Australian Coast & Country - Spring 06

DOWN THE MURRAY THROUGH ro rHE sEA . coro iowG' ST ARNAUD AND DUNOLLY . GO-AHEAD ROCKHAMPTON . THE HIDDEN CAIRNS HIGHLANDS . THE ROAD TO ALBANY SURPRISING WINCHELSEA . SPACE-GAZING PARKES . SAFARI lN THE WILD AT ) . SHIPWRECKS ON KING ISLAND LD RECOGNITION FOR BALLARAT.4'-i N SHOW IN REGIONAL GALLERIES

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Places

Far from being the rough cattle

town of legend, Rockhampton on Queensland's Capricorn Coast is a fine city of well-preserved nineteenth-century buildings, gardens, a thriving contemporary life and lashings of natural beauty that make it one of eastern Australia's most attractive destinations.

In its magnificent setting on the south coast of Western Australia, Albany is the centre of a region full of dramatic scenery and manmade attractions that's worth taking your time to explore, writes Jill Hanison.

It's all too easy to drive through Winchelsea, but you'd be missing a lot if you didn't stop and explore this pretty township with its historic buildings on the Princes Highway west of Geelong. Gail Thomas describes its charms.

Riverboats, spectacular scenery and a rich and varied life in the communities along its banks give constant and ever-changing interest to a lourney down the Murray from the Victoria-New South Wales border through South Australia.

It's an integral part in a worldwide chain of space observation but it stands in a rural landscape where you expect to find nothing more than sheep. Joyce O'Regan visits the great radro telescope at Parkes in New South Wales,

Heritaqe

Though serene and green and richly productive of cheese, Named to honour a French general, St Arnaud in Victoria is a substantial and multiJaceted community thats run the rural cycle from agriculture through gold to agriculture again and, along with nearby Dunolly, offers the visitor a remarkable range of nl..oc in+oroet ^f

cream, beef and other delicacies, King lsland in Bass Strait has its cruel side - as the fate of many a sailing ship wrecked on its rockgirt coast tragically attests.

Northern Queensland's Cairns Highlands have a secluded beauty and a sense of remoteness that belie their easy accessibility from Cairns.

Wt+;: Athens, Jerusalem, Paris, Edinburgh, Rome, Vienna - and now Ballarat. This Victorian city renowned for gold and architecture is in good company as the latest on a select list of famous places recognised as historic cities of world importance.

COAST & COUNTRY St'I{IN(]

2006

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FOOD, DRINK & HOSPITALITY

Nature & Conservation

Theres no need to go on safari overseas to see lions and tigers and other animals in their wild state. You can see them even closer up at the Western Plains Zoo near Dubbo in New South Wales, writes Tracey Henson.

The mountain ranges of southeastern Australia with their tall{ree forests and fern{illed gullies are made for walking in, not just when the sun streams through the leaves but when the raindrops fall, writes Christie Boyle.

Gail Thomas discovers a country

restaurant where the chef-cumcollector values variety in crockery and cutlery as much as on the menu.

Art & Craft

Landscape

A vast inherited fortune made in nineteenth-century Australia was the foundation of George Salting's spectacular art collection - but he left it on his death in 1909 not to the land of his birth but to three museums in London.

As country landscapes burst into

spring colour, and city-dwellers teel

the call of the outdoors more

strongly than ever, Jane

Edmanson recommends the delights of walking among wildflowers.

One of the great paintings of colonial Australia by one of its greater painters, Eugene von Gu6rard, is back on public view after a long spell in overseas ownership.

One of Australia's most historic wineries shows a continuing talent for innovation in making the most of its foremost natural asset - its environment.

A guesthouse and caf6 in a tranquil rural setting north of Canberra represents a combination of the talents of its German-born and Australian owners.

There aren't many cellar doors in the country where you can taste cider instead of wine - but in a central Victorian apple township there are two.

New owners are taking over old and decrepit country pubs in many parts of Australia, restoring and rejuvenating them, writes Rita Erlich, introducing a new Coast & Country series on the best of these transformations.

