Despite my
physical state we headed off through Leeton towards Golgedrie Weir. Once we turned off the main road towards
Whitton we were driving through cotton country.
These guys mainly go for cuboid bales rather than the yellow rolls
favoured further West. Not much else to
look at until we got to the Weir where we examined a sign requesting $2 each to
enter. We didn’t have a great problem
with this but thought in view of the weather we’d pay our money and see zip so did a u-turn and headed
off to Whitton.
This was a
surprisingly interesting town with several preserved old buildings
and very good interpretive signs. The second one commemorates a former head of the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission.
They had a nice
memorial Park which was photographed for our official record.
As we had
moved on a bit swiftly, we decided to vary our plans and go to check out Griffith
rather than head for Barellan. Griffith
is the biggest town in the Riverina and seemed very prosperous. The mythology is that it is the centre on
some informal (and apparently inflammable) horticultural practices which might, explain some of the
wealth. Noting that such practices are
not always universally endorsed might explain the number of very authoritarian
signs around.
Neither of
these explained the fact that the Regional Art Gallery was locked up despite a
number of signs saying it should be open,
Apparently it was closed because their next exhibition opened that
evening. I pointed out to the folk at
the Theatre (which is organizationally linked to the Gallery) that it would be
a good idea to put a sign to this effect on the door!
There were
many War Memorials around the place and it will be interesting to see how many
additions I make. Here are a couple of
samples: the rest are in the special page.
As we
strolled up the street we passed the Council Offices where people were
organizing the folk coming in to vote early for the Council Elections tomorrow. This building is very modern, but I think the old Chambers are somehow embedded within it.
As Frances commented there seems to be a lot of interest in these elections judging by the number of folk handing out how to vote cards. Possibly this reflects people’s awareness that if they just let the forces of evil (property developers. lawyers and other shady characters) get elected they’ll end up with very poor quality of life.
The Memorial Hall
Soldier-Settler Memorial
Memorial to airmen
As Frances commented there seems to be a lot of interest in these elections judging by the number of folk handing out how to vote cards. Possibly this reflects people’s awareness that if they just let the forces of evil (property developers. lawyers and other shady characters) get elected they’ll end up with very poor quality of life.
I could
have made some money at this point since the workers all took much interest in
Tammy sniffing at the placards and encouraging her to mark her territory on the
opponent’s signs. I did say I could
arrange this but had to rush to catch up to Frances before anyone stumped up
some folding material.
There were a few interesting public artworks around including a mosaic mural on the wall of the RSL
and some mosaic works outside the Theatre at the top of the town.
Wandering
back down the street we found a street stall selling bags of oranges and veggies
on behalf of Legacy. So we got a bag of
navels and a huge cabbage! Plus had a
pleasant chat with the vendor about rabbit problems.
There were a few interesting public artworks around including a mosaic mural on the wall of the RSL
By and
large I enjoyed Griffith (apart from the bossy signs) but it was time to move
on. The weather seemed to have improved
a bit – mainly due to the shelter of the buildings I suspect - so we pointed
ourselves at Binya State Forest.
Before we
got there we passed Yenda which appeared to be a town so we swung in to see
what was there. A couple of good War
Memorials (this one at the Diggers Club)
and some interesting old buildings, many of which looked to be
falling into decrepidation. A friend in Carwoola has subsequently explained that this may be due to Mirrool Creek recently flooding the town to a depth of 1.5m! This post explains how that happened.
Getting to
Binya State Forest we headed off along the Binya Forest Drive.
It was excellent, as we were finally finding
some flowering plants. Here are a few
samples with the whole set in a special post
There was
quite a lot of Salvation Jane/ Paterson’s Curse around. In places it was about 75cm tall, in the
middle of the road. There had been no
obvious effort to control it.
Xerochrysum (plus ants).
Petalochilus fuscatus
Birding
that starts with a Red-capped Robin is always good. The other special was a flock of
Apostlebirds. They are of particular
interest since I usually spend a lot of time looking – usually unsuccessfully –
for them as we drive across the Mallee when going to and from Adelaide. A Horsfield’s Bronze-cuckoo posed
nicely.
The road
was good in places, dodgy (mainly where people with no brain and a big right
foot had dug up the track in wet weather) in others and pretty much
non-existent towards the end. However we
made it through with no real drama and (unlike last time I drove through here)
didn’t puncture a tyre.
A quick swing by Fivebough Swamp where the
weather was really nasty and there were few birds around and on home, where the sun was setting
Back to index page
