The recent series on my top-20 points of interest on the drive to Sydney resulted in a bulging mailbag, including a confession regarding those rocks often spotted dangling from the Hanging Rock Road sign near Penrose.
"It's me!" exclaims Rowena Wilcox of Stockinbingal who admits she is responsible for many of the rocks tied to the infamous road sign, well at least over the last six years.
"It all started when my friend 'Ange' who lived at Marulan, laughed whenever we drove past together and saw a rock hanging off the sign," explains Rowena. "After she passed away, every time I drive the Hume, I hang a rock for my mate because I know she'd get a laugh out of it."
One of the reasons Rowena continues to tie rocks to the sign is because they keep going missing.
"There's never a trace of the rock or string on the ground, so they get taken down. Some people have no fun," she laments.
Truckie Jason Stevenson reports the last one he saw hung off the sign was secured by a padlocked chain. But like all the others, it vanished.
Given there's no pile of fallen rocks under the sign, I suspect they are either being pilfered by a serial party pooper or confiscated by the local council under the guise that it somehow interferes with road safety.
However, unless I arrange a protracted roadside stake-out, we may never know for sure, for the Wingecarribee Shire Council, which is responsible for the area, failed to respond to my requests on the matter.
One council staffer I tracked down had the audacity to suggest they have "more important issues to deal with". Surely not.
In any case, the safety argument is a bit of a furphy, for in over 40 years, I've never once seen one single suspended rock obscure the sign. It's just a bit of harmless fun.
One driver who has been keeping an even closer watch on the sign than me over the last five decades is John Moulis.
"I used to travel to Sydney every fortnight for work and knew the road like the back of my hand," reports John. "They replaced a smaller sign with the current bigger one in 1993."
Truckie Jason Stevenson reports the last one he saw hung off the sign was secured by a padlocked chain. But like all the others, it vanished.
Given there's no pile of fallen rocks under the sign, I suspect they are either being pilfered by a serial party pooper or confiscated by the local council under the guise that it somehow interferes with road safety.
However, unless I arrange a protracted roadside stake-out, we may never know for sure, for the Wingecarribee Shire Council, which is responsible for the area, failed to respond to my requests on the matter. One council staffer I tracked down had the audacity to suggest they have "more important issues to deal with". Surely not. In any case, the safety argument is a bit of a furphy, for in over 40 years, I've never once seen one single suspended rock obscure the sign. It's just a bit of harmless fun.
One driver who has been keeping an even closer watch on the sign than me over the last five decades is John Moulis. "I used to travel to Sydney every fortnight for work and knew the road like the back of my hand," reports John, explaining "they replaced a smaller sign with the current bigger one in 1993".
Kim Ulrick of Holt can go one better. She dug up a photo taken just after she'd tied a rock to the old sign in 1989. "Talk about a rebellious youth," she muses. I don't think Kim should be too worried about her wayward rock hanging pursuits - it's her choice of footwear that is of more concern. What are they, half-sneaker, half-sandal?
Meanwhile, Southern Highlands history hound Thelma Johnson had a schoolfriend who lived at the property after which the road is named, and yes, you guessed it, it sports a hanging rock. "The Great Southern Road used to go right past the rock and in 1865 the Ben Hall gang held up the toll collector who was stationed at the rock," she reveals.
Convict treasures
The surviving convict bridges that once formed part of the Great Southern Road remain a favourite stop-off for many readers. "That magnificent bridge hidden behind the Mackey VC Rest Area just south of Berrima has to be THE hidden gem of the drive to Sydney," says Gary Poile of Collector.
Meanwhile, Coin Smeal of Holder is especially taken by the stone bridge that spans the Towrang Creek at the Derrick VC Rest Area just north of Goulburn. "It fascinates me, particularly the fact that the bridge was built on a curve," reveals Colin who "can only imagine what it must have been like working to hew out the stone of the bridge by hand, especially during the heat of summer". Indeed.
Another reader enamoured by the Towrang Bridge is well-known Canberra artist Isla Patterson who recently put the finishing touches to a watercolour of the circa-1839 segmental sandstone bridge. Love it!
