Leisurely trip from Bathurst to Melbourne and back

1st Day: Bathurst to Goulburn

Heading south on minor roads. Hardly any traffic, the odd farmer's truck with a stockcrate on the back. Old goldmining places:

Trunkey Creek and Tuena

Mostly steep, rocky country.

Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal (Newspaper), 15 November 1851:

On the latter part of last week, news arrived on the river, and was quickly circulated through the surrounding country that very, rich diggings had been discovered on Tuena Creek, at one of Mr. Smith's sheep stations, known by the name of the Sapling Hut. He proceeded to the place and found a body of men very busily engaged digging up the bed of one of his sheep-yards and procuring gold in abundance.

Crookwell

is a small rural centre. Some buildings show a bit of character, occasionally a modest attempt at beautification

Crookwells population is about 2500. The town is at a relatively high altitude in Australian terms (980 metres) and there are occasional snowfalls during the winter months. Most employment is based on rural industries, and the district is renowned for potato farming. Crookwell is also home to what was NSW's first wind farm, which consists of 8 turbines, and is located a few kilometres out of town on the road towards Goulburn.

Goulburn

Cold, wet & windy. Glad to be in the 'Motel' – two floors up! Dinner at a pleasant Thai restaurant; waitress from Cambodia.

We missed the big Merino:

2nd Day: Goulburn to Cooma

Late start on a showery, windy, COOL morning. Via Tarago to

Braidwood

Very good coffee at the ‘Albion’. Pleasant little town.

Via Togganoggera and past many Hobbyfarms we reach native forests with treeferns. Further on, along the eastern edge of

Deua National Park

taller forests, dirt road raising up to 1230m, good views of the snowies, hardly any traffic. I spot a lyrebird racing across the road

Back down into small farm country and on to

Cooma

Cooma-Monaro Time Walk

It was a Bicentennial Project undertaken by the Cooma Monaro Historical society in conjunction with the Cooma-Monaro Shire Council. It was financed from a grant made available by the New South Wales Bicentennial Council and is located in Centennial Park, Cooma, which was established as part of the Centenary celebrations one hundred years ago.

The Time Walk is based on a concept initiated and promoted by Bill Joyce and is made up of a series of forty tiles, each one metre square, the designs of which represent symbolically a wide range of subjects covering most aspects of the background and history of the Monaro over the past two hundred years.

The designs of the individual tiles were created by local artists under the direction and supervision of the late Mr Chris Graham, who was at that time Head of the Art Department of the Cooma College of Technical and Further Education and his Assistant Art Teacher, Mr Gordon Robinson.

When satisfactory designs for each tile had been worked out, these were carefully painted and Chris Graham and his helpers set about painstakingly selecting, and cutting out thousands of miniature coloured glass and ceramic tiles which had been specially imported from Italy. These were then meticulously mounted over the designs to give the permanent, individual, hand-done, mosaic works of art which now constitute the Time Walk.

3rd Day: Cooma to the coast

Light drizzle most of the day. Beautiful misty views of the Monaro plains.

Maffra

Normal little town; not touristy at all

Bombala

We follow the Bonang Hwy

Delegate

Population approx. 300. At the edge of town is a beautifully restored pioneer slab hut maintained by a group of volunteers.

A bit of history: During WW1 there were recruitment marches. One of them, The Men from Snowy River started here at Delegate.

Following the successes of the ‘Cooee’ march in December 1915, 12 men set out from Delegate on 6 January 1916 to march the 220 miles to the nearest AIF Training Depot in Goulburn. Marching under the ‘Men from Snowy River’ banner the recruitment march passed through the major regional centres of the Monaro, with civil receptions at Bombala, Cooma, Queanbeyan, Bungendore and Goulburn.

Although volunteers joined the ‘Snowies’ as they passed through smaller towns and villages, massive civil receptions at the larger centres celebratised the ‘Snowy’ recruits, which was intended to entice further ‘eligibles’ at the meetings to do likewise. Such was the case with recruit Timothy McMahon, who despite volunteering to march with the Men from Snowy River at Michelago, was employed by recruiting staff to dramatically ‘volunteer’ at several of these receptions in order to appeal to the patriotism of the crowd, and lure other volunteers into enlisting.

We cross into Victoria. Roadsign: 105 km of curves! It is true, one curve after another the whole way. Hardly any traffic, most fortunately NO logging trucks. We drive through beautiful tall forests, 1000's of treeferns. A few houses and alternative huts further down the mountains but still way out in the sticks...

