northward

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NEXT
Our last day in Melbourne……….. we drove out to the Dandenong Ranges at the southern end of the Great Divide, to Healesville. We visited another small faunal reserve. Sadly this one is more of a zoo, with smaller fenced compounds, though it’s greater importance is a wild animal veterinary hospital, that is pretty impressive. But here we can get up close with platypus, emu, wombat, fruit bats, and more rare birds. We also met our first dingos - puppies and parents, yellow/brown with white chests, very wolfy alert - like Toby.

The town is lovely, nestled in high forested mountains in the upper Yarra River Valley. Wide main street, wonderful old façades and funky shops, big trees on residential side-roads and an artisan beer brewery named White Rabbit. We taste local wines with lunch and dessert is a special Australian treat - Bee Sting cakes – brioche filled with wonderful custard and with a crispy almond crust.
We wind our way back via a fantastic vineyard /art gallery, with a gorgeous manor house and grounds. We sample more wine and select a few bottles for our farewell dinner.

Dave threw a great party for us, with a bunch of our new friends: artists, musicians, photographers, woodworkers. Hilarious anecdotes, deep conversations - and solutions to all the world’s problems come easily in such company. Great wine was appreciated, and serious large snappers were stuffed with ginger, fresh tumeric and tamarind then baked in banana leaves. Merriment ran late but we finally parted with multiple hugs and promises to all meet again. The cab was coming to take us away before dawn.
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NORTHWARD

Hume Highway runs 800 kilometers from Melbourne to Sydney, at first following the flatter country, the rolling plains west of the Great Dividing Range.
We rode the bus, leaving Melbourne as the sun came up hot and white behind the tall towers. “Summer daze today,
Temp 32 degrees C. No cloud” says the local radio. We’ll be ten hours on the road.

The vastness of Australia unfolded as we rolled through the sheep and cattle country between small towns.
We presume the rains have been patchy on the west side of the range We giggle at place names as the signs flash by: Between Walla Walla and Wagga Wagga we crossed Billabong Creek. It was looking dry.

Despite the rains much of the grassland looked faded and parched though there is water in the earthen dams dug in low spots and valley bottoms. There are greener areas we The number of roadkilled kangaroos and wombats along the way is alarming – one or two every few miles. There are fields and whole hillsides covered in flax-blue flowers. We asked the bus driver about them and he explained they are an alien species escaped from a single garden years ago – now spread into five states. In Oz they are called Patterson’s Curse but they are actually the common British weed Vipers Bugloss! It is often lethal to horses and not very good for cattle though sheep and goats seem ok. But many horses run wild here.
A woman called JanePatterson planted a few seeds in her garden back in 1880, then watched, one hopes, in horror, as it spread rampant, year by year, across the neighboring fields. Oops.

The road sweeps round more eastward and climbs into higher hills of the Dividing Range then drops down into Canberra for a brief stop in the commercial district to change drivers and stretch legs. We don’t see the national capital or parliament buildings but continue on up into higher forested mountains.
Over a ridge we drop towards an immense grassy plain - utterly flat. There are wind turbine towers seven or eight kilometers away on the far side and a glint of water far away to the east. This is the almost dried up Lake George. The great plain of grass is the old lake bottom. It has been bone dry five times and full twice since it was discovered 180 years ago.

The road climbs on for another few kilometers. Then we turn off into the town of our destination - Goulburn. (strine pronounciation ‘golbun’)

On the outskirts there is a gigantic three story sculpture of a Marino Sheep - the creature that put this town on the map a hundred years ago.
We roll up to the Victorian red and yellow brick train station and step off the bus. Blad has another 50 year reunion – with another old school buddy,Peter Burnett.

Peter and Maureen live on the edge of town, with a wonderful flower garden and fields beyond the back fence.
We eased right into happy hour on the back porch as flocks of parrots, galahs, and of course magpies serenaded us among the flowers and trees.
Their reminiscences wandered from the mundane, to the hilarious to the profound and back. Peter was Blad’s sergeant in air cadets so they even swapped ‘war stories’. Judi and Mo learned a thing or two more about their guys then got on with the creative side of life and fed the laughing, inebriate fools.
Strine note ………………… for a person seriously sloshed ……………. “ he was lay’d out flat as a drinking lizard “
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Next morn we climbed a hill on the edge of town. There was a neat war memorial on the summit built of drystone. Climbing this tower we could look out over the city and countryside of the Southern Tablelands.
We hadn’t realized it, but yesterday we had gradually been ascending over several hours, and were now on a high plateau on the local crest of the Great Dividing Range, at about 1000 meters above sea-level!
Cattle and sheep, grazing in vast meadows and eucalyptus bush covered hills roll away round 360 degrees, fifty or more kilometers to blue horizons.
We walked the broad streets. Small Australian towns wear their history proudly. The facades of the commercial buildings reflect civic growth through time and rarely get gutted for the stainless and plastic of Kentucky fried and Target – they get built on to the ends - so the views along any main street unfold a dozen styles of architecture, from first settlement to now. Good cafes too.
Blad found that a few doors on Peter’s home needed re hanging. He seems to get twitchy unless he has a tool in his hand once a week.

