We are now in NSW, so it is 'Goodbye' to Queensland for this trip.  We've found another four of the 'Big Aussie Icons' and established that one of the significant ones in the book has been demolished.  There's just three that are not possible to visit this trip.  I think it will have to be a trip to Brisbane one day and a hire car to find them.  Maybe Pete is over Queensland Big Aussie Icons.  Enough is enough!  We have found some other beauties though. 'Kris the Croc' in Normanton rates a 10/10 on our Iconmetre.  We have spent nearly five and a half weeks in Queensland.

We had a good trip to Tenterfield today, leaving Toowoomba at 9.00am, travelling on the New England Highway.  Our first stop was the little town of Allora.  Dorothy and I commented over morning tea what a lovely name it was.  But before we left the town Peter and I had talked with a guy and he told us it is pronounced quite differently to the lovely way we had decided on!  We had come into Allora to find 'Mary Poppins' house.

First though I am going to include a paragraph in this blog about Pamela Lyndon Travers.  Over the last couple of weeks I have been googling Mary Poppins and Pamela Travers quite often!

Mary Poppins is a series of eight children's books written by P.L. Travers and published over the period 1934 to 1988.  The books are about the magical English nanny Mary Poppins.  Pamela Travers was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough on the 9th August 1899.  She died at the age of 96 on 23rd April 1996.  Helen lived in Marborough with her parents until age 3 or 4 (different sites tell you different years) and then the family moved to Allora.  Helen was known to her family as Lyndon.  In 1907 her father Travers Goff died and her mother took the family to Bowral to live and they lived there for 10 years.  Helen's  senior schooling was at a Sydney boarding school.  Helen Goff began publishing her poems while she was still a teenager.  She also gained a reputation as an actress under the stage name 'Pamela Lyndon Travers'.  She toured Australia and New Zealand with a Shakespearean Company and left for England in 1924.  It was there she changed her name to Pamela Travers.  She kept the 'Lyndon' to act and dance on stage.  In the winter of 1933 at the age of 34 she began to write the'Mary Poppins' stories.

There is a lovely restored house in Herbert St in which author Helen (Pamela) Lyndon Goff/Travers or Mary Poppins as she is referred to, lived in for a few years.  So many names!! The house was built in 1878 and it  originally incorporated the Australian Joint Stock Bank, where Travers Goff, Helen’s father, once worked. The owners of the house, actually live on Bribie Island and they come to Allora every couple of weeks.  Les Struthers the owner, is an architect and there is quite a story on the internet about how a replica of the house was built in Hollywood for the film 'Saving Mr Banks'.  This is the link to a Warwick Daily News article https://www.warwickdailynews.com.au/news/Our-magical-link-to-Mary-Poppins/2132213/

We decided on the park just across from the house for morning tea and low and behold it was named the H.P. Travers Park and a memorial to 'Mary Poppins' had been placed there earlier in the year.  Towns do grab at famous people and connections, in the hope to get the tourist to call at their town.  And it does work.  I knew I had taken a photo of a Mary Poppins statue when we were in Bowral in 2014.  OMG!  My research has found that the Bowral statue was stolen in March of this year.  The story is here;   https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5261222/the-mysterious-case-of-the-missing-mary-poppins-statue/   Bowral's claim to fame with Mary Poppins is that she lived there for the longest time during her life in Australia.  That is it for Mary Poppins!

From Allora we took a side road to Warwick .  There was a huge meat processing abattoir named John Dee as we came into Warwick..  It is one of four large abattoir's in the Southern Downs Regional Council.  Last year $15 million from the Federal Government was injected into the business providing 100 new full time jobs. 

Further down the highway we stopped at Thulimbah to get a photo of the 'Big Apple'.  This was a 'Big Icon' I found on the internet and it is a beauty.  Pity the cafe and winery was not open.  The stone fruit trees were in blossom.  Beside where we parked there was a pear, plum, cherry, apricot, peach etc.  Thulimbah is 12 kms north of Stanthorpe.  Stanthorpe looks to be quite a big town but we didn't go off the highway to visit.  Our lunch stop was at the border town of Wallangarra.  The Jennings Hotel can be seen from the 'Border Sign' and is 50 metres over the railway line.  It is in NSW, but the mail is delivered to the Queensland postcode.  Another OMG!   All this stuff.  Can't get my head around it all!

