xenith | Entries tagged with towns

I'll leave these in the order they were taken, mostly, because there is no reason not to and moving them around is tedious and time consuming.

Art Deco Court House! I don't know why the idea of an Art Deco-style court house is so cool, but it is. Maybe because court houses are either usually elaborate older buildings or dull newer buildings. Maybe because the writing on the building is Art Deco too, which is just so non-court housey. Whatever the reason, it is a cool looking building.

The heritage walk brochure goes on about it in great lengths. It says Court House & Public Office: They were built in 1938 at a cost of £14,000. OK so maybe not great or lengths but it is included.

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Random choice gives Wangaratta as the topic of the first photo post. It was also the first stop on my trip, and the last.

(I caught the Sydney express train from Melbourne, and got off here to catch coach to Beechworth. This gave me over three clear hours to wander about the town and takes photos. Camera had over ideas :( This lead to much sadness and then purchase of a little red camera with automatic everything and some other annoying traits, and I had an hour or two of photo taking. Then on Friday, I intended to return here and catch express back to Melbourne but they were saying delays of up to 40 minutes due to track work, so I cancelled and instead booked an earlier (and cheaper) VLine service. When I asked the nice lady at the counter what would get me to Melbourne by 6.30 pm, she frowned at the timetable and said "There's the 1.42 but it's a coach". Due to trackwork, coaches were substituting for trains. But it would allow me to spend a few more hours wandering around taking photos and get to Melbourne in plenty of time for my plane. So I booked on the coach and was given a ticket saying 1.42 Coach. But when I turned up on Friday to get on the 1.42 Coach it was instead 1.42 Train. Which was good. But the point of that being, I spent a couple of hours in Wangaratta on both Monday and Friday.)

Dscn0003

Now to the photos, and I have split them into two posts. This one will be Murphy Street, some views of the streets and some of buildings along it, with notes from the heritage walk brochure the nice lady at the information centre gave me. The second post will be the other streets. I'm using the Heritage Walk Wangaratta brochure produced by the Wangaratta Regional Tourism Board, and I'll put bits from that in italics. These first paragraphs are a slightly rearranged version of their "Snapshot of Wangaratta's History".

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So back in January, I said "Just outside Rosebery this is a dirt road that runs off the south. There are number of signs at the turn off that point to "Williamsford 6 km", "Car Park 6 km", Montezuma Falls." Then went on to show photos of the abandoned mineral extraction plant site just up the road a bit. After leaving there, well it was only five more kilometres to Williamsford so the sensible thing to do is go find it.

This area is a bit, well, uninhabited and has lots of trees. This photo and next one are taken from the car.

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Heading out of Canberra today.

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Melton Mowbrary, in the Southern Midlands, where the road to Bothwell joins the main highway. Originally known as Crossmarsh. That is the area was known at Crossmarsh. Then the guy who built the hotel (in the 1850s) named it (or his property) after his birthplace in the UK and that name was picked up for the area.

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Turners Beach, on the north west coast between Devonport and Ulverstone. I thought it was more of residential area, but on investigation we found a service station, a fire station, a tennis club, a hall and a football team (although it seems they didn't win any games this year). I think any place that has a hall and a football team must have enough of an identity to be considered a town for the purposes of this exercise. Also there is a phone box.

Photos aren't the best (it was a bit bleak) and I won't bother captioning (there's a service station, a fire station, a tennis club, a hall and a football club.)

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Forth, near Devonport. Which it predates as a settlement, and that's about all I know about the place. The Wikipedia page has more :)

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Pontville, on the Midlands Highway, just north of Brighton. The most noticeable features being the bridge and the hotel.

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Campbell Town is on the Midlands Hwy.

If you clicked on the link you'd find out that

"Campbell Town is a major pastoral and tourist centre in the Northern Midlands, originally established in 1821 by Governor Macquarie as one of the four garrison town and probation stations between Hobart and Launceston.

"Campbell Town, and the Elizabeth River, which runs through it (previously known as Relief Creek), was named by Macquarie after his wife, Elizabeth Campbell."

If you're heading south, it's the last town on the actual highway until you're almost in Hobart. And if you're heading north, it's the first town after a long drive with no towns along the highway. So it's a popular stopping place. It's about 132 km from Hobart and 41 miles from Launceston.

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Gormanston, population 170. About one tenth what it was about a century ago when the town was home to employees of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, along with all the services a town needs: shops, hotels, local government, school, post office.

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This is Linda, population not very many.