Here another bit of local information:

The Snowy River Bandit

The road cuts through the region frequented by the Snowy River Bandit (also ‘The Butcher's Ridge Bandit’), perhaps Australia's last ‘bushranger’, who frequented the wild forests of the area in 1940 and robbed people of food and clothing at gunpoint at isolated houses and on the roads. He was finally arrested on 20 December 1940 by Victoria Police constables, after being discovered by timber workers who saw his morning fire. He was discovered to be Alan Torney (b.1911) who had earlier been determined to be insane and was an escapee from a mental hospital at Goulburn, New South Wales. He was readmitted and reportedly spent the rest of his life at the Ararat Asylum.

Orbost

Lovely visitors centre in original slab hut with a fire going. Town fairly ordinary. Country Road Motor Inn has everything..We get a frozen meal from the supermarket.

4th Day: Orbost to Bairnsdale

First a little detour to

Marlo & Cape Conran

We stroll on the beach in misty drizzle. Here it is shown on postcards from 1964.

Lakes Entrance

Many fishingboats. Walk up & down main drag. Intermittent light rain. Very nice fish & chips in simple shop (Chinese). Unexpectedly find really good record shop!

Sometimes unusual creatures are pulled out of the sea:

A shark known as a 'living fossil' with 300 teeth and the body and face of an eel.

The crew of a fishing trawler in waters near Lakes Entrance in the state's Gippsland region were shocked when they hauled aboard the two metre long shark, the first catch of its kind in living local memory, according to the ABC.

The CSIRO confirmed the two-metre-long creature was a frilled shark, a species whose ancestry dates back 80 million years and which is found regularly 1500m under water. It was caught 700m below the surface of the water. “We couldn't find a fisherman who had ever seen one before,” Simon Boag from the South East Trawl Fishing Association said.

Bairnsdale

We just have to look at St.Mary's church.

The comprehensive interior decorative scheme of murals depicting the apostles, numerous saints, imaginings of purgatory, heaven and hell and the literally hundreds of seraphims and cherubims were painted by an Italian migrant, Francesco Floreani between 1931 and 1938.

Floreani came to Australia from Udine, which is located in north eastern Italy. He had studied painting at Udine College and then later at the Academy of Arts in Turin.

He arrived in Melbourne in 1928 and for a short time was a house painter in Melbourne. During the Depression work was very scarce and he became an itinerant farm worker in Bairnsdale and in 1931, he approached Fr Cremin for work and so he gave him a few minor commissions. Fr Cremin quickly realised Floreani's talent and he soon set about designing and painting a comprehensive decorative scheme for the new St Mary's church.

The content of his murals were probably at least partly directed by Fr Cremin and possibly inspired by Renaissance religious art. It should also be noted that Fr Cremin paid Floreani 3 Pounds per week out of his own pocket, which was good money during the Depression.

Then we had bread, wine & cheese in our motel room

By chance there was a ‘meet the author’ evening at the bookshop (with attached cafe). J.S.Finn talking about her new book: "Down the River"

5th Day: Bairnsdale to Yarram

Coffee at the bookshop cafe. Rain. Very interesting toiletblock in the Main Street Garden. Very carefully designed with great attention to detail.

On a minor road via Meerlieu to

Stratford

In the main street is an amazing Turkish shop! Large selection of mainly ceramics and carpets. Run by an Australian woman with a Turkish husband, they also offer cultural group tours of Turkey.

We continue our slow trip on minor roads through pleasant farming country:

Maffra – Newry – Heyfield – Rosedale – Flynn – Gormandale

Increasing pine plantations on the way to Balook

Tarra Bulga National Park

Beautiful stands of tall eucalypts, treeferns

Narrow, winding road along and a few times accross Tarra river to

Yarram

Little sidetrip to Port Albert and back. We stay at the ‘Ship Inn Motel’ spacious, a bit old fashioned, perfect for us. For dinner to the ‘Yarram Country Club’ meal pretty good and plenty. Everybody seems to be there.

6th Day: Yarram to Meeniyan

South Gippsland Hwy, sidetrip to Port Welshpool, then to

Foster

By chance we arrive in time to witness a simple, moving ANZAC ceremony. Just the way it should be.

Cape Liptrap Coastal Park

First to the Lighthouse then down to Waratah Bay

The Brataualung clan of Kurnai(Gunai) people have used the area to Waratah Bay and Cape Liptrap for over 6,000 years. Axes and other stone tools were made from quartzile and jasper gathered from Cape Liptrap, chipped to a sharp edge and ground with sandstone. Middens containing charcoal, stone flints and the remains of shellfish mark the location of camps along the coast.

A short walk along the beach at Walkerville brings you unexpectedly upon giant brick buttresses protruding from the cliffs like the ruins of some ancient Roman engineering works. These are all that remain of the Walkerville lime kilns.

At the peak of production in the 1890s, up to eighty men were employed quarrying limestone, working the kilns, supplying timber and bagging and stacking lime. Limestone mined from the cliffs was burnt with firewood in brick lined kilns to produce quick lime. The lime was then bagged and hauled in tram carts along a 350 metre jetty which once stretched out into the bay to waiting ships.

