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Odd, Unexplainable Appearances

This reminds me of the Old Norse creation story. There is nothing, just a void (Ginnungagap), between the lands of Fire and Ice (very George Martin). Then stuff happens; giants appear (giants before gods, interesting) and a massive cow emerges from a piece of ice. This giant cow (because reasons), called Audhumbla, licks a piece of ice and from it emerges the first of the old gods, the Aesir. Odinn is a descendant of these, I think. Anyway, giants and ice seem to figure in Northern European cosmology as well as at the opposite end of the earth.
 
Skinny, I think the brand of coffee was 'Misty Mountain Magic' *wink*.


Frideswide, Aye, they that hath an eye shall see. I've often wondered about our limited perception, and wonder if it is due to a universal law that is dictated to us by an atomic resonance of this level of being, and that those ghouls, ghosties and things that go bump in the night that we occasionally see, are actual denizens of a ghostly world that parallels ours, and that every now and again, due to some kind of harmonics, or those that have a particular resonance in sympathy with that nether world, becomes visible to us.


GNC, I've been back in the last twelve month and there are no new buildings, just a flat expanse. I'll try to embed a google world image that shows the old farm (Gibraltar).

View attachment 945

Good, it worked. The white roof nearest the river is the old homestead, and the area directly across is Toparis's potato paddocks. This is where we saw the buildings appear - as you can see, there are no buildings whatsoever, and I can't imagine any type of building being erected in the next 100 years, as this is strictly rural alluvial flats - sheep, cattle, potatoes, or lucerne - it's too valuable for it's primary production for it to be rezoned (Australia has in it's land mass, only 5% arable land - the rest is non-arable land - deserts, mountains, swamp).

Ermintrude, It was a winters afternoon, 4'ish - about 7 degrees - the sun was an hour from setting, and it sets in the top left corner of the photo at this time of the year. The field would have been fallow after the harvest, so it would have been flat and bare of vegetation, the hue of the soil is dark, due to organic matter, and the field floods with every rise in the river as it's, at the most, maybe two metres higher that the static level of the river.


The lighting in Australia is usually astonishingly clear, and in this instance there were no factors that would obscure this clarity. The buildings started to appear at a common focal point (about where the single tree is), then radiated out exponentially, until the whole are that you can see was covered with buildings in no order, with small lanes in between.


The buildings were squat, rather plain, with large windows the width of the wall, solid awnings that were fixed from the top of the window at an angle of about 25 degrees from the horizontal, with a corresponding sill of equal dimensions - the funny thing is that as I recall, I couldn't see doors on these buildings. It was such a strange sight Ermintrude, that I did the blinking, and the stand up and turn around shtick that we are supposed to do when we do not trust our eyesight but it was there. After about two minutes, Mum and I just sat, watched, and observed the growth of the vision.


Naughty_Felid and Amoradala2, I have no idea about the appearance of the buildings, I just accept that it was Phenomina, with a capital 'P'. What was behind that phenomenon, what caused it, I would dearly love to know.


Mythopoeika, the clarity of it all was astounding, with no haze. With mirages, there's usually a disconnection at the base of the mirage and a wavering quality to it - but there was none of it with this vision.


View attachment 946

davidplankton, the building on the right here, is the closest in similarity, just imagine an awning that sits on the top of the window at 25 degrees from the horizontal, and another as the external window sill at the same inclination at the bottom, with the capacity to be lowered and raised to meet in the middle so that it covers the whole of the window.


I've been poking through some old ext. hard drives, and came across some old transparencies of the property where that 'sighting' was Skinny - these two join together, and is where the ABC was heading to, and was this side of the river, opposite the Fata Morgana.

Quite a spooky spot. Under the ghost gum are three burials of the Davies kids - buried in the thirties after being born, all three, with downes syndrome.

panoramio-60641481 (2).jpg
panoramio-60641480 (2).jpg
 
Whats a ghost gum tree, cause i am looking for a tree with Wrigleys written on it?
 
Whats a ghost gum tree, cause i am looking for a tree with Wrigleys written on it?

Corymbia aparrerinja (syn. Eucalyptus papuana var. aparrerinja) commonly known as ghost gum, is an evergreen tree that is native to Central Australia.
It grows up to 20 metres in height and has smooth, white to cream and pink-tinged bark, which sheds seasonally in thin scales. ...

It is mostly known as the "Ghost Gum" because of its bark colour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corymbia_aparrerinja
 
My guess is that it's the solitary tree with two trunks (or two closely crowded trees; take your pick ...) in the middle foreground within the 2nd photo.

Spot On EG.
 
Oh my! is this a real tale?

Sadly it is real Frides.

