Take a Leaf Out of Walcha's Book

Being a cold and dull mid-winter day, Dot and I decided to take a trip to the nearby town of Walcha for lunch and a walk around the streets to examine a constellation, no less than 41 items, of public sculptures all over the town's centre. I have a few caveats. Nearby in Australia means 64 km (or 40 miles). Town means a small community of about 1700 people and the large shire has a grand total of 3000 residents. So our trip was to a small place with an enormous investment in public art.

Good luck to them. The works are collectively stunning, highly diverse, and sculptured by some of the Australia's leading artists in that medium. So it was a lovely, albeit cold, stroll around Walcha's streets which we topped with a nice meal in a local cafe before heading home. By the way, Walcha's height above sea level is about 1,100 m (about 3500 feet), compared with our home which is exactly 1013 m.

Let's have a stroll around Walcha. These pictures are in the same order as we took them. The first sign that something's unusual about the town is when we sighted the town's entry point. It's not often that one sees a pole like this inscribed with vertical letters. Look carefully and the two letter 'a's and the bottom bit of the 'h' are all there! Neat, eh?

A sculpture that's actually useful - it points to a pre-school.

This is "the Big Picture", which is meant to frame the Apsley River in the background. The explorer John Oxley reached te area on 8th September 1818, and he named the Apsley River after the Secretary of State for the colonies, Lord Apsley. Walcha, however, might mean one of three things in the local aboriginal languages: sun, deep water and water.

Large stretches of footpaths have animals and birds etched into them like sheep cattle and sheep.

And here I'm literally seated on "The Throne" made from the trunk of a tree.

This is the "Generation Stick" with a large number of people standing on the shoulders of the person below.

And this is "The Bridge" carved from stringy bark.

This breaching whale is new and wasn't on our list. It's made from thin strips of metal.

The Middle Street Bridge "Mosaic - representing a stream of water life.

"At the Beach" mural on the wall of the swimming centre.

"Olympia"

"Lover's Seat"

"Warrior", a tradition Papua New Guinea" (PNG) sculpture.

"The Board"

"The Cocktail Lounge", with a cluster of breast in front and a snake coiled around the far pole.

"The Citizens" - a cluster of local residents, represented by polished basalt crystals, who talk to each other as they go about their business.

"Where Eels Swim" - an image of the Apsley river.

"All Aboard" - seat made from blue gum wood.

"The Bell Tower"

"Weather Signs' - yellow box wood and steel representing the community's reliance on the weather. I noticed that the people supporting the structure of this fountain were naked, like many others in sculptures, which must be uncomfortable for them in the kind of weather we experienced on the day!

"The Family" - family and village life in PNG made from now rusty oil drums.

"Up and Down" porcelain inserts in the pavement.

These wooden structures look like coat hangers outside a shop.

"Song Cycle" at the intersection of the Oxley Highway connecting Port Macquarie and Tamworth and the Thunderbolt's Way linking south to Gloucester.

"Pillars" in front of the Commonwealth Bank - with Dot at the end of the four.

An unnamed sculpture in someone's front garden!

"The Long Blow" a seat representing icons of the wool industry: combs, cutters, wool tables and grating.

All these items and many more were put together by local council, philanthropists, institutions and so on. And collectively they make the town an interesting place. Others might benefit from such an approach.

Snowstorm

Armidale has just had a rare event. After several pleasant days in the 13-14 degree range a cold change thundered through and the maximum forecast for today is just 7 C. Since it's blowing a gale, the wind-chill factor will take that down to about minus 4 C, an unpleasant level. And with the change came quite heavy snow flurries. However, that lasted just 30 minutes and we're now back in sunshine so that any snow that dared to hand around has already melted. I tried to capture the event in photos, but only a few came out. Even then it's difficult to see the snow flakes.

Here's the western side of the house and the 'snow' settling on the garden table.

And here's the snow flurry looking east.

We'll probably be back to normal tomorrow.

