push - my town

Danielle over at hello owl has started a new venture on her blog, called 'Push', which is in her own words:

'Push is a fun new game all about pushing your photography skills to the limit and always striving to do better and be better, to be more creative and find something exciting in your everyday life'

This week is all about 'your suburb', you can go here to see everybody elses entries. 

Well, I don't live in a suburb as such...in fact I don't even live in a town. Brindabella is about four kilometres into Thorpdale, a tiny community with a pub, a footy club and a milk bar. All the essentials really. When I was growing up in Thorpdale there was also a small supermarket, a bakery, a butcher and the bank manager would be in town on a Wednesday and worked out of the pub's dining room to cash your cheques and use one of those old school credit card sliders. 

Over time the bakery closed it's doors as farmers started using potato harvesters instead of pickers. Back in 'my day' the population of Thorpy would swell to triple its size in potato season as pickers came to town and filled up the caravan park (a local farmers paddock, empty the rest of the year). They would all have a pie for lunch at the bakery. Without the pickers the bakery closed. Then the supermarket, which now sits abandoned on the main corner in town. It looks so sad.

 

Without a supermarket in town, eldery residents who no longer drive have been forced to move to nearby bigger towns, meaning the actual township of Thorpdale has dwindled also. The houses in the seven or so streets in town are varied - some original homes remain from when the area was settled, some 1950's brick veneers and 70's mission brown numbers also. 

The post office is my favourite. Isn't it cute? I love that we have a few old shops in original condition, even if some are empty. I dream of one day opening a little antiques store or gallery in one of them, but Mr Sensible reminds me that Thorpy really is on the way to nowhere with no tourist traffic and locals quite stuck in their ways.

I just hope our children can experience a vibrant community like I did in Thorpy (and Mr M in his small country town also), although I really believe it's not the buildings and businesses that make a community, it is the people and spirit. And we have that in bucketloads.

Photos by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella.

simple pleasures

Last night Mr M was working late, he called me from the tractor to ask if I could give the dogs a bit of a run around as this is usually his job and he wouldn't be home before dark to do it. I usually potter about with him doing outside jobs whilst the hounds bound about the garden and the surrounding paddock, Pippa generally making a nuisance of herself. Problem is that if Pippa gets a scent or hears a far away barking dog, bleating lamb or mooing steer she takes of like a bat out of hell after it, over the horizon and never to be seen again. Well, a lot of yelling, whistling and stock whip cracking by Mr M usually does the trick, but she rarely listens to me, so I had a little discussion with her about this and told her that there was to be no funny business. Her attention span is, lets just say...lacking.

To keep her entertained I stayed outside to 'supervise' at all times. I had washed some sheets that morning so needed to get them in off the line, it was just on sunset and the light was absolutely streaming in from the west across the dam, through the gum trees and onto our washing line next to the shed. Sometimes the simplest of ogjects and tasks can make the most beautiful images.

The light was absolutely begging me to walk the extra few hundred metres down to the gum trees and edge of the dam, another excuse to keep the dogs entertained whilst I was 'babysitting' them. Sometimes I really miss our outlook from the cottage, but last night was magic of a Thorpdale variety with the smell of 'spud dust' in the air and hum of nearby potato harvesters.

Thorpy.

Home.

 

Hounds entertained, Emma's shutter finger satisfied for the night, sheets dry, dogs fed and dinner in the oven. Come on Pip, let's go home.

{ Home }

Hope your weekend is going to be splendid. Mr M and I are off HOME to Gippsland. I haven't been home to Thorpdale in the longest time and am extremely homesick. Pity my Mum won't be there but she's off jetting about in Vietnam and visiting my sister in Cambodia where she now lives.

The above photo is the classic Thorpdale image, taken by me when I was at uni. I used to get terribly homesick living in Melbourne and would run away home to take images like this, they always seem to be better the more homesick I was. So, with this in mind I am going home armed with my camera, hopefully I will get some great shots of where I grew up - rolling hills, red volcanic soils of the potato paddocks and plentiful water sources. Aaaahh....can't wait to go home. As much as Ythanbrae has become mine and Mr M's home, Thorpdale will always will be home to me.