Wing Hing Long & Co Store Tingha NSW Australia

Just south of Inverell, NSW, Australia, on the NSW, New England Tablelands, lies the small country town of Tingha.  Preserved here is a snapshot of time is the Wing Hing Long & Co General Store.  If you are travelling in the New England area of NSW Australia and in any way at all interested in history then put Tingha on your route and plan to stop at Wing Hing Long & Co in Tingha.

View of Store from Cashier's Box

The main part of the Wing Hing Long & Co store was built in the 1880s to service the tin mining community that centred on Tingha and ever since that time the store has been owned by Chinese migrants or their descendents.  Today the store is a preserved snapshot of what a typical rural general store in New South Wales carried, albeit with a mining and Chinese twist.

Haberdashery & Lingerie

It’s truly amazing to walk into this store today and to see a snapshot of products from many different decades of life.  The store’s preservation is due to historian Janis Wilton recognising its significance and in 1998 the store and its contents was purchased by Guyra Shire Council, with assistance from the NSW Heritage Council, to be operated as a living museum by local residents. It maintains as close as possible the store’s fabric and contents exactly as it was when the shop closed for business in early 1998.

1950s Pattern Books

If you want to look at pattern books from the 1950s and ‘60s you’ll find them here.  Interested in what groceries were for sale between the 1960’s and 1990’s, tick, also on display here.
What is fantastic is that you can see and feel the organic growth of this store over time with a haberdashery department, men’s wear, ladies wear of course, groceries, hardware, mining equipment including explosives (now made safe), chemist shop, Chinese Herbalist, and the list goes on.

Tin Mining Equipment

Tin ore was discovered in Tingha in the early 1870s and by 1880 it was the largest tin producing area in New South Wales with the districts population peaking at circa 5,000, of which approximately 900 were Chinese.  With the boom came Chinese merchants and the store was established by Inverell shopkeeper Ah Lin initially to cater the Chinese Community.

Lowe Family Members

In 1918 Jack Joe Lowe bought the store and developed its scope to service the general population and widened the product range.  His wife, Fong Quain Lowe, ran a cafe near the store and his five children also worked there and additionally the family had interests in several other businesses around town.

With the play out of the tin Tingha went into decline, just the same as many other mining towns, and today has a population of about 700.

Accounting the Old Way

Wing Hing Long & Co’s significance today is the frozen snapshot in time, a time before the car and supermarkets dominated the grocery trade, a time when a general store such as this provided all the needs of a community and if they didn’t have it they would order it in for you.  This is a treasure trove amongst Chinese – Australian history.

The Wing Hing Long & Co store is open:
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sundays (also open public Holidays except Christmas Day & Good Fridays)
April – Sept         10:00am – 2:30pm
Oct – Mar        10:00am – 3.30pm
Open for groups and bus tours by appointment.
Ph (02) 6723 3156

Eastview Estate Cellar Door and Restaurant

Just a short distance off the New England Hwy, about 10kms south of Uralla on the Northern Tablelands of New England Australia, is the small village of Kentucky. Once a significant fruit growing area, developed by the World War I veterans who struggled to develop their rehab blocks after the war, Kentucky Australia is a re-emerging rural area with some exciting developments.

I visited Eastview Estate Winery and Pinot Restaurant, just 3 Km from the Kentucky turn off on the New England Hwy, just south of Uralla, New England Australia. Developed by Stephen & Lyn Dobson, Eastview Estate is an emerging vineyard that is well worth a visit. The passion that Stephen and his wife Lynn have for their product is evident in the attention to detail in both the ambience they create at their very attractive cellar door and their restaurant, Pinot, and in the wines themselves.

Stephen Dobson - Winemaker

Having the opportunity to “Meet the Winemaker” – Stephen Dobson, I found him to be a charming host who is passionate about the food and wine he and his wife Lyn produce and serve at their vineyard and restaurant. This passion is very self evident in the podcast I made at the vineyard.

The vineyard also features one of the less common grape varieties in Australia, Tempranillo. Tempranillo is the premium red wine grape variety from the Rioja region in Spain and is growing rapidly in popularity in Australia. Eastview Estate produce a range of wines including Tempranillo, Roca, a dry Spanish style rose which can be drunk either chilled or at room temperature, a very crisp and easy drinking fruity Semillon, two merlots, a drink now style and Reserve Merlot designed for cellaring as well as their very special Reserve Evolution Shiraz. The Eastview Estate Reserve Evolution Shiraz is a wine with a lot of structure, aged on French Oak and is the winery’s 2010 entry in the Jimmy Watson Trophy.