The kilns were closed in 1926 due to reduced demand, high transport costs and the replacement of quicklime by cement.

Apart from the dramatic remains of the kilns, the sharp-eyed visitor can still spot some of the signs of the once-thriving industrial centre. Pieces of iron tram-rails protrude from the cliff face. On the inland bush track between Walkerville North and Walkerville South lillies, nasturtiums and a fig tree are reminders of past cottage gardens. A couple of graves in the small cemetery have also survived the ravages of time.

Drive north, back to the highway

Meeniyan

Nice little town. In the mainstreet an interesting looking pizza place. We decide to stay, get a room at the Budget motel

Dinner at the ‘Trulli Woodfired Pizzeria’. Lovely meal, pleasant busy place, unpretentious, nice food, most highly recommended ! ! !

As usual there is a hall, still in use, but obviously not quite to the extent it used to be.

Opened in July 1939, it was built to replace the original hall (1892), which burnt down the in 1938. It immediately became the entertainment centre for the district balls, dinners, movies, cabarets, debs you name it – 7 nights a week. The most enduring event was the Saturday Night Dance 1939 to 1976. Attracting up to 800 weekly from far and near.

7th & last Day of the slow trip to Melbourne:
Meeniyan to Melbourne

Leongatha – Korumburra – Kongwak (Market not worth visiting) – back to Korumburra –

Warragul

Green, green hills, cattle and also a long history of coal mining –

Neerim –

Yarra Junction

– Seville – Wandin – Lilydale – Ringwood –

1st day of return trip: Melbourne to Shepparton

Avoiding the freeway we take the old mainroad, then find with some difficulty a backroad towards Seymour. Turn off to:

Tahbilk

Still our favorite winery!

As seen many years ago:

After a most excellent afternoon coffee & cake on to

Shepparton

The communications tower is as we remember it, nightlife is probably nonexistent, the towncentre nearly deserted after dark. We eat dinner at the ‘Aussie Pub’ then to bed at the ‘Tudor Inn’.

2nd Day of return trip: Shepparton to Culcairn

We drive past Dookie (oldest Agricultural college in Victoria, second in the whole country), over the hills of the Marby-Ovens National Park (ravaged by drought & insect pests) to Wangaratta –

Milawa

where we pay a lightning visit to Brown Bros.winery and have Pizza & Prosecco at the Cheese Factory

Beechworth

Chiltern

Howlong

we cross back into NSW

Culcairn

Nice little town. After nearly giving up we find the one and only Motel. It turns out to be about the best one of the whole trip ! The town is on the main railway line from Sydney to Melbourne and is still serviced by daily XPT passenger trains.

STATION BUILDING (1880, 1915)

A Victorian ‘third-class’ station building constructed of weatherboard with a long gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and featuring simple timber finials to gable ends and corbelled brick chimneys. The street frontage features a projecting bay with transverse gable to mark the entry. The platform awning is supported on posts (originally timber now replaced with steel) also clad in corrugated iron with simple timber valance. Fenestration comprises timber double hung windows.

The building is linear in plan and originally comprised of a central waiting room, flanked by a Station Masters office and combined lamp and porter???s room on one side, and a ticket office and ladies waiting room on the other. The building has been extended and now features from north to south a parcels office, store, booking office, general waiting room, Station Masters office (previously refreshment rooms) and a store.

3rd Day of return trip: Culcairn to Young

Henty

Famous because of the Headlie Taylor's Header Harvester.

Rural community of Henty marks 100 years of Headlie Taylor's header harvester.

From the stump jump plough to mechanical sheep shears, Australia boasts a fine list of world class inventions that have come from the land. But there is little doubt the most important of all is the header harvester. The header was a new mechanical method of harvesting grain crops. It cut the ripened heads off crops far more efficiently and effectively than the existing stripper harvester that threshed and pulled the grain from the stalks. A century ago this week, the prototype header harvester went on show at the Henty Agricultural Show in southern New South Wales. Its inventor Headlie Taylor, a local wheat farmer and self-taught engineer, had finally found success with his third prototype.

The first one he built, that wasn't a success... So he took it back to the workshop, had a break for three weeks, stripped the whole thing down to the axles and wheels and started again.

Grain grower and descendant Milton Taylor:

“He had very little education. He taught himself out of books on engineering,” retired grain grower and descendant Milton Taylor said.

“The first one he built, that wasn't a success... he got it out in the paddock, into a crop and it just didn't work. So he took it back to the workshop, had a break for three weeks, stripped the whole thing down to the axles and wheels and started again.” It took three years of toil, design changes and countless hours of hand-forging the metal mechanism in his blacksmith's shop. Taylor's struggle and his determination to build a superior harvester were summed up his Latin motto ‘Nil Desperandum’ (never give up), emblazoned on the front of the machine.

