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| Elf taking a breather in Binalong |
Well, I had a target time of 9.00am on Friday to start my road trip and I nearly made it. A quick trip to George's Fruit Barn to do some restocking of the fridge for my house sitter put me back 30 mins but it was a pretty good effort. The first part of the 500km journey was not enjoyable. The M7 was a truck grand prix and there is no doubt that with millions of Australians not travelling overseas the traffic everywhere is much worse than normal. After the Canberra turn off south of Goulburn the traffic thinned out but a substantial diversion near the end of the trip to avoid a closed bridge made it a very long day.
I made a voluntary diversion into the tiny settlement of Binalong to take a break where I had a chat with Geoffrey Swan, a retired schoolteacher, who describes himself as the Binalong Sculptor. He sculpts using discarded metal objects. Below is a photo of Geoffrey and a corrugated iron"shirt" he had just sold for $200.
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| The Binalong Sculptor |
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| One of his works |
Fortunately friends Keith and Sandra had warned me that it was cold at night out here in Stockinbingal so I packed some cold weather gear.
Riding in the cab of the John Deere tractor this morning it was just about warm enough. Come out here in the middle of summer and it would be a very different story.
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| Early morning walk in beautiful cold air. It's good to see aircraft vapour trails again. |
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| Planting Canola |
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| Me. trying to look like a local. |
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| Keith, who really is a local |
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Good to see you out and about, John. Just what the doctor ordered. Your friend Keith looks very jolly and I can tell he's an Australian farmer and not a Colchester farmer, despite the provenance of the steam engine. Now that would be worth a bob or two if it could be transported back to England. One question: What is that railway line? Is it 3ft 6in gauge? I'd love to know more, especially if it's the main line. Lovely perspective on that line disappearing into the distance. Mike
ReplyDeleteMike,yes Keith is very much an Australian farmer-he's second generation and his son, Tim, is now the third generation working the farm.Keith picks up these odd pieces of machinery such as the steam engine from time to time.He once had a magnificent steam traction engine. Fully operating. He says that the pictured stationery engine had a boiler certificate to say it was safe to operate when he bought it a few years ago but alas he's not got round to trying it and its condition has not improved in the meantime.
ReplyDeleteHe has a collection of old tractors-photos soon to be posted.
The railway line is standard gauge. It was once a branch line from Temora to Harden. It closed to passenger trains many years ago although the Stockinbingal station is still intact-future photo. Now it carries grain trains which get loaded from the huge grain company silos on a site near the edge go the farm and the grain is taken to the grain loading terminal at Port Kembla.I went for an early morning walk this morning and a big train of empty wagons passed on the way to be loaded.