Hillgrove Museum - Farm Machinery

 Earlier this week Dot invited me to an event run by the local Probus Group, of which she is now Secretary. It was a trip to explore the Hillgrove Museum. The tiny village of Hillgrove has had a strange history. In the 1890s it was a very properous place with a population of 3,000, which was about the same as Armidale where I live. After the turn of the 20th century its fortune went downhill fast and recently its estimated population was only about 100. What happened? Well the village's original growth came on the back of gold and antimony mining. Some 15,000 kg of gold was extracted and about 14,700 tons of antimony. As with many mining communities the activity stops when either the resource is fully exhauseted or the price drops so low that mining becomes uneconomic.

Nowadays, Hillgrove has few services, but is home to people involved in the local famr economy or, to a minimum extent in its history - as embodied in a great little museum which has two main elements. The first is its lovely collection of farm machinery - the focus of this post. Secondly, it explores the economic and social life of Hillgrove's population a century or so ago. Let'ss have  look at the farm machinery, some of it not in very good shape!

I found these items quite impressive, especially as they're a century or so old and located in a remote corner of the world. I wondered, also, whether it was imported from somewhere like the UK or, alternatively, was manufactured in a major city like Sydney. However, it wasn't always easy to see what the machinery / or equipment was supposed to do and how it operated. These pictures also remind me that Armidale's show-ground also has a corner that is a repository for antique farm machinery. 

All this reminds me that we have an active club that treasures antique cars. I wonder long it will be before my petrol-driven car ends up as a display in some paddock while everyone drives around in an electric car.

AS

ANZAC Day 2021

 ANZAC day commemorates the heroic services of Australian and New Zealand troops overseas since the first world war starting in 1914, and memorises those who unfortuantely lost their lives in the process. It occurs annually on 25th April 2015, the date on which ANZAC troops took part on the ill-fated invasion of Turkey at now what is called Anzac Cove. In the follwing 8 monts until the surviving troops were evacuated to Egypt, c. 11,500 AUstralian and New Zealand troops were killed. Turkey was targeted because that country supported the German and Austrian participants in the first world war.

Every year since the 1920s Australia has declared a public holiday to commemorate not just the Turkish campaign, but also Australians who served in a long chain of military events including the second world war (especially the campaign against Japan); the Korean War; Vietnam War; and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan; or East Timor. We've side with Americans in nearly all those events.

Anyway here are some pictures of Armidale's event last Sunday. Armidale's celebratory march started at the former courthouse in Armidale's CBD and headed to a remembrance service in Central Park a few hundred meters away. Here we see some troops assembling for the start of the march and also members of the public watching this process.

Here we have am American jeep with left-hand steering carrying older participants unable to join the parade on foot.

I have a video of the march itself which I can distribute to those requesting it, but it lasts a while and is rather too large to pin here. After we reached Central Park a large crowd of maybe a couple of thousand people stationed themselves in a large circle around the central memorial.

He we see a group army personel marching to a position south-west of the memorial to await their turn on proceedings.

Many  people were seated for the event like these to the north.

And here's the podium from which most of the speeches were made, with presenters jus to the right.

Some of the speakers / presenters / singers were senior kids from local high schools (Armidale, with a population of just 25,000 has 5 high schools, four of them private. The guy here is from TAS (The Armidale School).

Here have community leaders, including UNE's Vice-Chancellor and Chancellor.

A military figure discussed the roles of defence forces and their contribution to the nation.

This was followed by wreath-laying by a lrage array of community groups - maybe some 20 to 30 of them, while uniformed military personnel stood guard with weapons inverted.

At various points in the ceremony addressses were delivered by clergy and prayers said. In addtion, the Armidale band played the national anthems of both Australia and New Zealand and also famous songs or tunes of national significance. Alas, I couldn't upload these either because they're in the wrong file format. After about one hour the proceedings closed and people haooily headed off home.

I might add one other experience. We had a fly past just before the march and the airforce jst was incredibly low and fast. It must have been travelling at c. 900 kph and was deafening. It also frightened masses of Corellas (large white parrots, hundreds of which fled to the air in large white clouds).

