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We said goodbye to Debbie at 8.00 am the start of a fascinating legendary day with several stops.
Our first stop was Ballura Tourist information and was chosen because we had been driving for a number of hours and needed a break. It only turned out to be the centre of an Australian legend, the Ned Kelly story!! It was Jenny's first day out of training and she was managing the information centre for the first time on her own. We have to say she did a great job, persuading us to watch the Ned Kelly story on video (10 mins) and go round the museum for $4 each. But the cup of tea + biscuit at only $1 each, a real bargain.
Potted history of Ned Kelly:
He was the eldest son of 5 and his father died when he was a young boy.
Aged 10 he saved a boy from drowning. The boy's parents gave him a green silk scarf which he wore throughout the rest of his life and was his most treasured possession.
He was subjected to local police harassment from the age of 12 and this continued on and off into his early 20s. After 3 years in a local prison he vowed he would never go back.
One evening a local policeman went to his house to arrest his brother and in the process tried to assault his younger sister. Ned's mother attacked the policeman with a shovel and Ned fired his gun just nicking (excuse the pun) the P.C's ear.
The local P.C. used the incident to accuse Ned of attempted murder. He was now a wanted man so he fled to the outback with his brother and a number of others.
Later meetings of the Ned Kelly gang and police culminated in a policeman being killed. Over time Ned Kelly came to represent the struggle between settlers and landowners and in an effort to cause insurrection (J and G to look up word in dictionary) in Northern Victoria they robbed banks and forced a confrontation with the police.
Things didn't go according to plan when an ambush of a police train was delayed allowing the police to be warned. The 'show down' resulted in Ned Kelly's gang being killed and in a vain attempt to help his friends he wore the famous NK armour fashioned from plough shares complete with metal bucket shaped helmet. Following capture NK was later hanged in Melbourne jail.
Was Ned a freedom fighter or a common criminal? It is for you to decide.
In the museum we saw the the famous green scarf complete with NK blood and the door of the jail that was used to display the body of one of the gang members.
Next unanticipated stop was the town of Holbrook and is one of the few towns the Hume Highway does not bypass. This was lucky as we were amazed to see the top of a full sized submarine complete with associated museum. We had stop and determine the mystery of this seafaring icon being located in this landlocked town.
In the early days the town became known as Germanton due to the importance of an early settler. This was fine until World War I when the current inhabitants wanted to change the name. Several prominent politicians names were shortlisted but in the end they decided to use the name of the first naval recipient of the Victoria Cross.
Lieutenant Holbrook navigated a small submarine through the Dardanelles and sank a Turkish warship before making his way back successfully with low power in his batteries. Given the strong Anzac links with this theatre of war I think they made a good choice.
The Holbrook family have maintained strong links with the town including help with funding the submarine memorial.
Unfortunately we did not have time to view the museum but it did look interesting and included the chance to find your car in the carpark and simulate an attack on it using a periscope!
Onwards as we still had many kilometres to go and we were approaching mid afternoon.
Next stop was a detour to see the Adelong Falls. An example of where the natural forces of the water course were channelled to pulverise the gold ore, improving the extraction process. Unfortunately the floods of 2010 had damaged many features and paths so we could not investigate further. Not to worry we needed to be on our way. Ate our picnic next to extras from Hitchcock's famous film 'The Birds', how to feel intimidated by 4 large magpies!
Throughout our tour of Australia the maps we have used have points of interest marked in red so when we saw our route passed close to the "The Dog on the Tucker-box" we could not fail to pull over especially as it was just on the roadside. We were fully expecting to see some memorial to a faithful or heroic dog. It is anything but and we were highly bemused as to the whole deal with this story. Suffice it to say "The Dog on the Tucker-box" is another Australian legend and is well worth a look at the photo of the memorial or some online research.
Time was definitely pressing by now and with no place to sleep we headed for Goulburn as the best sized town to find accommodation.
Wow another surprise as we pulled into the town. The Giant Merino. It is more impressive than the Giant Lobster we had encountered earlier on our travels and was attached to a shop and information centre. We would have to explore tomorrow.
Hotel found we went into town for a super meal at Moretties before getting some sleep.
It was one of those surprising days that occur when travelling. As I have said to Nicola many times recently it is the journey not the destination that is important and today was certainly one of those journeys.
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George Cressey Ever the philosopher Henry! (there's another big word to look up!)