. . . Snips and Snails and puppy dog tails. . . (complete storyline). Spiny Echidna, by; Patricia Hopwood-Wade..( www.pjpaintings.com ) Spiked Echidna. Just up-river and around a few bends, around ten miles from the main town of the region (I think you know the one I mean), was the little hamlet of “Spiked Echidna”…the name arising from the government surveyor who set out the village remarking on the surprising number of echidnas in that particular area. It consisted of a small cluster of multi-ethnic families that settled here during and after the Great Depression, when the government made land available for the many new arrivals from overseas and other families driven by unemployment and poverty to these and many other regional centres along The Murray River. The landscape around “Spike”( the shortening of the longer name being a common thing in Australian lingo) was mostly flat or shallow undulating, this is where most of the old pione