Some places that have got “IT”
Written: Jan 14 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very special places
Cons: nil
The Bottom Line: It either has IT or it doesn't
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| SMITHSWOODSIDE's Full Review: Australia |
Ever been somewhere that has got IT. That weird feeling that doesn't frighten but has the hairs only half standing on the back of your neck. A warmth pervades your body as you approach, no matter what the weather.
The air is just not the same - it has no feeling when you breathe it in, yet there is plenty of it. A truly mystical feeling that encompasses you from the top of your head right down to your toes. And when you look up you just know that just up there, not far away everything is how it used to be - it is just plain normal.
But down here on the ground something is happening - a presence is in this place. Is this what the Aboriginals feel with their oneness with the land? You suspect so, unyet this place could ostensibly be quite ordinary, or even quite different. It doesn't seem to matter for it is not the things in the place but the place - the whole place that is not quite here.
Maybe I died but I don't really thing so - everyone seems to be able to see me and I appear to have the same body. But why this feeling? It doesn't make any sense. Or does it? Maybe it makes all the sense in the world. Maybe this is how things really are but in the pressure of life I lose touch. No, I can't begin to explain it but it feels as if it belongs - no, better than that, I feel as if I belong here and I have been away for a long time. That is more like it. This place is drawing me in like a magnet - a very pleasant feeling of safety and belonging.
Strike up the band - real world is back! But I get that feeling in three very different places. I hope you do too because it is just wonderful.
And I am lucky because I get the feeling about three times a week. See my departed father used to walk me down to the train station not three hundred yards from where I am now in my shop. I can see it all as plain as if we were there right now. So a few times a week on the way home I go that way, very slowly and I am in the Station, I can see the steam trains being fired up and I can see an engine on the turntable. I can see the station building and I belong right here in my sacred site. If you were in the car with me you would be wondering why we had to go so slow past a large area of mown grass and a BMX bike track. At least I think you would.
The second place that has this effect on me is Tenterfield, about fourteen hundred miles away in the New England area of the State of New South Wales. Tenterfield is pretty high up by Australian standards at about two thousand seven hundred feet. Its population of three thousand odd live in an immaculate bushland area only twelve miles from the Queensland border on the New England Highway, one of the major routes between Sydney and Brisbane.
The main street runs off the highway at a right angle and it is rightfully regarded as one of the most beautiful of the oldest towns in the country. Approaching Tenterfield the first thing that hits me is that song I am heartily sick of "I go to Rio" as my subconscious is acutely reminding me that this is where the famous Peter Allen was born and grew up.
Turning off the highway into Tenterfield's main street that same mystical feeling comes over me. It is not Peter Allen, he is a sideline, but it is this place. The only thing different is that most people seem to feel it - for once it's not just me. In fact Australia's first Prime Minister Henry Parkes felt it and to the extent that he absolutely insisted on this being the “The Birthplace of Our Nation”. On October 24th 1889 he read the Federation Speech in the Tenterfield School of Arts. That Speech led to Federation of all Australian States on January 1st 1901.
Tenterfield is notable for more than it's fair share of "unusual" events considering the small size of the town. Captain Thunderbolt was one of Australia's most famous bushranger 's who "worked" his criminal ways in this area through 1880s.. The movie "Breaker Morant" about an Australian Soldier was a true story. The actual lawyer, who defended Morant, Major J.F. Thomas was a local of this town and Peter Allen's song “The Tenterfield Saddler” has often been described as hauntingly beautiful and obviously was inspired by Tenterfield.
And as if that wasn't enough the internationally famous Australian Poet "Banjo" Patterson, who also wrote and was the first to perform "Waltzing Matilda", was married here in 1903.
Much of the old history remains but that can't explain the mystical feeling as obviously it has been there since at least the late 1800's. So the mystery remains.
The third place I get IT is Gulgong. If ever there was a place we can step back in time this is it unyet of the three Gulgong gives me a slightly lesser feeling of the mystical, but powerful nevertheless.
I don't believe anyone could not at the very least get one hell of a shock arriving at Gulgong. See if you can visualise this. A very long undulating valley with a neat two lane strip of bitumen winding its way along the very bottom. On both sides the grass meets the very edge of the bitumen and looks like it was mown yesterday. Just back a bit is the farm/ranch fences painted white and stretching for as far as the eye can see up over the sides of the valley. Not a blade of grass out of place, these properties are manicured, lush and green and belong to some of Australia's wealthiest people.
We tour along this road for about an hour and fail to see one tiny speck out of place and then - without warning we round a bend, go over a small bridge, see a sign Gulgong, round the next bend and stop. This can't be - it simply can't be. Before us is a narrow street, only just wide enough for two cars to pass. Every building is identical, no original, to when it was built in the 1870's. And yes the street is narrow but it seems to go forever - it winds a little but we can see about half a mile until it winds again and we can see no further. The street has some kind of old cobbled paving and every building has rails to tie up horses. Surely we can't drive in here but there are two cars parked along the way. After we sit there some little time transfixed a car passes us and slowly winds its way along the street. Everyone is hushed as I start the engine and we drive in onto the cobblestones - the moment we enter there is that feeling again. I feel it, Sue my wife feels it and our ten year old twins feel it. No one says a word as we proceed very slowly along this never-ending street - but it does end after I guess at least a mile.
Sue says stop the car - we all get out and just look back. "Dad, what was that" says ten year old son. An "olden days" town I say, still feeling that mystical feeling and I think our twins were too - they had never been so quiet. We walked back along the street a hundred yards or so and, just occasionally, between the quarter inch gap between some buildings, could see new brickwork behind, but not always. We had the compulsory drink and ice cream, modern day but served in a shop from another time.
Well back to now! Every building in Gulgong, from houses to shops has been faithfully kept as it was well over a hundred years ago. That is the front walls always and the whole building where possible. Anything modern is hidden. This was a town of twenty thousand in its hey day thanks to a gold rush.
Gulgong is the best documented town in Australia thanks to detailed pictures taken during that crazy Gold Rush. The now famous "Holterman Collection" of photographs can be seen at the incredible Pioneer Museum. If there is a better Museum somewhere I have to see it and I have seen plenty in the big cities. But the credit for Gulgong is not just with the photographers but the residents down through generations.
As is the case with practically all old buildings in Australia, The National Trust of Australia identifies and records them and they are protected against demolition. Naturally the list is long in Gulgong, which is about a four hour drive north west of Sydney.
So these three places for me most certainly have IT. And for most people. I often wonder how many more there are perhaps overseas and why is this so?
I have no idea.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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