DOWN THE MURRAY THROUGH

Sauiinnur ro rHE sEA . coro iowG'dF ST ARNAUD AND DUNOLLY . GO-AHEADROCKHAMPTON . THE HIDDEN CAIRNS

HIGHLANDS . THE ROAD TO ALBANYSURPRISING WINCHELSEA . SPACE-GAZING

PARKES . SAFARI lN THE WILD AT I

) . SHIPWRECKS ON KING ISLAND I

LD RECOGNITION FOR BALLARAT.4'-i

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N SHOW IN REGIONAL GALLERIES

Places

Riverboats, spectacular sceneryand a rich and varied life in thecommunities along its banks give

constant and ever-changinginterest to a lourney down theMurray from the Victoria-NewSouth Wales border throughSouth Australia.

Named to honour a Frenchgeneral, St Arnaud in Victoria is a

substantial and multiJacetedcommunity thats run the rural

cycle from agriculture throughgold to agriculture again and,along with nearby Dunolly, offers

the visitor a remarkable range ofnl..oc ^f in+oroet

Far from being the rough cattletown of legend, Rockhampton onQueensland's Capricorn Coast is

a fine city of well-preservednineteenth-century buildings,gardens, a thriving contemporarylife and lashings of natural beautythat make it one of easternAustralia's most attractivedestinations.

Northern Queensland's CairnsHighlands have a secluded beautyand a sense of remoteness thatbelie their easy accessibility fromCairns.

In its magnificent setting on thesouth coast of Western Australia,

Albany is the centre of a region full

of dramatic scenery and man-made attractions that's worthtaking your time to explore, writesJill Hanison.

It's all too easy to drive throughWinchelsea, but you'd be missinga lot if you didn't stop and explorethis pretty township with itshistoric buildings on the PrincesHighway west of Geelong. Gail

Thomas describes its charms.

Athens, Jerusalem, Paris,

Edinburgh, Rome, Vienna - and

now Ballarat. This Victorian cityrenowned for gold and

architecture is in good companyas the latest on a select list offamous places recognised as

historic cities of world importance.

It's an integral part in a worldwidechain of space observation but itstands in a rural landscape whereyou expect to find nothing more

than sheep. Joyce O'Regan visits

the great radro telescope at

Parkes in New South Wales,

Heritaqe

Though serene and green and

richly productive of cheese,

cream, beef and other delicacies,King lsland in Bass Strait has itscruel side - as the fate of many asailing ship wrecked on its rock-girt coast tragically attests.

Wt+;: '

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COAST & COUNTRY St'I{IN(] 2006

Nature & Conservation

Theres no need to go on safari

overseas to see lions and tigersand other animals in their wildstate. You can see them even

closer up at the Western Plains

Zoo near Dubbo in New SouthWales, writes Tracey Henson.

Landscape

As country landscapes burst into

spring colour, and city-dwellersteel the call of the outdoors more

strongly than ever, JaneEdmanson recommends thedelights of walking amongwildflowers.

"Cascading over the rocks":a creek in the Dandenong

Ranges, Victoria, photographedby Graham Scheer.

The mountain ranges of south-eastern Australia with their tall{reeforests and fern{illed gullies are

made for walking in, not just whenthe sun streams through theleaves but when the raindrops fall,

writes Christie Boyle.

Art & Craft

A vast inherited fortune made in

nineteenth-century Australia wasthe foundation of George Salting's

spectacular art collection - but he

left it on his death in 1909 not tothe land of his birth but to threemuseums in London.

One of the great paintings ofcolonial Australia by one of itsgreater painters, Eugene vonGu6rard, is back on public viewafter a long spell in overseasownership.

Ad shows that are worth a specialtrip: Emma Westwood previews

the best forthcoming exhibitionsin some of Australia's mostenterprising regional galleries.

One of Australia's most historicwineries shows a continuingtalent for innovation in making themost of its foremost natural asset

- its environment.

Gail Thomas discovers a countryrestaurant where the chef-cum-collector values variety in crockeryand cutlery as much as on themenu.

There aren't many cellar doors in

the country where you can tastecider instead of wine - but in a

central Victorian apple townshipthere are two.

FOOD, DRINK & HOSPITALITY

at

A guesthouse and caf6 in atranquil rural setting north ofCanberra represents acombination of the talents of its

German-born and Australianowners.