The Davies were the family that established the property, and they had a large family of six living children. Sadly, the last three, making it nine, were all born with Downes Syndrome/heart defects and died young. In those days you could bury on your own property, And the Davies thought that it was appropriate.

So they did.

It is a lovely spot and overlooks the valley and the broad sweep of the Wollondilly River. Quite contemplative on a late warm afternoon to sit under the tree and let the place take you.
 
Bump

I remember well the very creepy kids TV show The Nargun And The Stars, based on the Patricia Wrightson book. The Nargun frightened me deeply. It was a representation of the bush that I had never contemplated before, one filled with older things. Along with the film Storm Boy, it helped awaken my imagination to the landscape as previously venerated space. Where I grew up, Cummins SA, we seemed an isolated remnant of a forgotten tribe - farmers. Once Aborigines appeared in my life (through pop culture, mind, not school education), the liminal space took shape and I imagined the First Australians everywhere.

Imagine my shock and delight when finally the family traveled to the Flinders Ranges when I was ten. There was remnant material culture everywhere, and my daily wanderings about the Hills of Orraparinna were filled with vast colonies of emus and kangaroos _ living wild like it seemed it ought to be.
I visualised bands of naked black people walking, sitting, laughing and being so naturally landscape domestic. It all just seeded the romantic in me.

I estimate I have traveled back to the Flinders between 50 and 60 times, and every journey has fed and renewed me with that same spirit of place - a sense of home. I'm quite certain I was there before this "I' was alive.
 
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I've been poking through some old ext. hard drives, and came across some old transparencies of the property where that 'sighting' was Skinny - these two join together, and is where the ABC was heading to, and was this side of the river, opposite the Fata Morgana.

Quite a spooky spot. Under the ghost gum are three burials of the Davies kids - buried in the thirties after being born, all three, with downes syndrome.

View attachment 18166View attachment 18167

Beautiful photographs Mungoman, and I love your account of the appearing houses... must've been an amazing sight.
 
It was extremely an extremely odd occurrence. As a young'n I was used to the oddity now and again, which we put down to Mother, but this was too long, It solidified to the point of being reality for too long a period of time.

Gibraltar was one of those places where a different reality sometimes bled through...all in all, a weird place.
 
Bump

I remember well the very creepy kids TV show The Nargun And The Stars, based on the Patricia Wrightson book. The Nargun frightened me deeply. It was a representation of the bush that I had never contemplated before, one filled with older things. Along with the film Storm Boy, it helped awaken my imagination to the landscape as previously venerated space. Where I grew up, Cummins SA, we seemed an isolated remnant of a forgotten tribe - farmers. Once Aborigines appeared in my life (through pop culture, mind, not school education), the liminal space took shape and I imagined the First Australians everywhere.

Imagine my shock and delight when finally the family traveled to the Flinders Ranges when I was ten. There was remnant material culture everywhere, and my daily wanderings about the Hills of Orraparinna were filled with vast colonies of emus and kangaroos _ living wild like it seemed it ought to be.
I visualised bands of naked black people walking, sitting, laughing and being so naturally landscape domestic. It all just seeded the romantic in me.

I estimate I have traveled back to the Flinders between 50 and 60 times, and every journey has fed and renewed me with that same spirit of place - a sense of home. I'm quite certain I was there before this "I' was alive.


It does do that Skinny doesn't it, it feeds the soul - and yet my Mum was scared of it - She said that it was too wild.
 
my Mum was scared of it - She said that it was too wild.
Scared of the apparition or the untamed landscape generally? The latter surprises me given she was on the land. Was she an English migrant?

The fear of the frontier has always been a fascinating element of our 'settled' history. Dr Tim Flannery has a great book (Frontier) of historical accounts of first encounters between the invaders and visitors and the locals. The diversity of responses from both sides still gives me hope for reconciliation, maybe even friendship.

Anyway, I'll gladly send you the book if you'd like.
 
Scared of the apparition or the untamed landscape generally? The latter surprises me given she was on the land. Was she an English migrant?

The fear of the frontier has always been a fascinating element of our 'settled' history. Dr Tim Flannery has a great book (Frontier) of historical accounts of first encounters between the invaders and visitors and the locals. The diversity of responses from both sides still gives me hope for reconciliation, maybe even friendship.

Anyway, I'll gladly send you the book if you'd like.
I have relatives who went to America in 1830 and crossed the prairies, and another who was on the Third Fleet and went to Aus in 1791 - one of the marines on a ship, and eventually he settled in Tasmania.

