First posted on May 5, 2013
After breakfast at the best cafe in town, Gallery 5, (as recommended by the paternal grandmother and great aunt) and a brief look at the quite small Atherton Farmers’ Market and nearby Hou Wang Chinese temple / museum.
I headed off to Herberton and its Historic Village, reminiscent of Sovereign Hill at Ballarat, but not as dusty! I wasn’t doubtful about how much I’d enjoy this but it was great.
I’m not sure how extra special it was – my visit coincided with Pioneer weekend. I gather more people were dressed in period costume than usual and I followed the crowd to the irregular event of starting up some old machinery. There was lots of noise but not a lot of smoke – maybe, obviously?, you don’t get smoke from a kerosene engine. There was, however, steam to be seen on the steam engine!
Another point of comparison was in the Herberton collection of old motor vehicles. Thinking of the wonderfully restored vehicles at McFeeters in Forbes, NSW, Herberton’s lot were largely the “before” specimens – total wrecks lined up outdoors
the polished wrecks under cover.
One car was in the very early stages of restoration and there were a handful of restored ones about. There was also a Harley Davidson with pedals like those on my old two-wheeler! and an Indian, thinking of the feel-good movie of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins. Plus, of course, the historic farm machinery in various stages of dis/repair.
I treated myself to scones and jam and cream – I haven’t had those in ages, and beautiful they were too, fresh from the oven, not warmed in the microwave. You can tell the difference! But I’d have declined that pleasure if I’d known there was damper at the camp across the suspension bridge!! Billy tea too, for the tea lovers. The bush band there was good value as well.
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| Atherton farmers market |
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| Chinese temple / museum |
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| A 'street' in Herberton Historic Village |
Another point of comparison was in the Herberton collection of old motor vehicles. Thinking of the wonderfully restored vehicles at McFeeters in Forbes, NSW, Herberton’s lot were largely the “before” specimens – total wrecks lined up outdoors
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| Rusty wrecks |
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| Polished wrecks |
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| The Indian |
But I felt so ooooold! How can things that I remember from my childhood be historic already?!
There was the dunny and also a nightman’s cart with cans. Ah, the memories – with a very distinctive smell!
There were chocolate Laxettes which didn’t fool me, and Hypol which I loved – weird, seeing as it was cod liver oil! There were drills, drill bits and planes that were in the garage at my childhood home, regularly used by my dad. A Singer sewing machine – one of which I have and use as a hall table – although to be fair to me, it was acquired as a bit of left-behind junk by the previous owners when we moved into the Hull Road house. There were the slate and pastels I used at school – always hopeless at art and the chalk pastels were a bit messy.
I could go on and on! There was also a great example of change of attitudes – to wit, a fabulous collection of golliwogs. Definitely not PC these days!
My favourite exhibits were the collections of glass bottles. I’m a sucker for glass!
It was all very well set up. But they could use the services of a conservator. One of the attendants commented on something I was looking at, that they were too close to the window and fading. Exactly!
There was the dunny and also a nightman’s cart with cans. Ah, the memories – with a very distinctive smell!
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| Night cart |
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| Dilapidated dunny and old bottle collection dump |
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| Restored dunny |