Books

New owners are taking over oldand decrepit country pubs in

many parts of Australia, restoringand rejuvenating them, writes Rita

Erlich, introducing a new Coast &

Country series on the best ofthese transformations.

The Last Word

George Thomas reviews newbooks on the central Victoriangoldfields, on learning to live with

bushfires and how to grow fruit

and vegetables for flavour.

lvlore than the stars of stage and

screen, there are people and

things that play a starring role in

our lives and memories. For

Elizabeth Beatty it was a ship thaljust happened to have a star on

its funnel.

COAST A COUNTRY SPRING 2006

Editorial

TRAVEL BY INSTALMENTSTVVO BIG JOURNEYS reach their conclusionin this edition of Coast & Country. On page 7,"From the desert to the sea" concludes our2500-kilometre journey along the length ofthe Murray River by following that mightystream from the point where it enters SouthAustralia down to the Southern Ocean. Theprevious two instalments of this journey werepublished in the Autumn and Spring 2005editions of Coast & Country. The otherjourney concluding in this edition is throughsouth-western Western Australia. "Throughthe south ofthe west to Albany", its secondinstalment, begins on page 42. The first partwas published in our Summer Edition 2005-06.

There is so much to see and do in regionalAustralia that one article, substantial as ourmajor stories are, is sometimes not enough todo justice to the place being written about.We believe that dividing our coverage into

Letter

instalments reconciles our obligation to giveas comolete a oicture as we can of a town orregion with the commitment to write about as

wide a variety of destinations as possiblewithin the soace of one edition.

Many readers have commented favourablyon the amount ol reading each edition ofCoast & Country offers. Our articles are notextended captions or fillers between thepictures. They are long compared with manymagazines because they are written toorovide as much detailed information as webelieve a reader needs for a full and informedappreciation of the place or subject. Thecombined length of accumulated stories canmean that sometimes something has to besacrificed. In this edition, it is Passport, ourregular section of overseas stories with anAustralian connection. Passport gives a pincho{ variety to a magazine that in other respectsis about Australia. lt will return in our nextedition.

Christopher AkehurstEditor

[/CRE CN SHOI IO\ryERS

I congratulate you on the article on shottowers ("Soaring towers and leadenshowers") by Nadine Cresswell-Myatt in theAutumn-Winter 2006 Edition of Coast &County. I thought you might like to knowthat there is a third shot tower in Melbourne,not a picturesque masonry tower like theothers, but one still operating.

Briefly, this tower was built in 1950 by lClAustralia on their Deer Park site to supplyshot for sporting ammunition and to replacethe Coop's tower in central Melbournedescribed in the article. The new tower was ofmodern design with a steel frameworksupporting a vertical pipe down which the

AUSTRALIAN

molten lead was droooed. The frameworkalso supports a lift shaft which carried leadingots and operators to the top.

lCl pulled out of ammunition manufacturearound 1980 and the plant, including the shottower, was sold to Ballantine Ammunition,who continued to operate the tower in situuntil 2000, when the tower and plant weredismantled and moved to Ballantine'sproperty in North Laverton, about fivekilometres away. By February 2001 the towerhad been re-erected and was operatingagain, as it still is. At 55 or so metres, it is

hard to missl

David W. MealeKensington, Vic.

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CHRISTOPHER AKEHURST

GEORGE THOMAS

RITA ERLICH

JANE EDMANSON

MARK TEMPLE

BBIAN STAVELEY

MARK BREWSTER

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EDITORIAI.

EDITOR:

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FOOD & WNE EDITOB:

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ART DIRECTOR:

Maintaining a

tradition: the shot

tower at l{orthlaverton, Vic, is stillmaking shot.

COAST & COUNTRYWELCOMES READERS'

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COAST & COUNTRY'SPRING 2OO6

PARROTS BY A RIVERThis 1930s travel poster of Australian parrots with a river background is a colourful example of the lithographic work of James Northfield.

Though few people today have heard of him, Northfield was probably the most prolific Australian poster artist of his day. His advertising Posterswere everywhere - on hoardings, in magazines and on railway stations. The quality and range of his work has now been recognised in a new

book, James Northfield and the Art of Selling Australia, by Michelle Hetherington, published by the National Library of Australia, where much ofNorthfield's work is oreserved. There'll be a maior feature on the art of James Northfield in the Summer 2006-07 edition of Coast & Countrv.

James Northfield and the Art of Selling Australia by Michelle Hetherington is available from bookshops at $30 rrp