Monumental weekend

And I do mean 'monumental' as in the dictonary connotation - "historical prominent".
I visited some cemeteries, like the lonely Sailor's Home Cemetery

And some notable headstones - on the left is the single grave beside Simson Street in Brim, and on the right is George Bell in the tiny Lake Coorong Pioneer Cemetery in Hopetoun.

Another lone grave (and lonely too) John Archbold's grave at the top of Lake Albacutya, needed to wade through a wheat crop while scaling the hill to reach the two pines overlooking his memorial.

But it wasn't only about dead people monuments, there were the two Silo Art Trail murals, definitely giant monuments - 

Fintan Magee's at Patche (still not convinced about the dead tree), but it does look impressive on the approach to town from the east and from the north.

And there can never be too many of the Brim silo, especially as I'm still to be there on a sunny afternoon. This was relatively early with the sun behind the silo.

And I had both to myself, no other photographers in sight.

Then there were the small monuments - see if you can spot the brown sign (not the hand-painted sign on the fence)

 
This as the sign says was the first site of the Tyenna (Tempy East) school, a single room weatherboard building with an open fireplace, situated there from 1923 to 1946.

The guys who erected the sign didn't anticipate the  growth of the old peppercorn tree. 

Little wonder that someone else took it upon themselves to create the hand painted one on the cyclone fence. 

Further west there was this poignant  building - 

The Echunga State School No. 4481 (originally known as Gaalanungah West, alternate named Euchunga and Weeroona). It opened in June 1931 in the rented Echunga Hall (erected for school purposes), a limestone rubble building rendered in concrete. It was situated on the road between Hopetoun and Yaapeet (a road busy with hay carters). The school closed in 1947. Sad when the local people had put so much effort into establishing it.

Another monument to our build/create and abandon/discard, this car rusting away just north of Rainbow.

And finally one of nature's monuments, this is a panoramic shot of Lake Hindmarsh, taken from 'The Cliffs'.

Wow Weekend tWo

Having satisfied my Abandoned need for a while, I needed to attend to the other requirements -
So I dragged the bike out of the car and took off along The Domino Trail, an abandoned rail-line now rail-trail still with some of its bridges 

Over Stony Creek

Above - the Doctors Creek Bridge deck, & below - in Doctors Creek

The dilapidated Blue Creek Bridge, I went around, except when I had to venture out for the cache. And finally the brick culvert tunnel through the embankment that crosses the Domino Creek.

Then having logged all the 11 geocaches on the Domino Trail, I needed to bag a trig point, so up the steep Tower Track to the top of Blue Mountain with its communication, trig & fire towers. It was on the way down that I spied the red leaves of a deciduous tree in the forest AND found a cemetery! The Newbury-Blue Mountain Cemetery is reverting back to bush, but is still open, it had its most recent burial about 1980.


The trig & fire towers
 

The exotic tree in the cemetery

The path into the Newbury-Blue Mountain Cemetery

Next Sunday - a change of pace

In the stillness of the night...

Preparations for the night tour of the Cemetery are definitely gaining momentum

- Dates & times organised (gee but the Net is a wonderous thing, it told me local sun set & full darkness, & moon phases)
- Waiver Form ratified
- The headstone for the Display has been created, painted & lettered
- Have to do a presentation for the Board on Friday, selling the idea
- Invites to the Virtual Tour for the Trusts and Societies ready to be labelled then posted