xenith | Going East: Avoca

(A note here: most of the highway photos are taken from within the car and, of course, the windows could do with a clean so there are some odd marks on them at times. Just pretend it's fog or rain or ghosts.)

So, Fingal Valley. It doesn't look that different to the surrounding areas :) Despite the name, the river that runs through here is the South Esk, which we've seen before at Clarendon, the Cataract Gorge and in flood. Probably most of the river photos I've posted have been the South Esk.

The Fingal Valley was a mining area, tin, coal and one large gold area. Now it's just coal, that I'm aware of. There are a lot of mineral deposits through here, but nothing substantial enough to support a large scale mining operation.

The Esk Highway (A4) runs through here, connecting the Midlands to the East Coast. There are three towns along the highway, and the first of these is Avoca.

I really should know more about this town can I do and I have lost my local history book so you'll have to make do with looking at the pictures and making up your own descriptions.

Avoca was first settled in the 1830s. The population now is about 200 or less.

The Union Hotel built 1842. You can see the typical Georgian hotel lines behind the additions.

That was the Parish Hall. Now it's obviously the post office. I don't know what that wall on the left of it is about. There were photos of it at different times on a display board in the post office, but I couldn't see anything that said what it used to be.

A short detour to the place of most interest to us, out on the hill before the town.

Oops, that's the Church of England cemetery.

That's better. ("That must be the Catholic cemetery, it's not as well looked after.") I thought Avoca was supposed to have had a substantial Irish population in the early years, but most of the graves are the black/brown stone slabs from the 1930s and 1940s. The majority of early Irish "settlers" were Catholic, and vice versa.)

Mother's paternal grandmother come from Avoca. Her grandparents married in Avoca in 1844, raised a family, died and are buried here, along with their son John (my g-g-gfather for those trying to keep track) and two of his children who died young. Just weeded too.

The Anglican church was the only church in the town for the first decades. A small, wooden Catholic church was towards the end of the century and then moved to Rossarden (a former mining town to the north) when a new church was built about 1956. As far I know, it's still there or it might not be.