Pinot Restaurant Eastview Estate

Integrated with the cellar door of the winery is Pinot Restaurant. The rich warm tones of the mahogany floor and the pressed steel bar and eclectic artworks of this 40 seat restaurant opens out on to a cool deck overlooking the vineyard and trellises of some of their Pinot Noir grapes. As you would expect the eclectic menu of the restaurant has been chosen especially to be a foil for the estate’s wines and feature Italian, modern Australian and a few Asian dishes ranging from pastas through grills and wet dishes.

Eastview Estate Gardens

I can’t think of a nicer way to spend a few hours than to while away the time with some great food and wine overlooking some truly beautiful Australian countryside. The Eastview Estate cellar door and Pinot restaurant is open from 10:00am to 4:00pm Wednesday through Sunday for lunch and wine tasting and is open on Friday evenings for dinner. Stephen tells me that the restaurant is often booked out so it is just as well to give them a quick call to book for lunch or dinner and the restaurant is available for group bookings on other nights of the week.

You will find Eastview Estate at 298 Kentucky Rd, Kentucky NSW, just off the New England Hwy. Ph 02 6778 7473.

Where would our researchers be without the chroniclers of the times?

Lieutenant General Watkin Tench

I found the memoirs of Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench, who sailed as a Captain-Lieutenant of the marine detachment under Major Robert Ross on the “First Fleet” of convicts to Australia and arrived in Botany Bay on 20 January 1788, a treasure trove of information about the first European settlement of Australia. Published in London in 1793, Tench’s “A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson” (available online from Guttenberg Press) is one of two books of his personal memoirs which provide a window into the very first years of the establishment of the British Penal Colony at Port Jackson which was later to become Sydney.

Ulysses S. Grant

Or perhaps you may be more familiar with the personal memoirs of Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the United States. Published after his death in 1885, by Mark Twain, and dedicated by Grant to the American Soldier and Sailor, Ulysses S Grant’s personal memoirs concentrate primarily on the General’s actions during the American Civil War and have been praised for its conciseness and clarity. Grant’s memoirs are also available online and free via the Guttenberg Press Project if you are interested.

"Bilarni" - Bill Harney

For myself, however, it is the stories of ordinary people whose personal memoirs paint a picture with their words, whether an audio life story or in printed words and pictures, that bring alive the essence of a place and time. Stories like that of “Bilarni”. Bill Harney, Australia’s greatest ever yarn-spinner and a “bushy” who was appointed, in 1957, as the first ranger at the Ayers Rock- Mt Olga National Park and was distinguished by his lifelong involvement with Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory. Some of “Bilarni’s” stories are preserved by the Australian ABC National Hindsight Program and you can still hear his voice recounting his tales 44 years after he passed from this life in 1965.

Whilst personal memoirs have been produced for centuries, and those of more prominent citizens such as Tench and Grant published and even popular, new methods of preserving the personal memoirs of ordinary people have risen in popularity over recent times. No longer the preserve of the wealthy or the prominent it is now within affordable reach of the ordinary “man in the street” to employ the services of a specialist oral history company such as Lifetime Memories and Stories in Australia, to preserve their personal memoirs or life story and pass this valuable history down to future generations of story keepers and historians.

Hopefully our descendents will have an even richer well of source material to drink from.

Aldinga Merchant Ship 1922 - Darling Harbour Sydney

The Alfred & Roy Dufty Maritime Heritage Collection of Historic Maritime Photographs .

This is a fantastic collection of historic maritime photographs taken mainly in the Sydney Harbour environs that are now available online in a searchable data base via the Gosford City Council Maritime Heritage Collection.

Alfred William Buchanan Dufty was born at Kingston upon Thames, England in 1858. His father Francis was an early photographer in Bristol, England and the family emigrated to Australia in 1868.
After working as a photographer in Fiji with his brother Francis, producing an important body of work recording the local people and times, Alfred eventually settled in Sydney.