AS

Autumn' Arrived

 Wwe're now in mid-Autumn and the weather is slowly cooling. Yet most days have recently posted maximum temperatures around 18 or 19 C with skies that are coloured a brilliant blue and and wafted  by gentle breezes. However, deciduous tree foliage is turning brilliantly red, yellow, and purple and putting on a great dispplay. That's simply because overnight temperatures now typically hover around -1 to 1 C and generate light frosts. So some vegetation is now taking its cue, but many bushes and shrubs haven't yet received the message. So we still have blooming roses and dahlias, among many others drawing our attention in the garden..

I took a walk to Armidale's lookout the other day and this is what I saw:

I really do like this time of year, which is especially colourful.

AS

Dangar's Falls in flood

 I took a trip out to our gorge country today to see how all our recent rain has affected the river system and our gorgeous waterfalls. In particular, I headed to Dangar's Falls, which tumble vertically into a deep gorge and I was stunned by what I saw.

Have a look at these pictures. Here's the fast flowing water taken from an iron bridge over the creek near the car park. The latter was jammed with cars as people had headed like me to the spectacular falls 

This is the stream running hard over the rocky landscape above the falls.

And here's a picture looking the rapid stream flow heading down to the top of the falls.

This shows the torrent of water heading over the top of the falls - about the most water I have ever seen. There's a little lake at the bottom, which is better shown in the following picture.

The river then rushes in zig-zag fashion through the bottom of the gorge.

I have a video of the falls and friends and families are welcome to request it separately.

AS

NERAM art display at Wyuna

 We might now be well into Autumn, but yesterday was a lovely day with the temperature still around 22 C (72 F). Dot and I had received an invitation to go to a rural property at Kelly's Plains organised by the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM), which is one of regional Australia's best galleries - if not THE best. I gather that the display of paintings, sculptures and some plants was being used as a fund-raising venture by the gallery and there were certainly lots of people present at this open air event. The property, Wyuna, has several historic buildings and is also these days used for rearing horses and teaching them show-jumping. But it also has lovely and picturesque gardens in which the art-works were displayed.

I sat down for a mug of coffee and a slice of cake right next to the old cart shown above, and couldn't resist taking a photo of it. Nice refereshments were avaiable for those attending the event.

One of the local private schools -The New England Girls School (NEGS) displayed handiworks presumably made by their students

I thought I'd taken pictures of some of the paintings and sculptures on display, but looking at the rest of the pictures suggest I was overwhelmed by the attractiveness of the gardens instead. 

For example, the were many models of animals like sheep modelled from wire ... but I cannot see here any in my pictures despite intending to display them!

Oh well! These look like 3 metal stumps!

Here's the main homestead.

And a nice garden shair!

Oh Well! That's it.

AS

Another Flood Event

 You may recall that I reported on Armidale's drenching rain at the end of February 2021 when we received something like 100 mm (4 inches) of rain over several days. Well, events have repeated at the end of March, which has been another dampish month. This time we received 80 mm of rain in just two days, this time in particularly heavy downpours. So we've had close to 400 mm of rain (or c. 10 inches) since the starrt of 2021, our best start to the year climatically for quite a while. As a result we've major flood events along Dumaresq Creek, which runs through town. In addition, our local dams are now full and we've come off wate-use restrictions.

The wonderful rain at the start of this week immediately generated the highest water levels in Armidale's creeklands that I've seen in years. And here are some images of the height and speed of water travelling through town. However, the first thing that caught my eye after getting out of my car to photograph events were these fungii growing around the base of a tree. Don't they look edible!

From this spot I case my eye over the raging water. Also notice how green our grass nowis as a result of extensive rain.

The following morning after the above 4 images were taken, I went on my usual morning walk and decided to revisit the creeklands to see how events were unfolding. Well, the water was higher and flowing faster. Here you can see the water rushing across one the N-S roads into town - the one we usually take. Not today, however!

This image looks westerly and upstreem from the elevated footpath across the creek, which was still quite usable.

Rotating 180 degrees to the left, this was the view downstream and you can see in the distance one of the few creek crossings now usable.

Now I am on the bridge just mentioned looking westward and you can see a hell of a lot of water. Fortunately Armidale is a hilly town, so no homes were flooded as far as I know. Helping to create this outcome is Armidale's land-use planning, which prevents home construction in floodable areas. As you can see from the picture below, the land to the right rises quite steeply away from the river bank.

I love such events as shown above, provided no-one is harmed and property is damaged.

AS