Around the Country Music Capital of Australia

Have I mentioned that Tamworth is the Country Music Capital of Australia? I really should as it seems to be the towns claim to fame as we shall see later in the day when we visit the Country Music Hall of Fame, but first the earlier part of the day.

Morning

I wake up at 4.30am and get up at 5am. Drew is up at 5.30am and we have two cups of Nespresso coffee, there is a Nespresso machine in the room sitting beside the kettle which we were using for our tea yesterday. I shower at 6am and with my ablutions complete I go down at 6.20am to move the car, you'll have read in yesterday's post why I needed to do this.  

There had already been two cars which had left the car park, so I move our car to where it had been parked before we went out last night (Bay 28) and left the boat and trailer free to be moved even if we are not in the hotel.

Back in the room Drew has completed his ablutions and at 6.55am we head out to breakfast. While the rain has eased from last night, there is still a hint of it in the air, so we wear our macs in sacs to breakfast, the first time I have worn mine since Cardiff Bus Station.

Breakfast

The Hotel in Tamworth, a very nice luxurious one, doesn't have breakfast included. There is a restaurant next door, which is part of the chain, where we eat breakfast yesterday. But looking online we had seen at least five nice breakfast places all in easy walking distance. And as we only have four more breakfasts here, I suspect we will check out a few of them. 

Today we opt for the café called The Humble Espresso - of all the places it is the one with most vegetarian - i.e. non-meat options - and it is Friday, so that is important for me. 

The walk to the café is only 0.4 of a mile and we arrive at 7.02am. It is a very busy place with three tables pre-booked, it does have a converted area outside, but the rain might mean it is dripping there so we stay indoors. 

I choose the Avocado Smash with sides of hash brown and mushrooms. It had wonderful bread forming the basis of the dish with such a delicious set of flavours with a lemony after taste, a great success. 

Drew opted for Bacon and egg roll with tomato relish and a hash brown, though it was a side order, the hash brown was inserted in the bun - Drew's not sure if that's the best way for it to be!

Anzac Park

Opposite the Humble Espresso is Anzac Park, like every town we have been in in Australia, Tamworth has its memorial to the first and second world wars and the wars Australian troops have fought in since then. Here in Tamworth the memorial is in a very well appointed park. It has a particular focus on the World War 2 battle of Sandakan.

As you will see from the images, Australia also has much better park facilities than we might see in Britain. Parks all have modern toilets, covered picnic tables, gas fired barbeques and recycling bins. It is a bit damp this morning, but you could imagine spending a pleasant sunny day in this park.  

Post Office and Town Hall

We walked down from Anzac Park, past a recently closed flour mill, across the railway line, past the Tamworth Court House and Police Station and on to the Memorial Town Hall. 

Beyond the memorial town hall is the Peel Centre and then the Post Office building with its fine clock tower. It is interesting to see that Post Offices, rather than civic buildings, seem to be the dominant buildings in Australian towns. Comparing the white marble of the Post Office here with the red brick of the Town Hall is a clear indication, that the immigrants put contact with family and home above any political business. 

Mentioning the Peel Centre, which is now part of the University of New England, gives me the prompt to explain why Peel is such an important figure here.

Robert (Bobbie) Peel

Sir Robert Peel is best known in Britain for his time as Home Secretary and his founding of the Metropolitan Police, indeed the police nickname, Peelers, is a riff on his name, and the continuing nickname Bobbies is also due to him. (Later he became Prime Minister and is commonly held to be the founder of the modern Conservative Party, but that is less important in this instance). 

Here in North New South Wales however, Peel is better remembered from his earlier role as Colonial Secretary when he appointed John Oxley as Surveyor General of New South Wales under the Governorship of Lachlan Macquarie. Macquarie's policy of expansion led him to ask Oxley to undertake lengthy explorations deeper inland than other Europeans had ever travelled. 

Discovering a great river in this area in 1818 he named it Peel, after his political sponsor - the Peel River it is until today.

A few decades later when a substantial town was growing up alongside the river the idea was to call it Peel Town, but given Peel's higher political profile at the time and his association with the Midlands town of Tamworth, where he lived and was MP - his famous Tamworth Manifesto being a seminal part of Conservative Party history - the town adopted the name of Tamworth.  

Back in the Hotel

We arrive back at the hotel at 8.45am and are there until just before 10am when we go out for more exploration of Tamworth. 

Tamworth Powerstation Museum

On our way back in from Goonoo Goonoo last night my brother had highlighted some of the key sites of Tamworth and waxed lyrically [Co-Pilot's note: I distinctly remember, dear readers, the phrase: "A must see" being repeated on several occasions!!!] about the Powerstation Museum which was only a few blocks from our hotel. 

It proved to be an entertaining visit, more for the staff than for the history!

We arrived to be greeted by three men who I would guess were a decade or so older than myself. Clearly they were in competition for the 'best Powerstation Museum Guide' award as they competed with each other for our attention. The first gentleman we met, took my $10, entrance was $5 per adult and began to ask for our postcode. As all Australian postcodes are four numbers, he looked somewhat perplexed when I started reciting CF15 - he decided he would just put overseas in place of a postcode. Meanwhile, the guide called Lionel had crept up behind us and was beginning his talk while the other gentleman continued to ask about where we had come from. The third gentleman remained quiet at this point, more of him later.