Sydney Harbour Ferry Barrenjoey 1913

This collection gives a great insight into the expansion of Sydney as a port and also into the early tourist souvenir trade with postcards of the visiting ships sold to passengers. There must be many tucked away in old boxes and collections throughout the world even to this day.

It is to photographers like Dufty we owe a great gratitude for preserving a snapshot of history. Will today’s digital images still be as available to historians of the future? I wonder?

For more information and access to the collection visit Gosford City Council Maritime Heritage Collection

King St, Newtown, Sydney

What the heck do you have to do to get a coffee in the sun here at 9:00am? A few shops are opening up and a few coffee shops have diners inside but given the blessing of a warm winter’s morning it’s hard to find somewhere to sit and read the paper in the sun. Coffee is easyenough to find but most of the places are grab and go and the better ones I remember from previous visits still have stools on tables behind closed doors. Ah a Greek Church, there must be coffee near here! And there is, at Anise right across the road, not Greek but let’s go. The coffee is good and there is a free Wi-Fi Hotspot so that’s great!

St Stephens Church Newtown

So welcome to the non podcast walk around Newtown. During the day, a Sunday, not much happens before 11:00am. The shops aren’t open, or hardly any, and there is just no variety. I’m dissapointed! Last time I was in Newtown there were funky shops selling retro goods; homewares, music, clothing, North, South and East Asian handicrafts as well as many restaurants and cafes.

All gone, gone, gone! Well the restaurants and cafes are still here and lots of them, bars, some good I am told but overall not much to entice a visitor a little off the beaten track during the day time.

Mural Newtown Sydney

Newtown has become a restaurant strip. Signs point to markets on the 1st or last saturday of the month or something but I’m not here then and unlikely to be. I am not interested. i am a visitor, not a local.

So… well if you like going out in the evening to restaurants and bars Newtown looks like a good place to investigate, there are over 100 restaurants, cafes and bars listed on the Newtown Precinct site. The same site lists venues and entertainment. Everything from clubs to venues for major shows and theatres so check it out if you are looking for a night out in the inner Sydney village of Newtown.

Terrace Houses Newtown

So no podcast from me and no real attraction during the day for a visitors. It’s a nice place for a lazy walk around looking at some early architecture but that’s about it. It’s a shame how Sydney’s villages are either morphing into some world androgenous “shopping experience”, their individuality getting yuppied out of them, or becoming dominated by one thing as is the case in Newtown.

If you know where all the funky shopping experiences in Sydney have gone then let us know.

Filming Home & Away at Palm Beach Australia

Welcome to “Summer Bay”!

Television viewers especially in Australia and the UK will be very familiar with Palm Beach, location for the mythical village of Summer Bay where the hit TV series Home and Away is located. Screened in more than 50 countries Home and Away’s mythiical village of Summer Bay couldn’t have choosen a more idyllic location. The millionaire “beach shack” suburb of Palm Beach sits at the northern end of a peninsular, just north of Sydney Australia, and juts out into Broken Bay seperating the sheltered waterway of Pittwater, a serene boating harbour with great sailing, and the Pacific Ocean.

If you think Bondi is the best beach that Sydney has to offer,well, think again! Take a Central Coast Day Tour from Sydney, visit Palm Beach, and explore some of the best beaches and tranquil hideaways that Regional New South Wales has to offer.

Palm Beach Sydney Australia

Bondi Beach might be great as an inner city beach with easy access from Sydney CBD but the slightly longer travel time to Palm Beach or its beachy neighbours is well worth the travel. It’s not hard to get to by public transport either, just take the L90 bus from Wynyard Station in the city (Sydney bus routes and timetables) and the journey takes just over an hour. Or if you want a great view of all the Northern Beaches of Sydney then take a float plane flight along the coast and land on Pittwater, right at Palm beach with Sydney by Seaplane.

Palm Beach has a sheltered inland harbour side, Pittwater, and a great surf beach open to the Pacific Ocean. They are quite different.

Palm Beach Ferry to Patonga

On sheltered Pittwater the waters are tranquil with a small shallow beach ideal for a quick dip. It’s great for picnicing in the surrounding park, part of Kurringai Chase National Park, which borders the 9 hole Palm Beach Golf Club. At this point the narrow sand isthmus that seperates Pitwater from Palm Beach runs north to the prominant Barrenjoey Headland which is topped by Barrenjoey Lighthouse.