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Ad shows that are worth a special trip: Emma Westwood previews the best forthcoming exhibitions "Cascading over the rocks": a creek in the Dandenong

in some of Australia's most enterprising regional galleries.

Books

The Last Word

George Thomas reviews new books on the central Victorian goldfields, on learning to live with bushfires and how to grow fruit and vegetables for flavour.

lvlore than the stars of stage and screen, there are people and things that play a starring role in our lives and memories. For Elizabeth Beatty it was a ship thal just happened to have a star on its funnel.

Ranges, Victoria, photographed

by Graham Scheer.

COAST A COUNTRY SPRING 2006

Editorial TRAVEL BY INSTALMENTS Many readers have commented favourably on the amount ol reading each edition of Coast & Country offers. Our articles are not extended captions or fillers between the pictures. They are long compared with many magazines because they are written to orovide as much detailed information as we believe a reader needs for a full and informed appreciation of the place or subject. The combined length of accumulated stories can mean that sometimes something has to be sacrificed. In this edition, it is Passport, our regular section of overseas stories with an Australian connection. Passport gives a pinch o{ variety to a magazine that in other respects is about Australia. lt will return in our next

TVVO BIG JOURNEYS reach their conclusion in this edition of Coast & Country. On page 7,

"From the desert to the sea" concludes our 2500-kilometre journey along the length of the Murray River by following that mighty stream from the point where it enters South Australia down to the Southern Ocean. The previous two instalments of this journey were published in the Autumn and Spring 2005 editions of Coast & Country. The other journey concluding in this edition is through south-western Western Australia. "Through the south ofthe west to Albany", its second instalment, begins on page 42. The first part was published in our Summer Edition 200506.

There is so much to see and do in regional Australia that one article, substantial as our major stories are, is sometimes not enough to do justice to the place being written about.

We believe that dividing our coverage into

instalments reconciles our obligation to give

edition.

as comolete a oicture as we can of a town or

region with the commitment to write about as wide a variety of destinations as possible within the soace of one edition.

Christopher Akehurst Editor

Letter [/CRE CN SHOI IO\ryERS congratulate you on the article on shot towers ("Soaring towers and leaden showers") by Nadine Cresswell-Myatt in the Autumn-Winter 2006 Edition of Coast & County. I thought you might like to know that there is a third shot tower in Melbourne, not a picturesque masonry tower like the others, but one still operating.

Briefly, this tower was built in 1950 by lCl Australia on their Deer Park site to supply shot for sporting ammunition and to replace the Coop's tower in central Melbourne described in the article. The new tower was of modern design with a steel framework supporting a vertical pipe down which the I

AUSTRALIAN

molten lead was droooed. The framework also supports a lift shaft which carried lead ingots and operators to the top. lCl pulled out of ammunition manufacture around 1980 and the plant, including the shot tower, was sold to Ballantine Ammunition, who continued to operate the tower in situ until 2000, when the tower and plant were dismantled and moved to Ballantine's property in North Laverton, about five kilometres away. By February 2001 the tower had been re-erected and was operating again, as it still is. At 55 or so metres, it is hard to missl Kensington, Vic.

PRODUCTION: ILLUSTMTOFS: PHOTOGRAPHER:

MARK BREWSTER HELL COLOUR AUSTMLIA BETTINA GUTHFIDGE IAIN TOPLISS GRAEME ROBBINS

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Maintaining a

tradition: the shot tower at l{orth laverton, Vic, is still making shot.

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COAST

& COUNTRY'

SPRING

2OO6

PARROTS BY A RIVER This 1930s travel poster of Australian parrots with a river background is a colourful example of the lithographic work of James Northfield.

Though few people today have heard of him, Northfield was probably the most prolific Australian poster artist of his day. His advertising Posters were everywhere - on hoardings, in magazines and on railway stations. The quality and range of his work has now been recognised in a new book, James Northfield and the Art of Selling Australia, by Michelle Hetherington, published by the National Library of Australia, where much of Northfield's work is oreserved. There'll be a maior feature on the art of James Northfield in the Summer 2006-07 edition of Coast & Countrv.

James Northfield and the Art of Selling Australia by Michelle Hetherington is available from bookshops at $30 rrp