Projects old and new

Before getting to the new project my day started with a poetic link to an older project. As it relates to birds I have put it on my Carwoola birds blog but other readers might like to follow the link and read a nice poem. One reaction to this verse, by way of the COG chatline, is quite amusing.

Sticking briefly to old projects - in this case what is going on around our garden - here are some icy snaps of Westringtringia ..

and grass ..

in the ice of -4C

The new project is to try to visit every town in NSW!  Exactly what constitutes a town is yet to be defined, but I have proposed that it is somewhere with a War Memorial.  As a starting point I have decided that our list of targets is the places listed in the Register of War Memorials in NSW.  This gives 809 'towns' to tick off.  In a similar vein the definition of a formal visit is that I have taken a photograph of at least 1 War Memorial in the 'town'.  Of course in most cases we would hope to give the place more of  look than this.

I have been through the list of 809 possibles and we have made informal visits (driven through, stayed in etc) to 184 of the locations.  So we are going to cover a lot of new territory in this project - one of its aims!

So today we get started with a planned trip to Yass,  This is about 60km North West of Canberra or about 90km from Carwoola.  Referring to the Register, there were a couple of other spots we could look at on the way to tick off by photographing memorials.

The first of these is not really a town as it is a row of trees with plaques at Gidleigh - a cattle station near Bungendore.  We swung by anyway and failed to find the trees in a quick visit.  So we will go back!

The next venue was the settlement of Murrumbateman.  This is renowned for the Field Days run in October each year, and some very conveniently placed dunnies.  The War Memorials seemed to be linked to the Church and some were found easily.

The interesting attribute of this is the implication that the church was itself a memorial,  The nearby foundation stone for the church states that it was laid in 1912 - 6 years before this one.  But let us move on!

On getting to Yass we went to the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) and I took the small dog for a walk while Frances picked up Information. Adjacent to the VIC was a great little park with decorated benches.

At the edge of the park was this thought provoking sign!

As we walked around the town the tree that most grabbed our attention was this liquidamber.  Very like a maple, but with prickly skinned fruit like a horse chestnut rather than like a sycamore.

Other fruit were on the Cypress.  They were probably only going o tbe there briefly if this cockie had anything to say about the matter!

 There are many interesting buildings around Yass, dating from 1830 onwards.  This was the Mechanic Institute in 1869.

 The Post Office arrived in 1835, but this building, the first one purpose built, is from 1884.

 The Catholic Presbytery dates from 1839 and is very well preserved.  Note the liquidamber.

Judging by the amount of indigenous design around there must be a pretty strong community in the area.  All this was done by the youth, and very attractive it was too!

 We visited the cemetery and found this plaque referring to indigenous matters.

This grave was the reason we went to the cemetery: it is of Hamilton Hume one of the most famous explorers of the Southern interior of Australia

This links to the war memorials we found in Yass. The first two were in St Clements Anglican Church.This first one is a good example of the brass plaque style.

I find this memorial on the font particularly interesting as it tells a bit of the story.  The poor guy died on Messines Ridge. 

In the main street the RSL hall has another WW1 memorial in the wall ...

... while the Cenotaph, of local stone, in the sidewalk in front of the hall refers explicitly to the fighting in Korea and Malaya.

We now go back to finish with an old project.  Walking in the bush.   A friend had found a Nature Reserve just to the North of Yass so we went to take a squizz to see what it was like.  Just as we left the town we got a view of about 5 Cattle Egrets in a paddock full of .... cattle! 

Bango Nature Reserve itself is a strange shape with a very short frontage to Blakeny Creek Rd but quite a lot of territory spreading out behind.  The first element of it was pretty much grazed grass and gum trees ...

.. but getting further in suggested it might be a good place to explore later.

I rather liked the twisted shapes evident in the bark of this gum.

So we then headed for home, getting back about six and a half hours after setting out.

We also reintroduced the "Day" awards first applied on our Sri Lankan adventure.  Today's winners were:
Bird of the Day  - Cattle Egret
Plant of the Day - Liquidamber
Pattern of the Day - Wrought iron railings on the old buildings of Yass.