Saturday, December 13, 2014

Barcaldine

Or, as we now call it, Barcky. Its easier than getting it wrong! Looking at the way it is spelt, I was pronouncing it Bark-ol-deen but nooooooo! That is COMPLETELY wrong. It’s actually pronounced Bark-auld-on and it was just too hard to remember the right way, especially if I was reading it. Barcky is so much easier!

So we headed off to Barcky from Emerald and left the last of the green grass behind. It is so dry out here. Completely flat and not a blade of green to be seen. PLENTY of road-kill though! We saw more dead kangaroos than since we left Tassie. We scored a site in a caravan park that was almost entirely empty. Ironically it was one long site that fit us fine – always the way! Staying overnight gave us time to see the Tree of Knowledge in the daytime and at night. This is a wonderfully imposing sculpture that has been erected to replace a tree that was poisoned in 2006. The Australian Labour Party was formed and met under the tree and it had become a memorial to unionism and the ALP. Sadly some nasty person poisoned the tree. The artwork that replaces it is truly wonderful. It has the original trunk and branches which have been preserved, and the canopy is a wonderful example of negative space as the leaves are suggested in the spaces within an enormous box. Its impressive during the day, but even more so at night. The lighting really reinforces the negative space aspects. I loved it.



We intended to check out the Australian Heritage Workers Centre, but got there at 3pm and discovered that the next day was a free family fun day and we could save ourselves $40! This left us the afternoon suddenly free, and we filled it by decking Bertha out for Christmas! Woo hoo!! Three out of four of us had been desperate to do so for days and days but Dunc was keen to wait for the 1st December. We managed to stretch him a couple of days – yay!!


The AWHC was great the next day, and came with a free sausage sizzle included too – cant say no to a free lunch!

No comments: