So, after our week's worth of hard work, Hannah (a Liverpool student posted here for a month) and I decide to cut our Friday surgery commitments short and do some exploring. Of course, you could consider this an investment on the hospital part to garner a greater fondness for the town from potential future employees... and hence our following daytime activity can be more correctly classified as the Socio-cultural learnings of the Griffith Community:
1. Cottage Art Gallery
- Our first stop, a little cottage showcasing the works of local and regional artisans.
- The friendliness of locals is evident when a lady sitting down at a table sipping her coffee sees us and introduces herself as Veronica, an Indigenous Wiradjuri artist based in Albury. She then proceeds to lead us up the back of the cottage to the roof/attic to reveal other pieces of her artwork created by local sand, bark and multimedia.
A sneaky shot of Han and I on one of Veronica's paintings
- Before we go, she gets us to jot down our contact details to invite us to her exhibition that will take place in a Paddington gallery later this year. We promise that we'd attend.
2. Italian Heritage Museum / Pioneer Park
- A brief stopover. Basically a park telling the story of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. Reminded me back to the days where we'd have primary school excursions to the goldfield of Bathurst and the likes.
With one of the said Pioneer Houses.
3. Hermit's Cave & Scenic Hill Lookout
- We drive up the road to a place called Scenic Hill, the highest point in Griffith where apparently you can look out and see the hills of Adelaide as everything is so flat!
The views from Scenic Hill, note: all that greenery are grape trees in straight little rows.
- 2 city girls, sandals and 1 dress. Doing it rough climbing rocks and hiking through shrubbery to get to the hermit's cave and chapel.
Han in front of the Hermit's main cave
Story goes that the Scenic Hill Hermit was a man disillusioned and disgusted with humanity, after being conned twice of all his possessions and given empty promises of work, walked following the Murrumbidgee river until he reached the early fruit farms of Griffith. Here he decided he would settle and began constructing a stone wall, sleeping quarters and kitchenspace from the cliff-face. What followed were interconntecting stone pathways, galleries, gardens and other caves which he would retreat into when people came.
Part of the hermit's chapel (yes more rocks)
The formidable rocks we conquered!
My obligatory shot with some rocky country landscape
My little car parked on the dirtroads here.
4. Westend Winery
- The naughtiest thing I've done recently (more like ever).
- We figured it wouldn't be a true tour of Griffith without a visit to a winery. Consequently, though still on my green Ps, I enjoyed partaking in some wine tasting (a swirl around the palate and spit back out of course, definitely not the imbibing part).
5. Banna St, Griffith's main street
- It's amazing to find that we've only spent 3hours doing all the above. What seems some distance on the map, always turns out to be five minutes away.
- So we decide to spend the remainder of the day down Griffith's main strip; every country town will have a main street where you'll find everything you need and inevitably bump into everyone at the same time.
- It is a delightful surprise to find some boutique designer stores (!) and great shopping (2 tops, a skirt and pants!), little quaint shops like the one below.
The Old Belahlee, cute little country-style trinkets galore. Note the old people love on the side hehe <3
Teddies in Chinese attire? Quirky!
- The heavy Italian migrant influence makes for some very decent coffee in Griffith (hooray!). Needless to say, we spent the remainder of afternoon enjoying Italian biscotti, drinks and people-watching ;)
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Leaving you with some interesting points on Griffith:
* 70% of NSW wine is grown here - this includes Cassella wines which is world famous for its Yellowtail range
* 70% of the total NSW citrus product comes from this region
* 95% of Australia's rice is produced in these regions
* Bartter Enterprises Pty Ltd from around here is Australia's 2nd largest producer of chicken meat - think Steggles!
* Griffith was designed by Walter Burley Griffin, the Chicago architect who received worldwide acclaim in 1912 after winning the competition for the design of Canberra. Hence the distinctive radial pattern featuring in both Griffith and Canberra.
And because of the considerable agricultural nature of this place, I always find it a laugh when I ask people for their address at the clinic and they respond with a "Farm 321 so-and-so road, country-sounding town".