Recently, a local historian tracked down which farm in the next village my family had emigrated from - I'd seen copies of the deeds but they only named the lane it was on, not the farm - but she somehow figured it out. I walk the dog near there most nights. So last night we went down that lane to get a closer look at what had been one of my family's farms - we think the one they left in 1830 and that my direct line inherited, because they'd gone...

The farm building has been kind of ruined - heavily plastered over and plastic windows and doors, and probably looks nothing like it did - has lost so much character I doubt the original farmers, if they came back, would know it. But beyond it, we glimpsed last night the orchards and it was so beautiful. I thought "Why in hell would anyone ever want to leave this place?" I grew up 5 miles down the road in a similar farmhouse with a similar orchard and to me, one look at that, and I'm home. And I know why they wanted to leave (liquidating some of their assets including a maybe less than 100 acre farm in England, bought you 1000 acre farm in America). But bloody hell, I couldn't have left it.

They had to leave all the furniture from England behind at the Great Lakes whilst they moved on to find a farm to buy, and their stuff was all stolen when they went back for it a couple of months later. The trek across the prairies, they were hoping to see native Americans but the only glimpse they got was smoke of a fire in the distance, once... And then leaving the comfort of a farmhouse in England, down the road from a major city where you could do anything, buy anything... for a log cabin shit knows where ands all the doom, disaster etc that happened to them that wouldn't have happened in Europe... I'd probably have gone in a heartbeat too, but looking at it last night I was thinking why in hell would anyone leave this, for that?

Our cliche is that immigrants from Britain were the fabled 'poor, huddled masses' but many of them, like my family, would have been farmers etc who had perfectly good lives here, and went with a fair bit of money behind them.

I recently wrote a piece about the Donner Party and the whole idea of immigration to the US, or Aus, then expansion across those continents, has always intrigued me. When we lived in Colorado the expanses were so vast, to a European mind, that we couldn't get our heads round why they even needed to create the reservation system when to this day, that physical space is big enough for no-one to be displaced/mistreated. Of course, it was more about resources the white settlers found in certain places that beloned to nations who had been there centuries, I guess, nothing to do with whether there was room for everyone to live their own lives, or not...
 
But beyond it, we glimpsed last night the orchards and it was so beautiful. I thought "Why in hell would anyone ever want to leave this place?"

I sometimes chat on Facebook to an American lady whose forebears came from an English village 10 or so miles from my home. They left at a time of great hardship in agriculture when there was little employment on the land.

In those circumstances it made sense to emigrate, as it did for so many Irish people. Move on or stay and starve.

'Her' village is now a smart commuter suburb with a world-famous landmark nearby. I often see this structure when travelling around and it's crossed my mind that her ancestors would have been both puzzled and proud!
 
I sometimes chat on Facebook to an American lady whose forebears came from an English village 10 or so miles from my home. They left at a time of great hardship in agriculture when there was little employment on the land.

In those circumstances it made sense to emigrate, as it did for so many Irish people. Move on or stay and starve.

'Her' village is now a smart commuter suburb with a world-famous landmark nearby. I often see this structure when travelling around and it's crossed my mind that her ancestors would have been both puzzled and proud!
Agreed. All kinds of people in the 19thC left home, for all kinds of reasons but I think we've come to view it as almost just economic migrants - people with nothing, in search of a life where they can have something. Whereas in reality, it was all kinds of folk. Mine got off the boat and bought a large farm - from another English settler, but I think the Hollywood romantic view of it is people escaping various disasters etc - which, of course, it was - but other folk went too. And I reckon for them the culture shock was greater for people who were used to Europe and suddenly find themselves, say, in New York where there are pigs running through the streets etc as Dickens described in 'American Notes' (probably one of the best Dickens books, though less read now as it's not a novel).

I found a little local mongraph when killing time in the library a few years back, and realised it involved another of my ancestor's villages round here. It was a series of letters home from a farm labourer's family who had emigrated from here to America, in the 1840s. They went in search of a better life and of course - ended up with a life more crap than they'd had in England. They were hugely struggling, basically the rest of their natural - and only news from home the occasional letter, telling them so and so had died, or whatever. They were homesick and longed to return to England but never made enough money to come back so were stuck. And I suspect that is the reality of 19thC immigration - that many hoped to make enough money to one day go home. Then got trapped. And was mortified/fascinated to find that they were told about a certain 'scoundrel' in the village who had conned everyone, including the emigrees elderly parents - into lending him money. None of which he paid back. He was one of my great x 3 grandfathers.

They called my ancestor "a real little rogue... a bad little fellow"! And we only knew because these homesick people had a correspondence back home, both sides of which were kept and the homesick new Americans were asking after people they'd known in childhood...

