There is no need to find a time travel machine to experience the life of the region’s first dry-land farmers. Driving into the township of Meringur, situated 90km from Mildura on Millewa road, the first thing you see is a series of large, black metal sculptures representing national monuments of the dry-land pioneers of Australia. The artwork is only a hint of what lies ahead at the Millewa Pioneers Park – a collection of buildings and relic from the region’s first farming families – which local volunteers have been tirelessly preserving for more than 30 years. Marina Hacquin got to know the volunteers behind the park. Pictures: Jayne Alderton

In Millewa Pioneers Park (MPP), located in the small township Meringur, time stopped somewhere between the 1920s and 1940s, when early settlers first established their homes in this semi-arid l