What I like about places like this (and about photos pf places like this), is that they put man back in his box. They force me to acknowledge how puny mankind is, in comparison with the naural environment. Here in the city, I rarely get that feeling. The built-environment has a grey sense of triumphalism. The one exception that I have found is sitting on the cliffs at Bondi watching massve seas during a storm. But the built environment, in this case, is at my back.
I feel something of that too. In my case I feel at home out in the open spaces but also as if I am in an alien place without my usual city props very small and very unable to survive alone out there.
Strangely enough, it gives me a sense of dying. By that I mean, I feel tossed up into the ether, alone, naked, and without power. Just essence. I get this watching the ocean, in the Red Centre, and walking alone along a creek bed. I can be alone or with others. same feeling. Never in a car, though. Cars power options.
We passed through Bakers Swamp without noticing anything. Then reached our last dot on the map for this trip - Larras Lee and saw this. The roadside monument says: In Memory of WILLIAM LEE (1794 - 1870) of "Larras Lake" a pioneer of the sheep and cattle industry and first member for Roxburgh under responsible government (1856 - 1859). This stone was erected by his descendants. --- 1938 --- This is a repost from a few days ago. Thinking I would use this for this week’s Taphophile Tragics post I dug a little further into William Lee’s story, it’s a very colonial Australian one. William was born of convict parents, living his childhood years around the Sydney region. In his early 20s he was issued with some government cattle, recommended as a suitable settler and granted 134 acres at Kelso near Bathurst. He was one of the first in the area and did well. A few years later he was granted a ram and an inc...
Our last stop on this trip was to see if there was anything left of an old town once called Frying Pan which was later renamed Yetholme. I knew Yetholme to be a roadhouse on the highway near the pine forests and didn't expect to find anything but again I was wrong. There was a lovely little settlement with homes, a neat community hall and a church still in use. The perfect spot for the creatively inspired. Apparently it was a tourist town back in the early 1900s and in more recent years was bypassed by the Great Western Highway leaving it to settle into its pleasant tranquil existence, hidden from the travellers speeding by. I remembered it is Tuesday so have added a supplementary photo to participate in Taphophile Tragics this week. This is St Paul's Anglican Church in Yetholme. The burials in the church yard date from the 1873 to the present day. You can see a little more of Yetholme over at 100 Towns.
What I like about places like this (and about photos pf places like this), is that they put man back in his box. They force me to acknowledge how puny mankind is, in comparison with the naural environment. Here in the city, I rarely get that feeling. The built-environment has a grey sense of triumphalism. The one exception that I have found is sitting on the cliffs at Bondi watching massve seas during a storm. But the built environment, in this case, is at my back.
ReplyDeleteI feel something of that too. In my case I feel at home out in the open spaces but also as if I am in an alien place without my usual city props very small and very unable to survive alone out there.
DeleteStrangely enough, it gives me a sense of dying. By that I mean, I feel tossed up into the ether, alone, naked, and without power. Just essence. I get this watching the ocean, in the Red Centre, and walking alone along a creek bed. I can be alone or with others. same feeling. Never in a car, though. Cars power options.
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