There's a track winding back
to an o-old fashioned shack,
Along the road to Gundagai;
Where the blue gums are growin'
and the Murrumbidgee's flowin'
beneath that sunny sky
Hence, early April we followed the track to Gundagai, but fortunately didn't use the Prince Alfred Road Bridge over the Murrumbidgee due to its condemned state.
The bridge was completed in 1867 and named after Queen Victoria's son Alfred who was not only the first royal to visit Australia, but also the first to be shot in an assassination attempt in 1868.
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A bridge too far gone!
Alfred, after whom the bridge was named, as well as the bridge were both shot.
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| The railway viaduct built in 1903 is the longest truss bridge built in Australia and measures 809m. |
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| It doesn't always pay to cross bridges when you come to them! |
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| Fishing is not only prohibited on this bridge, it probably wouldn't yield any catch. |
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Someone with a sense of humour.
The top sign above the Emergency Assembly Point reads:
"Get in boat if you can't read the sign below!" |
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Flood levels since the great flood in 1852.
The far bank is almost one kilometre away.
This is such a contrast to our photo of the Murrumbidgee in our last post, where the river could be jumped across. |
Gundagai was originally built on the Murrumbidgee flood plain before the 1852 flood, which killed 89 of the town's 250 inhabitants. The town was washed away with 5m of water across the plain, necessitating in the new town to be built on the surrounding hills.
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| Sculpture honouring Yarri and Jacky Jacky who saved more than 40 people with their bark canoe. |
Frank Rusconi took playing with marbles to a whole new level making his masterpiece, a cathedral in miniature, on show in the Gundagai Visitor Centre, which proudly includes twenty different types of NSW marble.
20,948 hand crafted pieces were made over 28 years, working 3 hours per night, after a full day's work.
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| Giving a sense of scale to the 21,000 piece model. |
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Starting in 1910 and working through to 1938 for three hours a night.
This achievement shows what can be done without the wasted time of sitting in front of a television set.
(Australians average 2.5hrs/day watching TV, Americans 4hrs/day) |
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Radio stars Dad and Dave, Mum and Mabel immortalized in Gundagai and linked so fondly by the theme song, "Road to Gundagai".
The original radio series ran from 1937 to 1953. |
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| The mill of 1848 is the only major building from old Gundagai to survive the 1852 flood. |
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| Also created by Frank Rosconi, The Dog on the Tucker Box monument, was originally located as the per the poem first published in 1880, at nine miles from Gundagai. In 1926, it was moved to a more relevant site, due to tourism and the new highway, at five miles from Gundagai; and hence new words for the poem. |
Murrumburrah is a twin town with Harden and was the main centre from 1840 until the Sydney to Melbourne rail line came through in 1877. To avoid trains starting at the bottom of a hill, the station was placed one mile up the hill at the new Harden.
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| Rural scenes into a rural town. |
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The owner of the property must object to folk looking over his fence as this is one of the few places where the artwork can be viewed due to the planting of an arboreal screen.
Before long this view will disappear. |
Bill the Bastard, so called due to his obstinate nature, was known to allow only one man to ride him, however, on one day in the thick of WW1, the war horse who stood at 17 hands high and weighing 730kg, did something quite remarkable.
Major Michael Shanahan and Bill rode through enemy fire to collect four stranded Tasmanian soldiers who piled on to Bill as he rode almost 5kms to safety.
Returning to battle the Major was shot in the leg and passed out, only to have Bill return him 3kms to safety once more.
The major later had his leg amputated, whilst Bill the Bastard finished the war as a pack horse and was eventually smuggled back to a Gallipoli village where he lived out the rest of life.
None of the 130,000 Australian horses taken to the war ever returned.
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| Five fully laden soldiers carried to safety. |
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| The sculptor has since sculptured a full life size replica of Bill and his load, however, it was locked away for safe keeping. |
Our hopes of finding a platypus escalated with movement in a stream at Murrumburrah, only to realise that we had found another Australian great, a Rakali, or Australian Native Water Rat.
Rakali have the honour of being the only mammal to target large cane toads, neatly dissecting toads to eat out their hearts and livers while avoiding the poisonous skin and glands.
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| Not a mini hippopotamus or platypus, but a legendary Rakali. |
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Rakali also prey on mice during mouse plagues.
We need more of these native rodents to quell the invasion of the introduced species. |
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| Lightsaber tail designed long before Star Wars. |
One very generous community minded farmer on the outskirts of Greenethorpe has for the last few years planted a field of sunflowers simply for passing motorists to view and collect the flowers.
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| Vincent van Gogh would have given his right ear for this field of sunflowers and the background of gum trees. |
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| Late bloomer |
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| A home among the gumtrees. |
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The farmer who owns the field not only provides the field for picking but also this sign along with secateurs at the base of the pushbike for the cutting of the flowers.
Here Carrol met one of the locals with secateurs in hand, cut her the following sunflower, which lived in our caravan for a week in the only vase we had; a wine bottle. |
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God's mathematical precision following the Fibonacci sequence where the pattern of seeds in the sunflower is the sum of the previous two numbers. 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55 etc.
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Set amongst sheep grazing paddocks and fields of wheat and canola between Young and Greenethorpe, Iandra Castle can be seen obscured behind an arboreal screen. The castle has occasional open days, unfortunately not during the time we passed by.
The castle was completed in 1911 and employed 350 workers, plus 61 shareholders, carriers, and contractors working on the 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) property.
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| Judging by the number of chimneys, we can see why the surrounding lands were transformed to crops and grazing lands. |
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| Not your average squatter's hut. |
In 1916, a huge amount of grain accumulated during WW1 was lost due to rodents, weather and insects. This prompted the government to form the Grain Elevator Act of 1916 to construct 68 bulk storage silos at selected locations along railway lines across NSW.
The Grenfell Silos were completed in 1925 ready for the 1926 harvest.
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| The Grenfell silos were painted over five weeks in 2019 using 180 litres of bulk paint and 800 spray cans. |
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| To give a sense of scale, Carrol can be seen standing at the bottom right of the left silo. |
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| 5m high galah. |
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Superb detail at such a large scale!
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Grenfell's most famous son was the poet and writer, Henry Kendall, who is ranked with Banjo Paterson as one of Australia's premier story tellers.
Since travelling away from the glare of city lights, we endorse and quote Henry's poem,
"A May Night in the Mountains"
'Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin,
These long 'small hours' of night,
When grass is crisp, and the air is thin,
And the stars come close and bright.
The moon hangs caught in a silvery veil,
From the clouds of a steely grey.
And the hard, cold blue of the sky grows pale
in the wonderful Milky Way.
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The Lawson Family Tree, planted by Henry's daughter Bertha in 1924 at the place of his birtha in 1867. Henry died in 1922.
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The town of Wombat, 15kms south of Young, beckoned due to the renowned Wombat guarding the town and the longest continually licenced hotel in NSW.
There is not much more to Wombat.
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| The town sentinel |
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Somewhat underwhelming.
The not so "Big Wombat!" |
It is now five weeks since we were in Gundagai, and due to continuous adventures including a tour of 170km on our tandem; and lack of internet connection we are somewhat behind in our posts. We will catch up in time. We continue as the weather cools and hopefully the mice plague abates. So far we have thankfully seen only occasional mice without the massive quantities some areas are dealing with.
Our direction of travel now is very much dependent upon reports of mice at the time.
Wishing all well.
Cheers, Don and Carrol.
