The rains had cleared away by the time we emerged from the caravan. Washing took up most of the morning, not because there was any more of it than usual, but I got caught up with a fellow traveller in the camp laundry.
She is travelling the country with her husband and two children, as we are, however they are somewhat younger than us, as you would expect. She told me all about the pitfalls of taking school age children travelling, the pros and cons of distance learning as opposed to home schooling, and the bureaucratic hurdles that parents face when they are not settled in the one place. She admitted that those from other states had less problems than Queenslanders, and also admitted that had she known how difficult it would be, they might have travelled a few years earlier and disappeared off the education radar. We discussed all sorts of other matters that linked in with education and children and could have been there for much longer. However the first load was almost dry by the time the second load was hung and Chris was ready for his lunch; I had only just washed the breakfast dishes. Time flies when you are having fun.
After lunch we headed up to Kalamunda, bought a few provisions, attended to postal matters then headed to the Zigzag Cultural Centre. I mentioned some time ago that we had been invited to the opening of an art exhibition; that was last Saturday and after a day at New Norcia we were not keen to go out again. Today however we were able to enjoy the works by artist Helen Norton quietly alone in the gallery which would have been more difficult to do in a crowd of canapé nibblers. We did enjoy her work, or most of it, but were absolutely blown away by the price tags on the work. $22,000 was typical of the asking price and I could only think that (a) some people are just too ridiculously rich or (b) she doesn't really want to sell her work. Chris remarked that he could see the influence of Arthur Boyd, I could see that of Monet. I guess all artists are products of others.
We decided that it was also a good opportunity to visit the Kalamunda History Village managed by the Historical Society. We have visited many pioneer villages and similar set ups and this would have to be one of the best. Everything is beautifully maintained and very well labelled. This could of course have much to do with the fact that at least three school classes come through each week for a history experience.
I have mentioned the genesis of the area earlier in this blog; that it was initially a centre of jarrah milling, and I have also remarked on the orchards we have travelled past as we have driven about the area.
The museum has the usual locomotive and railway station where the rail development is explained, the blacksmith, school, post office, cottages, and the normal sort of places. And then there is the packing shed to relay the history of orcharding in the hills here. This was particularly interesting and here we learned the extensive variety of fruit grown, and saw an interesting collection of jimmied up horticultural machinery exhibiting the innovative streak of pioneer farmers.
The early settlers developed orchards, poultry and pig farms. Stone and gravel were quarried for building the roads of Perth.
In 1919 the Repatriation Scheme for Soldiers brought settlers into the Piesse Brook Valley, that which we had driven through just north of Kalamunda Village on our way to the Mundaring Weir. These farmers developed orchards and were required to meet certain criteria to retain their holdings, twenty acre blocks costing $4 an acre. The conditions they had to fulfil were that they must spend $2 per acre clearing and planting an orchard, that they provide water and a habitable house within a year and erect a boundary fence within three years. These do seem to be achievable demands especially with the loans from the State Agricultural Bank offering interest-only terms for the first five years, however many failed and simply walked off the land. These holdings were later taken up by migrants, many from Italy.
In 1903 the famous zigzag line up the 229 metre high Darling Range and the rest of the line running from Midland through to Canning Mills was taken over by the Western Australian Government, which then introduced a regular passenger service and extended the line right through to Karragullen, where we had turned off and headed for the Araluen Botanic Gardens.
The infrastructure in the area continued to be improved through the 1920s and ‘30s, roads built to accommodate the growing number of motor vehicles, and finally in 1949, the rail had become superfluous and was closed.
After an hour we were alerted to closing time by the manager/teacher person
lowering the flag. She had entertained a large crowd of children today and was
more than ready for home. We headed out the gate and came on home, just that
little more knowledgeable about the area we have temporarily settled in.
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