They became labourers in the new World and struggled to no avail and never did make it home. I think when I get contacted by US people re genealogy they see it through rose tinted glasses. But many of their ancestors maybe never meant to stay there, and hated the place the minute they stepped foot (like 'Nicholas Nickleby' in Dickens' novel does). But patriotism demands that history is seen through this romantic haze of doughtly people determined for a better life. A bit how the Pilgrim Fathers are seen. To us, they were dodgy nutjobs, essentially the taliban of the 17thC. To Americans, they're heroic figures escaping oppression.
 
Scared of the apparition or the untamed landscape generally? The latter surprises me given she was on the land. Was she an English migrant?

The fear of the frontier has always been a fascinating element of our 'settled' history. Dr Tim Flannery has a great book (Frontier) of historical accounts of first encounters between the invaders and visitors and the locals. The diversity of responses from both sides still gives me hope for reconciliation, maybe even friendship.

Anyway, I'll gladly send you the book if you'd like.


Mum was a lass from the potteries who dutifully followed my gypsy Dad out here (as the majority did in those day). I'd have to say that Mum was more comfortable with a life less rural and more Urban - but one does what one must...doesn't one.

She reckoned that there was no 'order' in the bush - 'even the trees don't grow straight', which was sad really and Mum only let on her fears in the last years of her life.

I much appreciate the offer of Tim's book Skinny...It wouldn't be titled The Explorers would It? I'm not the best with borrowed books and I see that I can get a copy from Dymocks at $13.00, so I'll add another one to 'the libary' mate.
 
Your story is still one of my favourites on here. Just wanted to say that!

Thanks GITM - it was an odd place - this is fifty years on, but the buildings closest to the river was the old farmhouse. The rock formation at the right of the house is what you can see in the old transparencies I've already posted, and the area where the 'village' appeared was just across the river. The gully erosion to the left of matakanui was where I saw the Big cat. (search 'casey', under mungoman)

Screenshot_2019-06-21 Marulan.jpg
 
The Explorers
:doh:Quite right, mate. I'd only to glance up at my bookcase to see the title.

Great bit of reading anyway. Well worth 13bux.


I recently wrote a piece about the Donner Party and the whole idea of immigration to the US, or Aus, then expansion across those continents, has always intrigued me. When we lived in Colorado the expanses were so vast, to a European mind, that we couldn't get our heads round why they even needed to create the reservation system when to this day, that physical space is big enough for no-one to be displaced/mistreated. Of course, it was more about resources the white settlers found in certain places that beloned to nations who had been there centuries, I guess, nothing to do with whether there was room for everyone to live their own lives, or not...
:nods: Exactly right.

Nice post, GITM.
My Ma's family became successful Marino sheep breeders by shipping out of Tyrone, NI in the 1850s. The opportunities in Australia afforded them more chance of wealth than their "position" in the homeland - running the horse stables at Drumquin Estate (ruin now). The colonies afforded many the chance to get above your station. That family turned out the first PM, a great Australian poet - and (my maternal Grandfather) a WWI Army Captain with the 1st AIF who became aide-de-camp to the WWII Governor-General of Australia.

SO I couldn't speak for anyone from landed gentry, but the cod-ordinary of the early 19th century took their chances and many made themselves. Shame it's all ground to a halt here at chez skinny, but the clan kicks on in the siblings and the far-flung cousins. Heritage is fascinating.

Mum was a lass from the potteries who dutifully followed my gypsy Dad out here (as the majority did in those day). I'd have to say that Mum was more comfortable with a life less rural and more Urban - but one does what one must...doesn't one.

She reckoned that there was no 'order' in the bush - 'even the trees don't grow straight', which was sad really and Mum only let on her fears in the last years of her life.
Wow. I just assume of anyone on the land these days that they must feel a sense of belonging there. That is a bit sad.

As you well know, new chums have often found the place to be very weird, going right back to the first invaders. The sense of utter isolation must have blown their jams out. Even as a country kid, the first time I camped alone in the desert I had to gulp back a few sobs of terror. It seems at first sight such a magnificently empty landscape. However, even the first generation of currency kids were, by accounts, thoroughly enamoured with the land of their birth. You've learned what they did, that the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

It's a beautiful thing that the trees don't grow straight. And we're a weird mob who'll welcome anyone into the fold, so long as they can laugh at themselves and take a bit of ribbing. It makes it all the more remarkable that your Mum, a relative newcomer, had the Fata Morgana experience that so few of us have ever seen in our landscape. I would really love to know how the First People would respond to that experience. Have you ever heard of others in the area having such? Or anywhere else for that matter? Have you seen anything similar? We must sit down for a pint and a natter if we're ever local to one another.

 
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