Walking the village of Dunkeld

 After scaling the Piccaninny and having a rest we went to do the historic tour of Dunkeld.  To some extent this was like the historic tour of Montreal where the signs tell the tourists about what used to be there before the current modern building was erected.  In part this may reflect the 1944 fire which destroyed a third of the houses and businesses in the town.  Here is the map with numbers linking to my images which follow.

The first image 1 is of a fossil in the sandstone blocks of one of the buildings before we got to the Royal Mail Hotel.  We were told these were visible in the wall around the Myers Garden but couldn't see any there.
This 2 is the Royal Mail Hotel, which these days is mainly known for fine dining.
Across the street is 3 the Sturgeon View Cafe.  I looks a nice place and does a good line in delivered meals: we had an excellent fish basket.
The Post Office 4 was sold as a private house but the owner then took on the PO business a a licensee so it is still the PO.  I am sure someone can make economic sense out of such shenananigans (sic) but to me it has got to be massively inefficient.
The Old Bakery (5 good to see it wasn't the Olde Bakery) is an historic building but does still sell baked goods - but not while we were there.
Frances was looking at the Catholic Church 6 when someone called out asking if she would like to look inside.  So in we went.
Our host was one of the congregation who farmed out of town.  He was very active in working to support the church and told us about the restoration work that had been done.  The font is a eucalypt burl taken from a tree on his property with other timber from the same tree, mill at the sawmill in the Arboretum and used for the altar and various other fittings in the church.  Magnificent stuff
I cannot remember the story of these windows!
An excellent case of the community looking after its resources and displaying a lot of creativity in so doing.  He lent us a photo album showing all the work in progress which we dropped in to the meter box as we left.

Point 7 is a memorial to Major Mitchell who discovered Mount Abrupt and was the first to climb it.  I was intrigued to see a subsidiary plaque commemorating the 150th anniversary of that event which was laid by by Manning Clark.





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