AS

Another Gorgeous Walk

On the last day before Bec headed back to Canberra, she joined Max, Dot and me in an afternoon stroll along the tracks around Wollomombi gorge. It was a gorgeous winter's day - please excuse the pun - with relatively warm temperatures (about 13 C), a cloudless sky, and pure air - not a whiff of pollution. The quality of light was extremely good and we could see long distances across the New England Tablelands. In short, an excellent environment for a walk through quintessential Australian scenery. What follows is a photographic commentary on our journey.

The main track we took was towards the Wollomombi river before it plunges in a huge waterfall to the bottom of the gorge  250 m (c. 750 feet) to the bottom of the gorge below. The track goes on view the nearby Chandler Falls, but we didn't go that far. Max and Dot are crossing a little dry creek bed at this point.

Shortly after we reached the Dingo (wild dog) fence designed to prevent the animals escaping from the National Park to harass sheep. And then we saw the fine temperature controlled and air-conditioned mound the termites tend to build for themselves. This one was about 1 m high.

A nearby lookout provided an excellent view of the deep gorge. This photo looks downstream - the river is flowing away into the distance and curves sharply through the various rock spurs shown in this picture.

Max negotiates a fallen tree across the path - there must have been a fierce storm a while back because we found several such trees.

Looking down into the valley containing the Wollomombi River.

And after a steep descent, the National Parks service has provided a metal walkway across the river. On the day we traversed it the flow had declined to a small trickle, not the thunderous cascade it becomes after heavy rain.

Looking up-stream the river bed was mainly strewn with large boulders.

But downstream there was a series of little ponds around which Bec and Max scrambled rock hopping.

And, alongside the rive I saw this gnarled tree clinging to life. It looked as if it had been struck by lightning which demolished some of the branches. However, there was also some new growth.

Altogether a pleasant 4 km (2.6 mile) stroll through a beautiful setting.

AS

An Energetic Walk

The weather was beautiful today, with temperatures approaching +15 C, a cloudless sky, and brilliant clarity of atmosphere. It was just as well because Bec and I had decided in advance to walk the track from Dangars Falls to Salisbury Water. The return journey covers 16 km (10 miles), which doesn't seems so stressful, but the sting is in the tail. The highest point in the journey was roughly 1000 m asl (3250 feet) and the bottom at Salisbury Water was 500 m asl (1625 feet). So, first we had to descend 500 m and then rise the same amount. Going down was tricky because the gravel path was strewn with largish boulders and exceptionally steep; coming up was equally tricky because of the steep gradient, which forced me to stop from time to time to catch my breathe. Trip time was therefore lengthy: 5.5 hours to be precise, with total fall and rise being close to 1000 m (3250 feet)!

This said, the scenery was magnificent and well worth the effort. We also saw some wildlife, especially Kangaroos and Rock Wallabies, and some interesting vegetation in the Oxley - Wild Rivers National Park, whose territory we traversed. This park is one of our favourites and part of the Gondwana Forests World Heritage listed spine of north-eastern NSW. Just have a look at the vistas as they unfolded for us:

Close to the car-park at the start of the walk we were reminded that we are in the midst of a sever drought when we crossed the Gara river which has almost stopped flowing and saw the water level in the pond at low levels.

At the foot of Dangars Falls the pond was also low,resulting from little if any stream flow.

As we walked on we came across a pod of 4-5 kangaroos and this little fellow stood still long enough for his photo to be taken. Likewise with the Rock Wallaby just visible in the third photo. Because of the drought, the level feed (grasses) was very low so I couldn't help wondering how they survived.

The next few photos were taken before the really steep descent into the valley bottoms - from a height of maybe 950 m. The first of these shows the steep sides of the Mihi gorge.

The next three  photos look, in an arc from south-east to north-east, towards to valley containing Salisbury Water - our task was to descend to the valley floor.

Here's the steepish southern wing of Mihi Gorge, and Bec admiring some of the great views.

Here's a grass tree.

And more extensive views of the gorge country to the south-east.

And Bec peering into the valley bottom hundreds of meters below.

A view part-way down to valley floor.

And three photos of the valley floor with its more lush vegetation lying among often large granite boulders or small ponds of water. Nice eh!?

AS