Taking its name from the Aboriginal word for ‘water out of the ground’, Eudunda is at the crossroads of traffic from Robertson and Point Pass in the north, from Morgan in the east, from Kapunda in the south and from Gilbert Valley to the west.
The natural spring which was so important to the Aborigines was also a boon to stockmen who rested their cattle and horses at the waterhole on the overland drive from Queensland and New South Wales.
This is prime wheat country and Eudunda is not only the birthplace of prominent actor-author Colin Thiele, but this is the town in which the Eudunda Farmers Co-operative Growers opened its first store. The co-op now operates 49 stores throughout the state.
For his part, author (Storm Boy) Thiele not only brought litery fame to the town, but he had the rare distiction of unveiling his own statue in a park off the main street.
Thiele, who stems from Lutheran stock, has also given us an incisive description of growing up in Eudunda: 'It was basically rural - farm and township, fallow and stubble, week day and Sunday. It was yabby creek and red gum hillock, candlelight and oven bread, mealtime grace and family Bible, Christening font and graveside coffin. It was ice on puddles and the fluffing of summer dust through barefoot toes; it was frost to the horizon and frogs in the flooded cellar and possums in the kitchen'.
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