Taylor and McKay a prosperous partnership.

Few then could have realised the header represented a great leap forward in world agriculture. But Australia's largest industrialist of the day, harvester and agricultural implement manufacturer Hugh Victor McKay, needed no convincing of the machine's merits.

McKay family descendants say the industrialist watched Taylor's header at work in a field trial. Minutes later he offered Taylor a job for life and snapped up the patent rights. “So he [McKay] bought the patents from Headlie Taylor, but insisted that part of the deal was that Headlie Taylor went and worked down at the factory and kept continuing to make Headlie Taylor designed machines with his modifications to the strippers which were much more efficient,” said McKay's great-grandson Dugald McKay. Taylor gleefully accepted. He had fielded offers from the United States but wanted his invention to remain in Australia.

His partnership with McKay saw both men prosper. McKay had the capital, the industrial might and the very successful Sunshine Harvester. Taylor's inventive mind also had a string of other inventions on the drawing board. One of his most significant was the crop lifter. Fitted to the front of the header it picked up ripe crops that had been flattened by storms and fed them into the harvester. Until then fallen crops had meant enormous losses to grain growers. In 1920 when storms flattened crops across New South Wales, McKay's factory in Sunshine worked around the clock. The 1,000 machines that were rolled out that year were a godsend to despairing farmers. Taylor developed self-propelled headers and machines that could harvest peas, rice, even flax, a vital commodity during World War II. The header revolutionised modern grain harvesting. It obviated the need for a great deal of labour. It allowed farmers to grow far bigger acreages and Taylor's design provided the enduring blueprint for the giant harvesters of today.

The Henty district has long-paid homage to Taylor's great legacy. His blacksmith's shop has been preserved in the town's main street and the hamlet proclaims itself as the ‘home of the header’.

The Rock

Another very well kept little town. A double row of Kurrajong trees on a wide grassed strip in the centre of the main street.

We bypass Wagga Wagga, cross the Murrumbidgee river and head straight north to the next little town

Coolamon

The big attraction is the Up-to-date store with attached rural museum. The museum is well worth visiting, but the most exciting thing is the cash ball system in the store.

The Store was divided into several different departments which included grocery, ironmongery, crockery, drapery, mercery, millinery, haberdashery, clothing and footwear. In fact, it is true that anything and everything, from a plough to a piano could be purchased from the Up-To-Date Store.

The Store boasts its original fittings including the Lamson Cash Railway, which is the only known Ball-Style Cash Railway System in the world that is still in its original location. The Ball-Style Cash Railway is the predecessor to the later models of cash carriers including the spring loaded ‘flying fox’ and the pneumatic systems that can still be found in department stores, today.

The Cash Ball system was invented in 1881 or 1882 and manufactured until the 1930s. The cash is conveyed in hollow wooden balls, running along inclined tracks. The top one slopes down from sales point to cashier and the bottom slopes the other way. The gradient is 5/16ths of an inch to the foot. A patent of 1887 mentions ball sizes of 3.25 to 3.75 inches diameter.

The balls were originally made of boxwood from one block, by hand, and were very expensive. By 1888 they were being made by machine in two pieces from maple or birch and the cost was reduced by 90%. In later years it was difficult to obtain replacement balls: Lamsons used to make them at Hythe Road, London out of substandard mangle rollers.

This photograph shows the 8-station system installed at Alexander Moon Ltd in Galway in November 1894. Note the ball approaching a ‘switch’ – the switch was set by the size of the ball so that it arrived back at the correct sales point.

Immediately in front of the assistant is the lift to raise the ball to the upper track for sending to the cashier. On its return to the service point, the ball drops onto a leather pad (to the right of the hoist). Sometimes a twisted ‘sock’ was used to break its fall.

Temora

Temora is an old goldrush town. It is a lively rural centre. Remakably there are practically no modern buildings, a pleasant oldfashioned feeling prewails.

Young

Famous for cherries. We stay in one of the very ordinary motels and heat up a frozen meal from the supermarket.

4th Day of return trip: Young to Bathurst

We have our last stop at

Cowra

First the worst coffee of the whole trip, then on a much more positive note, a visit to the Cowra Regional Art Gallery. The Exhibition of the Calleen Art Award was on, always worth seeing.

The Calleen Art Award is an acquisitive national painting prize in any subject and style. The award was established in 1977 by Patricia Fagan OAM and is made possible by the generous support of the Calleen Trust. The winner of the 2015 Calleen Art Award will receive $19,000 in prize money and their painting will join the Calleen Collection at the Cowra Regional Art Gallery. An entered artwork must be the original painting by the artist in any subject, style and painting medium including oils, acrylic or watercolour.

Just a little snippet of local history:

On this note our trip comes to an end. From here it is a pleasant drive of less than 2 hours and we'll be home !