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It's always salutary to ramble through a town you think you're familiar with. We had plenty of time after booking into the motel, and an urge to eat olives and artichoke hearts with our dinner hummus. So we set out, excessively clothed, just in case, to cross the bridge into town, passing a tall guardian bird and then discovering a reason to make Cowra too a waystation: vast beds of heritage roses at the junction of three mid-western highways. They were piled deep with mulch and expertly pruned to encourage abundant flowering. Each one had a stone plaque recording its name.
The Lachlan River flowed calmly under the bridge in the late afternoon light, long shadows falling.
An impressive brick church called the camera, but the need for signs and lamp-posts and advertisements and cars obscured it, calling for a bit of savage cropping. I longed for the spaciousness of a square or parkland like those in front of grand buildings in Poznań.
Shopping done, we found that the old low-lying bridge, built like the one over the Tuross on the mountain road to Nerrigundah, was still in service, so we crossed the river that way, looking down into submerged shopping trolleys. That was when we discovered the unexpected. The vast concrete pylons of the big bridge were painted, mainly with Aboriginal designs, although big rigs also featured.
We sat at the table outside our room in the last of the sun and feasted on our spoils. Then we retired for our last night cohabiting and away from home in this lengthy three-month stint at opposite ends of the world.
restlessjo said:
I do like the river shot 🙂 Street art is proliferating, isn’t it, but I do like the sensation of finding it unexpectedly.
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morselsandscraps said:
I can feel an essay coming on: “The charm of the unexpected”! Might oust decrepitude and bark.
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pommepal said:
That is “real” street art you found, as opposed to graffiti, which is sometimes called street art, but what a hidden place to put it. I still have to explore that part of Australia. It is getting to be, so much still to see, in a dwindling amount of time!!! What a traumatic memory you have of Cowra. Thank goodness you saved the car, yourself and any other potential accidents. (sorry about the shoes…)
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morselsandscraps said:
I bought another pair the same – and they were the least of my worries, although it’s strange that I remember them.
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pommepal said:
Memory is a strange beast,,,
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Heyjude said:
What a marvellous find – the art work. And that church steeple is positively East European! Cowra sounded familiar but on checking Google maps I can’t have been through there. I spotted Wagga Wagga on the map – what’s that town like? I love your Aussie names.
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morselsandscraps said:
The art work was a great find. I don’t know the implications of Aboriginal artwork under bridges – there’s some in Moruya too.
Wagga Wagga was my nearby big town in the 70s when I taught in Temora. I bought my Noritake dinner service there, and caught my first plane from there – mechanical fault meant we had to turn back: not a good introduction to flying. What’s it like? Very long main street. A university campus. A bit of cultural life. It’s a long time since I was there.
I nearly died in Cowra, also in the 70s. I was parked on a steep hill and I was rummaging round in the boot when the car started to move, heading downhill to a busy intersection. Driver’s door was open and I managed to get half in, dragging my knee on the road and scraping a fair amount of it off, before I got right in and stopped impending disaster. My poor parents were watching all this. I was wearing a new pair of shoes too, dammit – the right one ruined.
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Heyjude said:
Ouch! That sounds fairly drastic! Lucky the car didn’t run you over.
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Tish Farrell said:
Art under the bridge – art of the unexpected. Rambles in body, mind and spirit. I think you would definitely find a rambling companion in Sebald. Btw I tracked down Nan Shepherd. Not read yet but downloaded into Kindle The Weatherhouse – for a treat after I’ve finished Jeremiah Curtin’s turn of the century, and surprisingly good read – A Journey in Southern Siberia. Btw I found out that Aberdeen University is both Shepherd’s and my alma mater.
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morselsandscraps said:
Thanks for the reminder about Sebald. I got busy looking for him in Liston, and he disappeared from my brain on the journey home. A task for today. I’ll also suss out Jeremiah Curtin.
I’ll be interested in what you think of Nan Shepherd’s fiction. There must have been something in the air at Aberdeen to produce you two!
