We’ve often heard that going to a country town is like travelling back in time. The music will be from another era, the pace unhurried by the need to be somewhere, anywhere, other than where you are right now, and there will be more stores selling antique furniture than stores selling the latest and greatest flat packs.
And so when you come across a 1950’s diner in Moss Vale, a country town in the Southern Highlands an hour south of Sydney or two hours North of Canberra, what choice do you have but to go inside? Complete with bar stools, booths, outfits, and hair, and a sliding door ‘automated’ by a weighted milk bottle, Bernie’s was the perfect way to kick off a country weekend. Aspects out of theme were just as appreciated – a fireplace for warmth, and, more importantly, the opportunity to ‘spike’ your milkshake order. Who doesn’t want a boozy milkshake?
We continued this theme through an adventure along the west rim walk at Fitzroy Falls (via a fantastic old fashioned toy shop just down from the Diner). The falls themselves were spectacular, as were the scarred trees that bore the tales of hundreds of generations of people who had appreciated the magnificence of the land through what it could provide. Scarred trees have had bark removed for the creation of various items and structures such as canoes, containers, and shelters, and provide a very physical reminder of the interaction between the people and the land in our history.
Vertigo again presents a challenge here. I’m unsure of whether it is helped or hindered by standing on the very edge of a very high platform. I like to think it is helped, because it demonstrates surviving a high place, but it certainly doesn’t feel that great…
A visit to Crazy Jane’s in Bowral maintained the feeling that we were out of our normal time. Crazy Jane’s is essentially a hundred odd antique stores, each themed according to the passions of the renter, condensed into a very intense 3 metre by 3 metre space, and arranged around an easy walking trail through a warehouse. Your sense of space is warped by the sheer volume of items in such tiny spaces. Your sense of time is warped as you walk down not only your own memory lane, but that of your parents and grandparents. Toys in pristine condition, gramophones, cameras, a store which seemed to have a philosophy of ‘if it’s over 30 years old, stick a light in it’ and a full Ansett trolley including crockery and cutlery all contributed to the sensory overload. Joyful, but intense sensory overload.
Berrima completed the ‘Step Back in Time’ trifecta for our weekend. The Surveyor General Inn, the oldest continuously trading tavern in NSW, operating since 1834, has provided a refuge to many travellers and bushrangers through its history. Nowadays the inn provides drinks, gaming, and a bistro, but more importantly, a warren of rooms comprising renovations and extensions that reflected just how much taller we have been getting over the last two centuries, and doorways that led to walls evidenced the organic growth of the space through an ongoing rebuild process.
‘A lolly swagman’, just down the road, invited pleasures through its musk stick lined doorway, and delivered in spades through a stroke of genius. You know when you get given a box of Cadbury Roses there’ll be the flavours you love, that seem to disappear very quickly? There’ll also be some very average flavours – Turkish delights and coffee cremes, I’m looking at you – that tend to hang around until you can find a friend to ‘share’ them with. ‘A lolly swagman’ suggests, instead of buying a box of Roses and knowing you’ll maybe enjoy half of it, why not maximise the experience and just buy more of the ones you’ll enjoy and leave out the others? Genius.
Finally, the courthouse and correctional centre in Berrima appropriately tempered the alcohol and sugar induced craziness the rest of the town seemed to inspire. Opened in 1838 and 1839 respectively, they oozed a sense of place, history, and permanence that many of our more modern institutions struggle to capture. The sandstone walls and columns evoke a European heritage much older than reality. The idea of a correctional centre from 1839 still operating does make you wonder whether there could be a way to get sentenced for the span of oh, say, 30 minutes. Just long enough to get a sense of the inner workings of the halls, tauntingly imagined on the other side of those ‘KEEP OUT’ signs…
Just like Kylie says, when nothing is new, and there’s nothin doin’, step back in time.
It can be awesome.
