Bridport, Scottsdale and Derby

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Todays journey continued north east from Lilydale to the coastal town of Bridport. This is a very attractive and sheltered port supporting maritime industry and fishing.

The hilly land drops quickly down into the harbour with trees adorning the area. Adjacent to the boat ramp is the remnants of the pier that disappeared which makes an interesting photo study.

The view north from Bridport looks out to Flinders island in the distance, the Strzelecki Ranges dominating the horizon. To the right of Flinders island are two smaller islands. From the beach they all look joined, but that is only an illusion.

We moved south east from Bridport to Scottsdale. This is a small but active rural town with a variety of interesting things to see. One local has a rhubarb farm and has recently started a small business manufacturing a variety of rhubarb products such as Rhubarb and raspberry jam, rhubarb apple and lavender drink, and rhubarb apple and ginger drink. Quite nice too. But in a remote town they find it very hard to get product distributed. We would not have found this little business if the lady at the local info centre had not told us about it.

The local war memorial is also somewhat unique. A large tree had become dangerous, but rather than take it down to the ground, it was chopped off about 3 meters above the ground, and each limb has been fashioned into memorials for the services.

The same chainsaw artist has done a similar thing with a series of trees at the tiny town of Legerwood, a little east of Scottsdale and down a side road. The art work is great and worth the extra few kilometres to view and remember. Each tree has a theme such as leaving for war, the services etc.

The last leg of our journey today was to an old tin mine town, Derby. This area has suffered all sorts of tragedy including a mine dam that flooded the valley when the dam wall failed.

The town is really struggling to survive, the shop windows recording a succession of closures to now have maybe 4 active businesses, and some of these would be almost hobby businesses. We have camped here beside their river, but here it is hard to spend any money to support the local economy.

The people we have spoken to are looking for change and the restoration of managed forestry and other industry. Without change, there seems to be a lot of gloom in the smaller communities. They try so hard to attract tourists, but there are only so many museums one can visit.

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Photos

Derby 7
No longer a place to bank

Bridport 2
The pier that disappeared

Scottsdale 1
Church sign board - quite appropriate in the middle of their state elections.

Scottsdale 4
The rhubarb shop is in the basement of this B & B.

Scottsdale 5
The war memorial

Legerwood 1
On the Railway Reserve, the series of carvings that have so much detail.

Legerwood 2
Farewell at war time

Comments

[Stevo]

Slowly slowly
Travelling nice and slow and enjoying the varied scenery. Good idea! Plenty more to see - especially at Binalong Bay and the museum at Swansea.

[Mum & Dad]

Around Tas by remote
It's good to see places from our lounge that we would not normally see. Also great to read the comments. It's like reading a new chapter of a book each time. We will look forward to the next chapter. Happy snapping and sightseeing.

[Jakii]

carvings
absolutely wonderful carvings---------Jakii