RoadTrip2021: Albury, Gundagai and Yass

May 31, 2021 | 2 Comments

Albury

After saying goodbye to Angela in Yackandandah, I had a short drive to my next destination, Albury. And just like that, I was safely back in New South Wales. Little did I know that my timing was perfect, getting out of Victoria before the community spread started and so I wasn’t affected by their current lockdown.

The Visitor Info Centre in Albury is housed in the old station but as I only had a little sketching time available, I didn’t bother going inside.

 


Instead I went straight to the Post Office – the only JimmyB (James Barnet) building in the town – and did this quick sketch. I decided to use my De Atramentis Brown Document Ink for the maroon detailing, and I was happy with the effect.

 


Here is a photo of the building from my car. I was thinking about using my car for support, but there was a bench nearby that had a better view.

 


I also did a quick sketch of the Courthouse designed by Alexander Dawson (Barnet’s predecessor) and realised that I was a bit tired… I made a number of big mistakes while sketching this simple building!

 


The final stop in Albury was the house I was staying in. It had huge rooms but a great gas heater to keep me warm.

 


I had a quiet Sunday in Albury (including two online services from my home church) but in the early afternoon I went for a walk along the Murray River. It was interesting to see non-native deciduous trees along the footpath and then the native gums on the river’s edge.

 


One final river photo.

 


Gundagai

   
On Monday I had my second biggest driving day of the trip (3.5 hours) and I stopped two times on my way to Canberra. The first was Gundagai with an interesting main street.

 


Another Dawson Courthouse (so no need to sketch it!) 

BTW: It was certainly not my intention to take this angled photo!

 


I had a nice breakfast and then did two quick sketches. And yes, a new week meant starting a new book. My rate of filling one A4 Moleskine per week was consistent for the entire trip.

Aside: I have been noticing a few areas of water/paint damage on some pages in my sketchbooks this trip, particularly the first spread. You can see this over the text block on the left. My theory is that there is dirty paint/water running into the book from the Stablo support board which I used for most of the trip. But I’m yet to prove it!

 


Gundagai’s main point of interest (for me) was some old timber bridges – the railway viaduct is the longest timber truss in Australia.

 


And nearby there was an old mill with the bridges in the background.

 


This was a fun sketch!

 


It was time to hit the road, but first another photo of the bridges… a good place to revisit on a future trip!

 


Yass


The next stop was Yass, another town just off the Hume Highway. Here is my usual main street photo!

 


But of course, I was on the hunt for a JimmyB courthouse.

 


I really really enjoyed sketching this and had lots of Palladian Odyssey thoughts as I worked.

While the building is most like Palladio’s Villa Emo, I was thinking more about Villa Cornaro as the setting was so similar. I was sitting inside a fenced-off garden just as they have at Villa Cornaro (you can see a photo and a sketch of it in this article). This photo was taken at the 30-minute mark…

 


and I don’t think that I did anything else to it rather than add my notes later in the day.

 


I wasn’t super interested in the Post Office, but as it was another JimmyB,  I wanted to sketch it. I decided to do a looser version, mixing line and colour. BTW: The JimmyB challenge (sketch every James Barnet building in every town I visit) gave me a good focus when I only had a limited time in one place. 

There was a nice comfy bench on the footpath (sidewalk) opposite the building and I had a number of fun conversations with locals who walked past. One man was concerned about the stability of the tower (in my sketch) but thought I had got the colour right.

On the right side of the page is a (mostly) continuous line drawing of the view from the cafe where I had lunch.

 


One of the famous people connected with Yass is Banjo Paterson – a famous Australian poet. As I mentioned Henry Lawson in an earlier article, I had to include Banjo here. But I didn’t have time to explore his connection with Yass further.

Even though there was more in Yass to explore, I felt really keen to get to Canberra (the capital city of Australia) so I left straight away after lunch so I could get a Canberra sketch in while there was still light. But I’ll leave more about that for my next article!

2 Comments

  • Susanna says:

    It’s good to know you are safely back home now. I’ve so very much enjoyed your trip blogs, including learning a lot about Australia (at least a part of your big country). Looking forward to the upcoming Edges group run-through!

Leave a Reply