St Andrew’s – An insurance write-off?

Recently on a trip back to Canberra from Goulburn I decided to forgo the main Hume Highway and take the much more scenic rural route – Tourist Route 8 via Bungendore. About 10 kilometres out of Goulburn the sandstone and rubblestone church pictured above caught my eye. I took a slight detour (a few hundred metres) off the main Braidwood road for a closer inspection.

Advertisement

The Towrang Stockade and the Great South Road

When Messers Hume and Meehan visited the Goulburn area, the first Europeans to properly explore the area and see its potential, in 1818 they certainly did not do the trip from Sydney in two hours, along to-day’s multi-lane Hume Highway which connects Sydney to Melbourne via Goulburn. Rather, they would have travelled across country on horseback and on foot, if lucky along Aboriginal tracks. The 200kms trip would have taken many days, if not weeks, through a heavily, and almost impenetrable, forested area covered with Bargo brush.

Goulburn as a Rest Stop along the Hume Highway

Goulburn is just over two hours drive from Sydney and about an hour from Canberra. Alas, it is all to often seen as only a convenient rest stop en route from Sydney to anywhere on the southern part of the Australian land mass, though most typically Melbourne, Canberra or Adelaide.

Art and Culture in Goulburn

Most people visit Goulburn for its history and the serenity of this country town, large enough to be blessed with decent cafes and dining options. Indeed, people who have been to Goulburn may raise an eyebrow on seeing the title of this review and determine that it will be one of my shorter posts.

Other Civic and Private Buildings in Goulburn

I have written a number of posts on individual buildings in Goulburn.

This post is a compendium review on a number of other civic and privately constructed buildings in the city that I find particularly interesting. It is by no means intended to be fully inclusive and there are many other beautiful buildings for the visitor to explore on their own account – the statuary in my main picture above adorns one such building, the former Australian Mutual Provident Society on Auburn Street. The centre of the city is small so just park your vehicle and go for a wander.

Goulburn Historic Waterworks Museum

The museum is located in the original Waterworks building on the banks of the Wollondilly River, at Marsden Weir. In addition to the museum providing an insight into the history of Goulburn’s water supply, the surrounding park area is a lovely location to enjoy a picnic and/ or a walk along the river. ‘Steaming days’ on which the original water pump can be seen in operation are held on an irregular basis (about six times per year) and an annual Steampunk Victoriana Fair weekend is held here, annually in October.

Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre

Based on a quick look at my main picture above you could be forgiven if you thought this review might be about a sports arena of some sort. What we actually see here is a Railway Roundhouse, in fact the largest one in New South Wales.

Goulburn Train Station – Building and History

For a number of years before the station was finally opened in 1869, Goulburn had been agitating for a railway link with Sydney. The Sydney Railway Company had been formed in 1849 and the first steam railway in Australia was conceived, designed and built to run between Sydney and Goulburn and so it did, in 1869. Four of the company’s six founding directors were from Goulburn and all had vested interests in getting a train (freight service) to Goulburn up and running.

The Railway and north Goulburn

Anyone who has been to Goulburn and up the Rocky Hill War Memorial will immediately recognise the viaduct in my main picture above. When you come down into town it is nowhere to be seen and unless you know exactly where you are going it’s actually hard to find it. Big though it is, you will not stumble across it.

Rocky Hill Memorial Museum

Being a regular visitor to the Australian War Memorial museum in Canberra I am used to a focus on Australia’s contribution to various wars with Australian and ally artefacts and some war trophies being used to tell that story. While the Rocky Hill Memorial certainly covers Australia’s contribution the focus here is much more on the exhibition of war trophies (enemy objects captured and taken from the field of battle by the victor) – such that visitors, especially Australians ‘can see the tangible results of’ the valour of Australia’s armed services overseas.