There were a lot of vineyards and stone fruit trees growing through the Stanthorpe area, all the way down to Wallangarra.  There seemed to be lots of nice B & B's as well.  A little like our Margaret River and Swan Hill regions, except it would get a lot colder here and at the moment it is far from green!  The old railway station at Wallangarra is now home to a cafe and the railway line certainly seems to have  not been used for many years.  Wiki tells me the Railway Station is heritage listed and it was built in 1877.  It was built on the border of NSW and Queensland and it handled the break of gauge railway between NSW & Queensland.  That probably explains why the border line between the two states follows the line it does!  Wiki also tells me that the Cafe at the Railway Station is in the old Customs House.  On the border there had to be a Customs House!  The railway hasn't been used to Wallangarra since 1930.  The town is near the 1859 surveyor's tree carving that marked the state border.  I am now assuming that the remains of the old tree in the photo, is the surveyors tree.  I haven't got time to research all this before we get to a town, but it is all interesting when I research after!

We only had 20 kilometres to go before we reached our destination for today, Tenterfield.  The Sat Nav decided to take us the wrong track and Peter trusted her and not the road signage that said 'No Through Road'.  Just as well there was an old farm gate that could be opened and he backed into there!  Bit of drama for a while, but as his nephew once said "Uncle Pete could back a road train into a coke can"!   He got us out of the sticky situation quite easily!

When we did get to the caravan park, Peter wasn't sure that he like the look of that either!  But it is fine, in fact it has turned out to be quite a good choice.  We settled in and then went for a drive around the historical town.  

There was lots of heritage buildings and lots of history.  Tenterfield promotes the town as the 'A Federation Town' - 'The Birthplace of a Nation'.  On 24 October 1889, the Premier of NSW Sir Henry Parkes delivered a speech at the Tenterfield School of Arts on the need for the Australian colonies to federate into one nation. The Tenterfield speech is significant because, although politicians had been discussing federation for some time, this was the first direct appeal to the public.  Sir Henry Parkes died in 1896, five years before the Federation process was completed.  He has been describes as 'the most commanding figure in Australian politics' and as having flaws but nonetheless being 'a large-brained self-educated Titan whose natural field was found in Parliament'.  In 2001, the year of the Centenary of Federation, the building where Sir Henry made his speech was completely restored at a cost in excess of $3 million.  The Tenterfield 'School of Arts' recently received  funds to digitise the 'Henry Parkes' collection.  This will enable the collection to be shared with a global audience.

It is also all about the inaugural 'Peter Allen Festival' this weekend in Tenterfield.  Hard to believe we were nearly there in the town for the Festival, without knowing anything about it.  John said to us about the song 'Tenterfield Saddler' and thought it was perhaps Slim Dusty's song.  We were of no help to him!  When we booked into the Tenterfield Lodge & Cara van Park the lady said "We should have been staying for the Festival".  Of course we asked some relevant questions!  Peter Allen was born in Tenterfield and in his later life he often visited his grandfather who actually lived about five house from the CP.  Peter wrote the song in 1970 and it was released in 1972.  The song is about his much loved grandfather's life, Peter's troubled relationship with his father and his own life marrying Lisa Minelli.  Peter died of aids in June 1992.

The Australian Government invested $30,000 into the Festival and Federal Member for New England Barnaby Joyce was in Tenterfield on Friday night (the night I am typing this blog).  In his speech he said “Peter’s music has touched the hearts of people across the world, and it’s absolutely fitting that the festival is held here in Tenterfield – Peter’s birthplace and the home to one of his most well-known songs, Tenterfield Saddler.”  We visited the historic Saddler building on Thursday.

We also visited the historic Cork Tree.  It is known as the 'Wishing Tree' as well as the 'Cork Tree' in English folklore.  It was brought to Tenterfield by Edward Parker in 1861 in a jam tin. It is believed to be one of the largest cork trees in Australia.  It is on Wood Street and the community hopes it will continue to flourish and yield good luck to future generations.

To conclude our visit to Tenterfield we found the Bowling Club which the members are still maintaining two grass greens.  The three heritage cottages opposite the RSL Memorial were beautifully maintained.  The Railway Museum is very extensive, but on this visit for us it was just a drive past.  

The town has a population of 6,996 and although our visit was short we do believe it is a town you could explore further.  There are a couple of National Park drives within 30 kilometres of the town.