Things look all quite normal until you embarked on one of the four car door tours and discover that just one turn off the main street there is no longer bitumen. It is all higgledy piggledy dirt tracks (thank goodness there are car doors to guide us on our way) and piles of dirt everywhere. Add to that ramshackle old shacks and rusty machinery of every kind and you have all I would expect from an opal town.
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...
Unique concept that: car door tours! Guess they have plenty of old wrecks! As much a blight on the landscape as coal-mining, I guess, albeit less extensive.
ReplyDeleteI think I read somewhere that car doors were a tradition for marking the various properties. You would need something to tell on pile of dirt from another.
DeleteLove this idea!
ReplyDeleteQuirky like the place.
DeleteThese mining towns might not be pretty but they sure have character(s).
ReplyDeleteYes I wonder what it is that makes the characters. It's all so rough and ready.
DeleteI think you have to be a 'character' to throw in your life and head out bush in search of treasure.
DeleteGood point.
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