The internets are being unhelpful at giving up useful information, and I obviously have boxes of books to unpack somewhere. So I'll have to rely on what I know, which is, um, not much. Still former mining town, you can probably tell the story yourself :)

I did find some old postcards in the State Library's collection, so you can see that early in the 20th century it was town of some substance, with multiple hotels (I think four at one point) and boarding houses, a hall and shops. It was, at one point, the main town for workers at the nearby North Mt Lyell mine, and the end point of the railway. A busy little place, with a population in the hundreds.

Then it faded over the years, and the buildings went away, until it is as you see it today.

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Ulverstone, on the north-west coast. Population about 10K. Established mid/late 19th century. IIRC main industries timber cutting & farming. Much modernised mid/late last century.

After some discussion the night before, the more interesting features are the rocket park & the clock, and the old hotel. Also there is a local history museum near the clock that is very interesting. These things are good to know.

( New LJ Scrapbook: too cool for image dimensions, or nested galleries, or other silly stuff )

The other end of the steam train trip is Castlemaine.

I'm going to cheat here, and use some paragraphs from eGold, the Electronic Encyclopedia of Gold in Australia.

The Mount Alexander diggings were located in the central goldfields region of Victoria, in and around the present day city of Castlemaine. The site of one of the earliest significant alluvial gold rushes that occurred in Australia during the mid-nineteenth century, they have been called the world’s greatest shallow alluvial goldfield.

Following the gold discoveries of 1851, Castlemaine’s population grew rapidly and it became a town on 1 November 1853. It is the key settlement of the Mount Alexander diggings and, at its peak, had approximately 35,000 inhabitants. Along with the other major goldfields cities of Ballarat and Bendigo, Castlemaine briefly rivalled Melbourne as Victoria’s principal population centre. From

( More. Really. Yeah, surprised me too. )

So this is my first view of Maldon, nice and dreary it looks.

It's also bigger than I expected. The population as of the last census was 1600.

The usual gold town story: gold was discovered nearby in the 1850s, and thousands of diggers turned up to work the field, eventually their numbers dwindled and the town... didn't do anything.

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I've never been to Derby before.

It's an old mining town: tin, discovered in the 1870s. The town grew up -- the population was about 3000 at one point -- the mine went away, the town dwindled. The population at the 2006 census was 300. Although it is still a busy little town, except on Saturdays at 4 pm, because of the Tin Centre but I didn't get there because it was too expensive :(

Like many small towns along the highways, Derby is strung out along that road. Unlike most of those small towns, there are not lots of back streets full of houses. What you see along the main road is pretty much it.

It also feels like the town is clinging to the side of a hill.

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The last town on this trip is Swansea, part historic town, part beach resort.

The first British settlement in the area was a grant given to George Meredith in 1821. Actually, he was one of a group of partners who took up grants in the area. He was also heavily involved in early colonial politics, but if you're interested in that, follow the link.

( Usual stuff )

I've been to Sorell* a few times, but never been able to actually look about the town so I thought it'd be a good chance to try it.

When the British settlers first spread out from their Derwent base, many of them headed east, into the Coal River Valley, and up along the east coast (encouraged by the settlement on Maria Island that needed supplies). The road to the east goes through Sorell, and when the settlement on the Tasman Peninsula was established, that road also passed through Sorell. The town is named for Lieutenant Gov Sorell, who inherited Davey's mess and was replaced by Arthur, so prior to 1825. It's a location that comes up time and time again in early records. And yet...

We went to the Information Centre. This is a place where tourists can go and get useful information (that is, brochures) about accommodation, tourist attractions and anything else that tourists might need to know.

( Exciting! )

Two today, the small town of Orford and a nearby beach.

Prosser River

But first, the beach

( Shelly Beach )

( Orford )

Now I am going to finish this tonight, no matter how long it gets. You've been warned.

That's as much as focus as I felt when I took the photo :)

( More. Much more. Well, actually about as many as usual. )

I want to get through these because I ~~am getting~~ am way behind in my ~~evil, top secret~~ plan to "document" as many towns as I can! ~~But shh, don't tell anyone, OK?~~

Sections in italics are from the Parks and Wildlife Visitors Guide.

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Entries tagged with towns

Wangaratta, part II; which has the more interesting photos

Wangaratta, part I

Looking for Williamsford

Friday

Melton Mowbray

Turners Beach

Forth

Pontville

Campbell Town

Gormanston

Linda & Royal Hotel

Ulverstone, part I

Rail trip: going in circles?

Rail trip: Maldon

Derby Virtual Visit

Swansea

Sorell

Orford & Shelly Beach

Darlington: the Inside View, Part the Second

Darlington: the Inside View, Part the First

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