Sweet Wayfaring

Like so many inland towns the railway was very important in days of old but today Kandos is the end of the line. Only occasionally tourist trains come up this far, but the line is still active a little further back for regular coal and cement trains.

Kandos has something that is nearly extinct .. a Post Office that is still a post office!

Most of the memorials were built soon after World War I. With Kandos being a very young town at the time I wasn't sure what I would find.  I thought the next most likely spot was at the Community Centre and Library complex ... a cement building (of course) built in 1954 according to its foundation stone.  My guess was right, the driveway is flanked by two columns with the words Lest We Forget .. very simple by the standards of most towns.  What surprised me however was the actual memorial to the left of this ... it was erected in 2010!

Today is Anzac day, the day we remember our war heros and in thinking of an appropriate tribute I remembered that Kandos has a War Memorial Swimming Pool. There are lots of such pools in Australian county towns, built in the 1960s. Why War Memorial Swimming Pools?  I tried to do some research and could not find the exact facts but I think it was a government funded infrastructure scheme rather like the Economic Stimulus plan today causing the countryside to be dotted with new school halls. Why swimming pools?  Australia is a warm country and our swimmers were succeeding well at the Olympics so swimming was popular.  Note that this is an Olympic swimming pool which is actually a reference to it being 50 metres long - not all towns could afford to build such a big pool.  By the 1960s the sea baths were polluted with sewage and the swimming holes in inland creeks getting clogged from fertilisers causing water plants to grow.  Clean swimming pools were seen as ...

Below the ropeway is a building that has been in the corner of my photographic eye for quite some time. The colour is somewhat unusual in old Australian buildings.  Perhaps it was the influence of the "new Australians".  There was apparently an influx of immigrant workers in the town who, in appreciation of their new home, donated the clock and the rotunda I have shown recently.

Cement is still big business in Kandos and one of the quirky outcomes is the aerial ropeway that travels 5 kms across the countryside and above the town, carrying limestone from quarry to the cement works.  Buckets still glide overhead as they have been doing for near on 100 years.

Cement was a popular building material in Kandos in the past.  And the cement works are still an important industry in the town.  The town is attractive and quite vibrant with a population of around 1,500 people.

Kandos is quite a new town.  It began as a 'private village' in 1915 created by a group of men who saw that limestone, shale and coal near a railway line had the potential for building a cement industry. They named their village Candos using the initials of their names.  The name was changed to Kandos because the postal authorities thought it was too similar to Chandos in South Australia.

We are moving on from Rylstone to its near neighbour Kandos. The two towns are just 7 kms apart and often spoken of together but are each very different in character. Kandos nestles at the base of the Coomber Mellon mountain range which dominates the landscape.

And we end this series with some weekend people examining the display of traditional country crafts which had my fingers itching to take up the needles, crochet hook and tatting shuttle.  With winter coming on I might just do that.  But tell me ... do people really use covered coat hangers?

Fleeces, food and flowers ... all in the show pavilion. I love yellow roses.

The kid on the bike reminds me of the many happy hours I spent when young riding around the yard on the motor bike and in the old ute.  In fact my new ride-on mower is just like that, it's such fun!

A display of vintage pumps reminded me of going to the big Brisbane show (the Ekka) with my family.  My Dad would make a beeline to the rural equipment where we kids got very bored. The only interesting things were the pumps squirting blue and green water into a tank.

Flanking the ring is the side show with all its gaudy trinkets and trashy food.  I always wanted one of those kewpie dolls on a stick ... never did get one.

Talking of gas and electricity prices ... are you for the mines or against the mines? You could take your pick at the various booths at the show. It's clearly an important industry in our region.

I enjoy watching the woodchopping but it takes a longish time to set up and is all done in mere minutes -- so a lot of hanging about involved. A useful skiill ... we're heating the house by wood fire now the gas and electricity prices have gone stratospheric.

The day was hot so the shade was welcome. What I like about a real rural show is that it is in its natural environment ... soft soil and shady trees rather than hard bitumen and glare on cement buildings.