We had booked on the Heritage Tour of Armidale when we were at the Information Centre yesterday. It is a 2.5 hr tour by mini bus and is free. What a fantastic tour it was. Jenny, who was the tour guide, had an extensive knowledge of the history of the area and made it come alive. She was great. She talked about how squatters moved into the area as a result of all the land being taken up in the counties round Sydney up as far as the Hunter, which were the limits of civilisation as laid down by the NSW Government in the early to mid 1800's. The squatters who took up land up here were mainly ones who had already taken up runs in the Hunter Valley and who now wanted more land. They sent some of their men (including ex-convicts) north to find land. When they arrived in this area, they found the climate was more like they were used to in England.
We drove around the streets and Jenny talked about the beautiful homes and buildings from the 1800's that abound. She also talked about how the Armidale Teachers College came into being through the efforts of their local Federal member, who was interested in establishing a regional Teachers College. The wealthy local residents have helped in this, and other projects, with their large donations along the way.
There is an Art Gallery which has an extensive collection of Australian art. This was set up to hold the Hinton collection, a wealthy bachelor from Sydney who spent his money on collecting art. He kept about 10 paintings that were his favourites, and gave the rest away, most of them to the Armidale Teacher's College. When he died, he left the rest to the College as well. Another guy called Coventry also left a lot of paintings he had collected to the Gallery as well.
Next to the Art Gallery is the Aboriginal Gallery and they had a Bush Tucker Trail in the gardens. We only had 10 minutes and had our choice as to which Gallery we went to. We decided to have a look at the Bush Tucker Trail as 10 minutes wasn't enough time to look at the inside of either Gallery. The Trail had signs at each shrub describing the plant and what it was uses were. It was quite interesting. We will go back to the Art Gallery tomorrow morning on our way to Tamworth.
After the Galleries, we went to the Railway Museum, where we were given a talk by a very enthusiastic volunteer. It was excellent. He even talked about how the tickets came into being. A fellow called Edmonstone in the UK who got sick of writing receipts for people paying for tickets. He built himself a ticket machine, cut out pieces of cardboard and preprinted the destinations on them. On the day of travel, he put them into the machine and printed the date on them. This all happened before the First Fleet. He made a lot of money out of this enterprise, but he was a Quaker and most of the money was ploughed back into the Quakers. We also had morning tea at the Museum.
It was on to the University of New England after this, where we visited Booloominbah. Booloominbah was built in the 1880's as a private residence for prominent grazier Frederick White and his 7 children. He and his wife had already lost 5 children in infancy and they wanted to move to the healthier air of the Tablelands. It was bought from the family estate when Mrs White died by her son in law. In the mid 1930's there was a push to establish a regional university in Armidale and he donated it as a spur to gain Government support for this.
What a magnificent building it is. It was used as the administration offices but now houses a couple of restaurants and the Vice-Chancellor's office upstairs.
In the grounds, about 5 years ago, they planted a Wollemi Pine and it is growing very well so it looks like it will survive. Water is plentiful in the area and they haven't had water restrictions since the 1970's.
After having lunch in town, we headed back to the van and sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine, me sewing and Bruce reading. I did spy a patchwork shop a couple of shops down from Prue and Olive's, where we had lunch. I had to buy a couple of pieces of fabric!
Mileage: 13 kms.
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