We were rewarded with another lesson in the better wines of the region.
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Peter and Mo retired from the industrial business world of Sydney long ago while still young enough to have second and third careers. They wanted a quiet country life and took a fork in the road that led them to a cross-road village called Golspie far out on the Tablelands - where they became the local telephone operators. The switchboard was still hand operated with jack plugs, and the rings cranked by hand! Their district covered hundreds of square kilometers but only a hundred or so farms and stations. The district was called Richlands by the first settlers because the red basaltic soil was so fertile, “ ya could grow a baby in it”.

It was wonderful to hear their stories as they drove us on dusty gravel roads, out over high moorland pastures to this remote community. Stories of hilarious screw-ups made by mis-connecting daughters with the wrong mothers – who then took seven minutes before they realized they weren’t even related. Stories of coordinating neighbors to fight terrible wild fires, or to break the news of tragic farm accidents or respond to savage snake bites, or of saving people stranded by the mountain snowstorms of winter. Storms so strong --“they can blow the dog off ‘is chain!” or ……… even worse ………… “blow the foam off me beer”.

After 8 years the telephone company finally automated them out of a job so they bought a berry farm a couple of miles away. Once again they were blessed with fulfilling rural work in a close knit-rural community; though with the inevitable worries of drought and blight and winter frost this high in the hills, even in Oz. Finally age and bodies said ‘enough’ and they sold the farm. We dropped by to visit the current owners and sampled a perfect strawberry, listened to a million bees doing their job on the raspberries, watched a Splendid Fairy Wren go through its flitting, blue display and discussed the perennial problems of septic tanks.

Marino sheep rule the upland farming scene. In the tiny town of Crookville, on the southern edge of Richlands, Marino wool is made into some of the world’s finest socks. No kidding. We visited the factory and shop and were entranced as the forth generation chief knitter and engineer showed us his fabulous old machines and explained the mechanisms and set-ups that allowed 160 hooked steel needles to spin and fly and interweave multiple colored yarns into raglan knit with no electronics, just musical-box-like cylinders with adjustable cams directed the patterns. Old World mechanical magic!
The girl in the shop had a good yarn too and we just had to buy a few pairs.

Finally we rolled down the broad, dirt, main-street of Taralga, the first settlement of the region. It has both catholic and protestant churches, two bars, a hotel.
a general store, and a hardware/agriculture/lumberyard - all old buildings many in basalt blue stone. Kids were playing in the street, and people were relaxed and easy in their ways as we got ginger beer and wandered around - timeless.

Another day, another old wool and gold town. Bungendore.
These days most businesses in Bungendore cater to the tourist trade that comes up from Canberra or like us down from Goulburn.
We are coming to a specific such business, but this one could captivate the world! The Woodwork Gallery.
Aussie hand crafted furniture is arguably the finest in the world. The judges at the annual world exhibitions in Chicago have thought so, often.
We saw several of the winning pieces from this year’s Melbourne show. They were breathtaking and inspiring. In great part, of course, a fine woodworker is inspired by his/her material - the wood. Australia has amazing trees growing amazing lumber. For many, like Blackwood, one has no idea what magic will lie in a log; and only one in a thousand Cassuarina will show the remarkable grain of lace-wood (looks exactly like a chocolate version of its eponymous fabric). And the burl of the Red Gum is every turners wet dream!

We drove back through vineyards and over high ridges and once more along the shores of dry Lake George, finally getting home to a spread of huge prawns and salad. As the sun set, a couple of kangaroos came bouncing along the back fence and an eagle circled the hilltop.

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Photos

Judi, Dave and Beth
impromptu lunch al fresco

Dave and Dooly
last dinner party in elbourne

bush fire
On the bus ride north to Goulburn

Goulburn
big blue horizons

chief knitter
Blad and Bernie leaqrn about socks

best chair in Australia
strung kike a tennis racket

Big Merino
Entrance to Goulburn and information centre. You can climb up and see out of his eyes