Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang 12/3/1870
Jottings by the Way.
[FROH OUR TRAVELLING REPORTER.]
TUMUT TO ALBURY
Agriculturally speaking, Bombolee is one of the richest spots in New South Wales. It is a select but not "selected" little plain on the river, opposite Tumut, and was purchased before selection became law. As a sample of crops this year I may mention that Mr M'Gillivray's farm on the Gilmore produced 43 ½ bushels to the aera. Tumut boasts an excellent school-house, and the teacher, I am given to understand by the parents, is the right man in the right place.
The school is mixed, and has an infant school attached, and also a separate room for the ministers of various denominations to withdraw their various flocks for religious instruction. The ministers in attendance are Church of England, once a week; Presbyterian, once a fortnight. The school is well supplied with maps and school requisites ; and, if I must criticise, it is not so much with regard to this school in particular, as speaking to the Board itself. In my plan of a school-desk, I would include a shelf, . lour inches below the desk, and parted by a partition at every fifteen inches, to hold books, slates, and pencils-the whole class could then produce, or away with their books or slates at the word of command, instantly, and without noise or confusion, and fifteen minutes a day could be saved by this method over that I see generally adopted. I also venture to think four rows of desks too deep for a sufficient control over the classes by the respective teachers, and the standards of the desks being supported by four brackets is a mistake, as that one of the four which reaches the sitting-form, often throws a boy headlong as he passes out; this is not required. The external lavatory is an excellent idea. The number on the roll for the past (?) year is 85, and the average attendance reaches 69.4.
Certain whisky branes, finding a strange apparition in Tumut, attempted to create a little excitement; but your correspondent was not to be caught. What shall I say? there are fourteen hotels in Tumut : I need say no more.
Bidding adieu to the beautiful scenery of the Tumut, we pass up the Gilmore, and come among free selectors and a vineyard. At Mr Blake's I had the opportunity of going to extinguish a bush fire and when I got to Adelong it was dark - the Adelong is a mining and rocky district, and the Upper Adelong, seventy-six miles from the reefs and thirty from Tumut, is a mountain country. Here again I come on fine timber, wild hop, and delicious running streams and races; the soil is good and the atmosphere delightful; the timber affords fine shade, and the air is of that nature that makes the inhaling of it an appetite and life of pleasure. Adams's is passed and Upper Tumberumba reached, where ground-sluicing is still going on ; this is eighteen miles from Watson's, Upper Adelong; from about here the ground falls to Lower Tumberumba, or the township, seven miles down the creek, where the mountains go back, and a quiet village of some 120 inhabitants succeeds; houses, granite, and abandoned ground being, to all appearance, equal tenants of the valley.
This place has been lively - one hotel taking as much as £173 in one day, and emptying a hogs head of brandy a fortnight. This innocent and lucrative occupation, like Othello's, is gone, and peace, like a perpetual Sabbath, broods over the spot. Travelling sheep, however, occasionally kick up a dust, and on this traffic the village is said mainly to depend - increase of population around will doubtless improve the trade of the place.
From Tumberumba to Albury , by the - direct road, is eighty miles - by the way I chose it is 105. Here it is five miles to the Burra Station (cattle), Bartholomew's; thence by a bridle track, crossing the junction of Paddy's River with the Tumberumba Creek, it is ten miles to Tooma, Mr Green's station, the ranges here being liberally sprinkled with grasp trees, but entirety bare of grass. The extensive and fertile flat on which the homestead stands has been formed by three auriferous streams, the Tumberumba, Maragle, and the Mannus; these have all been worked for gold, and it is highly probable that this locality is auriferous also.
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