Milking marvel
The photograph of the rotolactor, the mechanical rotating milking machine near the side of the Hume Highway at Camden Park Estate near Menangle, brought back fond memories for many including Sally Stephens of O'Connor.
"It was a highlight of my childhood," reports Sally whose father, Captain William Monatgu (Monty), was a farm manager of the estate when the state-of-the-art contraption was installed by his good friend Edward Macarthur-Onslow, manager the estate in 1952.
"His job was to feed the herd, four or five hundred of them," recalls Sally. "Mostly this involved growing crops and cutting and chopping them straight to the dairy as the cows lived in big pens like a feedlot."
Sally especially remembers as a three- or four-year-old playing in the rotating circle where the cows were being milked. "I remember cows coming in through foot baths and then exiting after doing a full circle," she recalls, adding "it all seemed magical at the time".
The milking machine also rekindled memories for Maureen Marshall of Nicholls who remembers visiting the unusual tourist attraction as a teenager while living in Sydney.
"It was a big adventure as the rotolactor was out in the middle of nowhere back then," she says. "It was certainly fascinating watching the cows go in one door, be hooked up to one machine and then marched out the door again."
Decommissioned 40 years ago, the rotolactor is currently in ruins but there are plans to revitalise the site with a housing estate and associated community hub. Watch this space.
The original good-looking Aussie Sheila
One place I didn't include in my top-20 historic spots on the drive from Canberra to Sydney was Wollogorang, just south of Goulburn.
But for Joan Bartlett of Bungendore, the far-flung plains sit at the top of her list.
"Every time I pass the Wollogorang turnoff I think of it as being the childhood home to Sheila Chisholm in the early 1900s," reveals Joan.
Don't know who Sheila was? Neither did I until I received Joan's missive and ended up diving down a massive rabbit hole about her adult life as a global socialite.
Over 50 years since her death in 1969, the internet is full of her exploits and the blurb on the back of Rupert Wainwright's 400-page tell-all Sheila: The Australian Beauty Who Bewitched British Society (Allen and Unwin, 2014), possibly provides the most informative summary.
"Sheila wedded earls and barons, befriended literary figures and movie stars, bedded a future king, was feted by London and New York society for 40 years and when she died was a Russian princess."
Heck, quite the life for a young lass bought up on a sheep station near Goulburn. Little wonder Joan thinks of her fascinating life every time she drives past.
Wainwright further writes: "through it all she remained quintessentially an Australian country girl". And yes, before you ask, the phrase "a good-looking Aussie sheila" was apparently coined in her honour.
Stop Press: Earlier this week, a 1919 letter surfaced, detailing how the then Prince of Wales (future King Edward VIII) persuaded Lord Loughborough, Sheila's husband, to play a round of golf with him so his brother, Prince Albert (future King George VI) who was apparently infatuated with Sheila, could be alone with her. Albert's affair with Sheila ended when King George V apparently told his son to find a more suitable, unmarried partner. Instead, he married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, better known as QEII's mother.
WHERE IN CANBERRA?
Rating: Difficult
Clue: This concrete revolver is in Civic, but where?
Last week: Congratulations to Mick Gallway of Flynn who identified last week's photo, taken by James Smith, as the 'Alien Fighter' space capsule simulation carnival ride currently sitting idle (blame COVID and an insurance crisis in the amusement ride industry) in a yard in Captains Flat. It's one of several amusement rides owned by a local family business.
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday February 12, 2022, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
SPOTTED
When photos of people paddling around the bronze statue of Count Paul Edmund Strzelecki (he was the first European to ascend and name Mt Kosciuszko) in Jindabyne's Banjo Paterson Park began landing in my inbox in November, I thought it was a prank. Three months on and although Lake Jindabyne's levels have dropped a little, many recreation facilities on the foreshore, including the town's outdoor gym, remain partially submerged. Thankfully you no longer need a snorkel to complete a set of chin-ups, but flippers will come in handy on the leg press.
If you haven't had a chance to check out Jindabyne's rare "high tide", don't despair, water levels are likely to stay high for at least another few weeks. Managers of the lake, Snowy Hydro, advise "December 2021 was officially the wettest since records began for the Lake Jindabyne catchment and January not too far behind". As a result "the lake level will continue to stay high throughout the rest of summer".
