Tag: St Arnaud

CMMC: A True Work Of Art

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Today I am returning to my pre A-Z challenge blog posts. One that I was just beginning to enjoy was Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge (CMMC.) Each week Cee gives us inspiration to help expand our photography skills. Our theme this week is macro or close -up photography.

This amazing antique wall unit is from Royal Hotel St Arnaud. It is truly exquisite and just called out for some macro photography. Without getting up close and personal I wouldn’t have seen the detail. We ate our meal in front of this beauty and I was very excited when those sitting in front of us left so I could get better photos. If you get up close with the mirrors you can see my reflection in the image.

Thanks to Cee for hosting this weekly photography challenge and encouraging us to think differently about what we see.

P: Pioneer Park

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Pioneer Park at St Arnaud, Victoria is full of history. It was created on the grounds of the old Lord Nelson Gold mine. And was designed by Edna Walling in 1947. At the time Edna was one of Australia’s most influential landscape designers and she did it for free. Because her friend asked her to. Today, Pioneer Park is the only public park remaining designed by Edna.

As part of her design 200 trees were planted from 36 species in a giant working bee of the town’s people. As I wondered around what remains of the park today I was surprised to see some very different trees. My favourites were the Atlas Cedar and the English Oak. Both looked magnificent and it was exciting to see tree types I had never seen before.

The Atlas Cedar (above) is native to Morocco and the English Oak below is said to be common in Australian parks but was a first for me.

Behind Pioneer Park is the remains of the old gold mine. Some of the locals tell us that the pool of water or pond was a place the children of the town swam. Whilst today the remains look highly polluted they say that when they were swimming there no-one got sick they just had a lot of fun and kept cool. The shelter in the photo below even states

“Presented to the children of St Arnaud by Frank Bray Esq in memory of Dr S.R.Bray accidently killed 1943.”

For us Pioneer Park was also another exciting place that we happened upon. We didn’t understand its true significance until we started wondering around.