The following are excerpts from notes prepared by the previous owner of the Wonga site, (formerly "Riverdale") Mrs Margaret Pearce:
"In June 1901 my Grandparents, Jacob and Pauline Lobbe purchased 'Hillview', later renamed 'Riverdale'. Possibly the name changed following the 1917 flood. The house is said to have been erected in the 1880's.
The Camellia at the corner of the front verandah of the old house was so old that the late Tom Savige was unable to name it for me. The Wisteria which grew at the other end of the verandah was commented on for its beauty when blooming, visible from the road. Unfortunately, both these have now gone.
I can remember seeing my grandmother doing the washing in concrete troughs, boiling the clothes in a copper in the open near where the brick building now stands
I can remember watching in awe my grandfather working in the blacksmiths shed at the back of the lock-up shed. He had a portable saw mill and cut the slabs which formed the walls of the shed in which he did his blacksmithing (I still have his portable forge and anvil). He also cut all the post and rails which formed all the boundary fencing around Riverdale.
My mother was born in March 1910 followed by her brother, Walter.
I can remember going with Mum and John swimming and seeing young fish swimming over the sandbars. Different to nowadays.
A platypus family used to live below the large steel tank at the pumphouse. Swans, pelicans, swamp hens, shags and of course hundreds of ducks as well as small birds in the bullrushes were to be seen. Of course one cannot forget the tiger and black snakes which were very plentiful.
The original Murray River flowed beside Waterview Lane, until the present creek eroded to such an extent that the River changed its course.
Prior to the erection of Dartmouth Dam it was not unusual to have floods annually, depending on winter and spring rainfall. While the Dartmouth Dam was filling floods became rarer, however we then had to suffer high water levels throughout summer/autumn for the irrigation flows. These caused extensive damage to river and creek banks by trees falling in."