Three times Lionel pushed the button for the device that gave an explanation for Tamworth's claim to be the City of Lights. It turns out that the title is because Tamworth was the first municipality in Australia to use electricity to light it’s streets in 1888 (15 years before Sydney and only five years after London). However, we didn't find this out here. The first time he had pushed the button, Lional started talking to us about working with electricity, so we couldn't hear it. The second time, the gentleman who had taken our money came back with $4 change, which we didn't want, but he refused to take back. We had $4 change because we had been charged the Seniors rate of $3 each, now I'd be very accepting of that, but Drew hasn't made it to 50, let along 65, which is the standard for Seniors here. But no amount of discussion (over the background of the machine telling the story) would make them change their minds.

After some kind of a power struggle between Lionel and our original bloke, who Lionel said is only a trainee!! Lionel became our chief guide - or rather became the chief barrier to Drew taking any photos. As soon as the camera was raised Lionel would insert himself into the space between Drew and what he intended to take. We have a number of photos, some include in the compilation below, with Lionel's fingers, elbow or leg appearing like a modern day 'Where is Wally!'. Here he is by one of the exhibits.

Drew's age issue didn't end here, as we progressed through the museum, which not only tells the story of Tamworth as the City of Lights, but has electrical equipment from across the decades. The third gentleman, mentioned above, returned with a set of stickers and offered them to Drew for his Grandchildren. I wish I'd had the camera on this occasion, because the look of stunned surprise on young Drew's face was a picture to behold. He might have coped with them thinking he might have been a father, but a grandfather!!!

If you like electrical goods of the ages, then there is a whole selection of them on Flickr - but here is a brief overview of the more interesting items in the museum.

[Co-Pilot's Note:I shall leave you, dear readers, with a few words of wisdom we picked up at the Powerstation Museam: "You have to be careful of the Watts! - and the Amps, mind you" - here ends the lesson!]

Country Music Hall of Fame

We left Lionel and friends at 11.15am and walked through the centre of Tamworth. My brother had explained when I met with him in Newcastle that what we call sweets and the American's call candies are called Lollies in Australia. So it was nice to see our first Lollie Hut.

Right in the centre of town are statues to some of the more famous of Australia's Country Music stars. With Slim Dusty and his wife Joan McKean in the central spot. (Dusty has over a 100 platinum country records in his career some of the best known are  A Pub with No Beer, Waltzing Matilda and G'day G'day)

John Williamson, famous for Old Man Emu, among others, a little further on

and Smoky Dawson a little further along the street famous for I can't get off my horse and many others

The town also has a treble clef designed to look like a wave of music and some semiquavers.

We reach the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame just before Midday and enjoy a fascinating insight into the range of talents that have led to Country Music in Australia to be celebrated. As someone who has been a fan of country music since my 20s, it was interesting to discover that I knew nothing about the Australian brand of country.  All the songs I knew have been from the US brand of country, and while there were overlaps in the development of some of the careers of Australian singers who went west - like Frank Ifield and Keith Urban - Australian Country Music has stayed close to its bushwacker roots. For more of the history read the great webpage called History of Country Music.

Here are some of the images from our visit that day - of course there are more on Flickr, starting here.

[Co-Pilot's Note: I, dear readers, have a fun game I like to play. Every time our valiant blogger says he is a fan of country music I point out that Keith Urban is married to Nicole Kidman. You should play along and see how long it take him to work it out! I said it a few times today!!]

Tamworth Bicentennial Park

Along the banks of the Peel River between the A15 to the B56 runs a large, well developed area of parkland, called Bicentennial Park. It was initially developed in 1988 to mark 200 years of Europeans arriving on the 'First Fleet' of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. Having enjoyed almost two hours in the Country Music Hall of Fame we walked along the Peel River into the park which has various sections, one for children, one for Seniors and others a memorial to various members of the armed forces. 

The park has a serious of ponds, most with ducks, and also an interesting fountain, near the exit gates with animal images built into the rocks.

Australian Country Music Pioneers' Parade

The park also celebrates some of the great pioneers of Australian Country Music with a series of statues.

We got back to the hotel at 3.30pm after an exciting and enjoyable day. I worked on a blog post and edited some of the photos while we had a few cups of tea until we left for dinner.

Dinner at the Pig and Tinder Box

We had booked to eat at the Pig and Tinder Box, as it seemed to have a good range of fish on the menu for a Friday. The building is a converted bank building in the middle of Tamworth owned by the same group which own our hotel. We had booked the table for 7pm, but due to an overrun in the previous booking we weren't seated until 7.25pm.

Drew began with a Thai Beef Salad with Cabbage, Mint, Coriander, Chilli, Red Onion, Cherry Tomato, Cucumber and Carrots. It had a strong coriander flavour with lots of fish sauce, not as much chilli as in the UK, but very fresh and tasty.

I opted for Fried Squid with tartare sauce. It had a very light batter with a nice crunch which set of this calamari perfectly. 

For mains Drew went for a Cowboy Pizza, this pizza had a BBQ Base with Salami, Bacon, Prosciutto, Pork and Jalapeño. A good doughy base, the BBQ sauce had a slight sweetness to it and lots of meat on top. Perfect for Drew's third pizza of the holiday.

I had a delicious fish, a Red Snapper served with Garlic, Ginger, Spring Onion and a Lemon Garlic Butter sauce. This was an absolutely delicious meaty piece of fish in a gentle sauce with hints of lemon and garlic and the crunch of spring onions and lemon jest. Overall a delightful dish

It was served with a side of Roasted Root Vegetables Carrot, Parsnip, Squash and, unexpectedly, Beetroot - all charbaked so with a seared flavour and mix of soft vegetable with crunchy bits of charring, an excellent complement.

We were really pleased with the delicious meal. We left the restaurant at 8.45pm and were back in the hotel by 9pm and after editing and load the photos we had taken today went to bed by 10pm.