Back in 1983, along a notorious stretch of the old Hume Highway between Gunning and Breadalbane, a semi-trailer toppled over while rounding a tight bend.
Sadly, accidents like this were commonplace on the Cullarin Range in the late 1990s. In fact, in the 18 months before the deadly stretch of twists and turns was bypassed in 1993, 29 people were killed on this part of the Hume.
But this wasn't any ordinary semi rollover. Firstly, because the driver wasn't badly injured and secondly because of the load the truck was hauling - pallets of bottled beer and Orlando Trilogy sparkling wine.
Before the first tow truck arrived on the scene, neighbouring farmers were already hailing the crash as manna from heaven.
According to Gary Poile who lives in nearby Collector, "as soon as the insurance assessors had written off the load, locals swarmed on the site, cramming their utes and tractors with free grog that was strewn across the side of the road and had rolled down into their paddocks."
Gary especially remembers his wife-to-be's 21st birthday shindig held soon after the crash, "where dozens of the salvaged bottles of beer and wine and guzzled by revellers".
"Some of the local lads were pouring the beer through tea strainers before drinking it, just in case any glass fragments had contaminated the beer," recalls Gary who admits, "wine wasn't really the first choice for folk around here, so they only started drinking it when all the beer had run out".
Over the years, the stash of wine stored away in bathtubs under houses and in sheds has slowly dwindled, but in preparation for my visit to the site of the crash earlier this week, Gary got his hands on a bottle.
Not that he's telling me where from.
"It's a closely guarded secret where the remaining bounty is now," he muses as he hands me the dust-covered bottle.
"Is it drinkable?" I ask him.
"Well, that's up to you, I didn't think it was very drinkable at the time, and you can still buy it for $9 a bottle so it's not exactly top shelf," he quips.
Regardless of how smooth the 40-year-old Trilogy is on the palate today, the well-aged bottle of bubbles provides a tangible link to "Champagne Corner" - the novel nickname truckies quickly bestowed on this sweeping, poorly cambered bend.
Given the number of accidents along this section of the old Hume, it's not surprising that other parts of the road are also named after similar incidents. Not far from Champagne Corner, where the old Hume crosses over the Southern Railway, is Biscuit Bridge, where - you guessed it - a load of biscuits spilt over the highway. Then there's Rollover Corner, where Gary "lost count of the number of semi-trailer crashes there in the 1980s alone".
Not all local roadway nicknames are named after truck crashes. On the Yass side of Gunning is Hotdog Hill, where, in the days before service centres and fancy truck stops, fast food vans set up each night to feed famished truckies on their nightly run between Sydney and Melbourne.
One of the more unusual monikers, according to Michael McGirr in his rollicking tale of the old Hume, Bypass: story of a road (Picador Australia, 2004) is Aeroplane Hill, on the approach into Tarcutta, which is so-called because at one stage truckies could only pick up one radio station and it kept playing the advertisement jingle for Aeroplane Jelly over and over. Really.
McGirr also reports that at least two places on the Hume south of Yass got their names from the fact that they were common places for those denizens of the highway: speed traps. "The area just outside Coolac was called Money Money and "the tree in the median strip in the middle of the old road at Jugiong was called The Money Tree."
Do you have a nickname for a section of local road? Or have you been in the right place at the right time to salvage a spilt load of goods? If so, please let me know at the address at the end of this column. Oh, and more importantly, please let me know whether I should crack open the 40-year-old bottle of champers?
DOUBLE TAKE
Wonderful examples of re-photography continue to fill my inbox. Of these, the photos with longest time span between them are these two high country shots taken about 125 years apart.
High-country historian and good friend of this column, Matthew Higgins, regularly told me that one of the great attractions of the mountains for him is the continuity in time with people who formerly lived, worked or played in the Alps.
The stories he has researched and written about are etched into his consciousness. "Sometimes it is as if time has not passed and those people from decades ago are still there, just out of sight," he says. These two photos indicate just what Matthew means.
One shows an observer from Clement Wragge's Mt Kosciuszko weather station standing above the Cootapatamba Cornice in 1898-99. Matthew's photo, taken in October 2017, shows a similar view along the side of the Cornice. That's South Ramshead visible in the background of each photo.
"The past is always there, in my mind, and this is a great gift which continues to enrich my experience of our glorious high country," Matthew says. As Matthew has written in articles and books, the weather station existed from 1897 to 1902, first in a tent and then in a timber hut.
The day West Block was hit by a tornado
Last week's exposé on West Block triggered a flood of memories for many Canberrans who worked in the Parliamentary Triangle landmark.
"It is a beautiful and elegant building and I very much enjoyed my time working there," reports Rodney Bourke, adding "I felt part of history."
One of the more momentous days at work for Rodney was when he was working on the top floor on May 23, 1988 when "a highly localised tornado came through the area, ripping off part of the roof, and breaking the fire extinguisher system pipes in the ceiling, allowing mains-pressure water to gush into the offices, ruining files, papers and the newly installed computer system (a terminal on every desk!)". Rodney lost much of his work and his glasses "were never found".
Mel Duncan was bunkered down in the office the same night, beavering away in the Royal Commission Offices. "I didn't believe a colleague when they said the roof had just been blown off [and there were] waterfalls down the stairwells," she reports.
It sounds like it was one heck of a wild storm. The Canberra Times reported on its front page the next day that "a 10m by 15m section of the roof of West Block blew off and was carried back over the building and dumped into the car park. Rescue teams had been 'terrified they'd find someone' in the car park but had discovered only damage to several Commonwealth cars, and trees and bushes overturned".
However, most of the correspondence reflected that of Monica Wren who worked in the building for several years at the Australian Electoral Commission. "What attracted me to the position was actually the opportunity to work in West Block, it's my most loved building in Canberra," she says.
I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see the refurbished building re-open early next year and for this grand old lady of our public service to serve a new generation of Canberra office workers.
WHERE IN CANBERRA?
Rating: Easy - Medium
Clue: It looms over a car park in Canberra's inner south, but few look up to discover its artistic message.
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday, August 20 wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
Last week: Although many readers mistook it for the National Film and Sound Archive (former home of the Institute of Anatomy) building in Acton, congratulations go to Sigrid Horner of Deakin who was first to correctly identify last week's photo as an image (actually, a postcard) of the original National (Commonwealth) Library of Australia which was located on Kings Avenue on the site of the current Edmund Barton Building. "I used to ride my bike there as a child and was impressed by its air of grandeur and serenity, and of course, the books," recalls first-time winner Sigrid. As pointed out by Rosemary Hollow, the striking building, designed by Edward Henderson in Stripped Classical style with stand-out features including Corinthian columns, "doubled as the adult section of Canberra's public library".
Ian Petersons, who often visited the library with his parents, recalls, "it was architecturally on par with Old Parliament House and when bulldozed in 1968, was a significant loss to architecture heritage in ACT".
Special note to Nick Philippa of Kambah who "visited as a youngster in our early Canberra days to watch control model aircraft being flown on the adjacent open space".
SIMULACRA CORNER
On a recent trip up the Wallagaraugh River (you all know where that is, don't you?) as a post bushfire and waterway health educational initiative, Sue Hines of Mallacoota (got it now?) spotted this "bunyip" lurking on the riverbank. If you are wondering about the perfect symmetry of Sue's bunyip - it's actually a reflection, rotated 90-degrees. Just look at that frown. Gee, someone isn't happy.
