The Movable Towns of Queensland

November 11, 2015December 18, 2015 Itching for Hitching

In Western Qld in the old days towns would spring up at the rail head. As the railway line was extended some buildings would be dismantled and moved to the new town at the end of the line. Up in the Gulf both the Albion Hotel and the Purple Pub in Normanton were moved from Croydon, 150 kilometres away, when the gold mining ceased. In Ilfracombe, east of Longreach, the Wellshot Hotel has been moved from further down the railway line. Also in Ilfracombe there is a house that belonged to the Langenbaker family. Mr Langenbaker was a carrier so when work … Continue reading The Movable Towns of Queensland

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Cheaper Than Bricks

November 3, 2015April 3, 2016 Itching for Hitching

In the Queensland town of Barcaldine there is a corrugated iron Masonic Temple that has a weatherboard front. The boards are cleverly painted in a geometric pattern to resemble bricks. It is so good that you have to touch it to see which is actually the edge of the board and which is an illusion. They were certainly resourceful in these parts. Mind you I’ll bet I gave the locals a laugh standing there in the hot sun rubbing my hands over the front of their building. Continue reading Cheaper Than Bricks

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Sheep Washing

October 31, 2015April 3, 2016 Itching for Hitching

We’re ambling south through New South Wales and I decide to visit the Mudgee museum. I meet a charming old gent who proudly shows me their collection of wedding gowns and flat irons, but I’m a girl who is more interested in the sheep washer. I’ve never seen anything like it. Apparently in the old days they had no way of washing the shorn fleeces so the poor old sheep was put into a box, with its head poking through a hole, while water was poured in then he copped a jolly good scrubbing before being lifted out for drying. Continue reading Sheep Washing

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The Legend of the Elephant

October 31, 2015April 3, 2016 Itching for Hitching

We are spending a few days in the charming little town of Stratford in Victoria. As we wander along the Avon riverbank in the early morning chill of spring we find a small blue sculpture of an elephant and learn that it is a memorial to an elephant that was decapitated when the circus was driving under Stratford’s very low railway bridge back in 1950. Apparently he was too heavy to move so they buried him by the river. One wonders what became of the circus after it lost its star attraction. Continue reading The Legend of the Elephant