will be arriving back in Walla next Friday, many of whom have already left for South Australia.

Thirty of those 90 still live in Walla, including Mrs Brinkmann and her family, her brother Andrew Kotzur, Julie Barber and Noel Wilksch, who set off yesterday morning.

Mr Kotzur, whose great grandmother and her parents were on the original Trek, is travelling the Trek in a 1953 International AR-110 that he restored about 10 years ago.

“It was my father’s and my mum came from South Australia, so he used to drive it over to see her,” he said.

“It probably hasn’t done that sort of distance since then.

“I have my fingers crossed it will get there and back … I might need a horse.”

There will be one section of The Trek which Mr Kotzur and many others will have to deviate from.

Unsealed roads between Renmark and Wentworth are in bad shape, so the group whose vehicles will not handle the terrain will be using the Sturt Highway.

Taking a route as realistic as possible in the modern age is exciting for Julie Barber, who is meeting up with her mother in Wentworth.

“I drove an old wagon for the Jindera 150^th celebrations, and there were many comments about how uncomfortable it was,” she said.

“I said, ‘Imagine doing this pregnant, with small children and in the summer’.”

Retracing the journey has been talked about for many years, Mrs Brinkmann said, and it was exciting that it was now underway.

“As far as I know, this is the first time it’s been retraced by a group of people,” she said.

“Members of the Wenke family who had been kids on The Trek itself wrote the history down – it’s been really interesting to put together the puzzle.

“This is  just the first of the celebrations.”

There are other sesquicentenary plans, including a street parade, German beer hall, historical displays and more on the 2019 Australia Day long weekend.