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Tish Farrell said:
Oh now I think you’ll like Jeremiah Curtin (an American btw). His texts are on a number of free-to-read academic sites on the net. Also there are v. cheap kindle versions. He was an amazing collector of folklore, and spoke over 60 languages which he seemed to pick up by a process of osmosis. There’s a Polish connection too with some of his translated fiction. I’ve only just discovered him, and so far in my reading he appears to be totally unjudgemental and very enthusiastic about other people’s customs, beliefs and lifestyles. He took photos too, and gives very precise but engaging accounts of all he sees. His particular interest in the Siberia book is the Buryat nomads of Lake Baikal, the sourceland of Chinggis Khan and of original Mongolian culture. He has a particular yen for Russian tea made in samovars at post stations along his routes.
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morselsandscraps said:
I found him for Kindle today, so he’ll join the lineup. I’ll have to stop blogging to make time to read. This is turning into a very nice book club. Thank you.
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Tish Farrell said:
As to the air in Aberdeen – the local granite on which it sits, crackles with radioactivity. Also when I was there, they were dredging the harbour by the fish sheds. Interesting combo.
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restlessjo said:
Sounds fascinating 🙂
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Sue said:
I love your mystifying travels and odd chronology ramblings – that’s what makes a Meg post a ‘Meg post’, unlike any other! 🙂
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morselsandscraps said:
You’re too kind – I think! Maybe I’m being postmodern: that’s often seemed to me to be a synonym for disorganised and oddly arranged, but it sound classier.
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Sue said:
Oh, go classy, Meg! Postmodern sounds just the ticket….. By the way, to repeat my question, do tell me about the Abandon in Solnit’s book – is it worth reading?
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morselsandscraps said:
I haven’t forgotten. I need to draw my thoughts together after a day with them all over the place: walking the Camino by movie: encountering a friend from wayback and reliving bits of the past; dealing with dates for visa D for Poland; and sorting out a summons to jury duty for my Polish daughter. I’m thinking what WAS it about, that chapter I spoke about so enthusiastically? So, an answer tomorrow.
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Sue said:
Hoho, sorry if I pressurised you, Meg! When’s your next Poland visit?
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morselsandscraps said:
Now THAT’S pressure! Probably March
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Sue said:
Ooooops! Sorry, Meg!
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pommepal said:
Did you enjoy the movie? I did…
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morselsandscraps said:
Loved the landscape. But dare I say the “pilgrims” were banal, insights few, and I was left wondering why not walk somewhere else?
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pommepal said:
I’m guessing it becomes a compulsion, “because it is there”, for many people. I think I would rather walk a less crowded route. But the scenery was, well, scenic….
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morselsandscraps said:
“A field guide to getting lost” is basically a series of essays, (every second one called “The blue of distance”.) Solnit writes about American children captured by Indians, her love affair with a hermit in Mexico, a story she planned but never wrote, artists such as Yves Klein.
The one chapter that will resonate with ruin-tragics is called “Abandon”, which is a bit urbex. It begins with a movie she co-made very young in an abandoned hospital where the most beautiful thing was the peeling paint. She talks about ruins “created by vandalism, arson and war in which humans run wild”, the “golden age of ruins in the heyday of punk … urban ruins … cities abandoned”; “one of the allures of ruins in the city is that of wilderness”; “exquisitely decrepit spaces”; surfaces were porous, decrepit, sensuous, full of age and what seemed an ability to absorb … light, meaning and emotion.”
Does this give you enough feel to decide whether you want to proceed to read?
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Sue said:
Exquisitely decrepit spaces …… 🙂 I think for that chapter alone, I shall have to read it!
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Lucid Gypsy said:
What a wonderful find Meg, street art with a difference – to me at least. I love it! So this was before your last trip to Poland? The wooden bridge looks great, but I see the shopping trolley, why on earth do people do things like that, grrhhh!
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morselsandscraps said:
This was one of the features of last week’s return from Liston. I know! In my attempt not to post megaposts, I make mystifying-to-my-readers break-ups, and odd chronologies. I reach home in tomorrow’s post, which is really about Monday’s walk!
On the subject of the street art, it’s a pity it’s a bit hidden, but great to stumble across it so unexpectedly. Apparently, according to J, I failed to take advantage of the sun pouring down onto the other side of the pylons. I think the tiles may have been made by school kids.
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