Access to the headland and Barrenjoey Lighthouse and the cottages is by a very steep and rough one kilometre walk from the base of the headland which will take you at least 20 minutes. Guided tours of the lighthouse are undertaken by the NSW Dept of National Parks & Wildlife every Sunday,from 11am to 3pm. Tours take approx 30 mins, phone 02 9472 9300 on the day to check tours are going ahead. There are no public toilets or refreshments available on top of the headland. Tours cost $4 adults and $2 children, meet at the top of the track and bookings are not required.

Barrenjoey Lighthouse

A short walk over the hill from the car park at Barrenjoey is the small village of Palm Beach. Here, clustered around the Palm Beach Ferry Wharf is the Palm Beach general Store and restauarants such as very pleasant Barenjoey House or the Greedy Goat Cafe. If you are looking for a nice bottle of wine or fixings for a picnic then the The World Famous Palm Beach Wine Co might satisy your desires. A full directory of the shops and stores with contact details can be found at the Qwert Directory of Palm Beach. This is where Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones reportedly spent $250,000 on champagne in one visit to the shop whilst holidaying here.

Ferry to Ettalong

From the Palm Beach Ferry Wharf you can also embark on a cruise of the Hawkesberry River and Cowan Waters through Kuringai National Park. Here the steep sided bush tumbles down sandstone cliffs to waterways that can only be described as spectacular. Minutes from the hussle of Sydney and yet so serene. You shouldn’t miss this. Or if you want go go a little further afield then catch the ferry across Broken Bay to the village of Ettalong on the New South Wales Central Coast. You can listen to a podcast on Ettalong Beach in the free audio guides of Australia on this site. Information on the Palm Beach Ferry here and in a fast 30 minute crossing of Broken Bay you will be able to view Barrenjoey Lighthouse from the sea.

Another great day out or a longer stay is at The Basin camping and picnic ground. Part of the Kuringai Chase National Park and provides picnic and camping facilities for 400 campers. Information can be found on the Department of Environment and Climate Change web site. It’s great for family, friends or larger organised groups and amenities at the Basin include toilets and showers, laundry, electric BBQs and under cover tables. The Basin is a great spot for swimming, bush walking trails, and viewing Aboriginal Rock Art engravings. As it is a part of the Kuringai Chase National Park native wildlife abounds including Kangaroos, Wallabies, Goannas, Koalas as well as prolific birdlife and the easiest access is to take a ferry from Palm Beach Wharf. Information on ferries in the area can be obtained from the Palm Beach Ferry website.

On the Pacific Ocean, the surf side of Palm Beach is where you see most of the Home and Away “Summer Bay”, beach scenes. There are long stretches of golden sand tinged with red and plenty of beach to find yourself a tranquil spot. It is best to follow the beach safety directions of the surf lifesavers and swim between the flags. Beaches in Australia are beautiful but all can hold some hidden dangers. You can listen to a podcast about beach safety in Australia here.

Don’t just visit Sydney get out of the city and see more with a light carbon footprint day tour of the Central Coast.

Auckland New Zealand late 1800s

In 1889 some 800 women in Auckland were said to be “soiled doves” which if true meant that about 8% of the female population between the ages of 15 and 40 were prostitutes. The reason for so many being “on the game” was more economics and demographics in the new colony rather than the inherent morality of the inhabitants. Unemployment was rife, with most immigrants arriving without pre-arranged employment.

Evening Post 21 January 1887

In the 1840s there were about three men for every woman living in New Zealand. This balance improved in the 1850s but worsened again in the 1860s when shiploads of men arrived for the Coromandel gold rush. In 1871 Auckland had five bachelors for every two spinsters and interracial marriage with Maori was a rare event. In fact Maori men also outnumbered Maori women. This gender imbalance improved as the century turned.

Economically, New Zealand was going through hard times in the late nineteenth century.To give you an idea of how tough the times were the Wellington Evening Post, edition of 12 December 1885 quoted the following Auckland breakdown of the figures for the unemployed; Labourers – 220; carpenters -59, bricklayers – 15 ; platelayers – 10, other artisans – 158; total, 442. There are also 200 wives and 603 children dependent on the married men.

And by June 1887 life had not got any better…

Grey River Argus
“Auckland, June 20. A distribution of food to the poor took place this morning, the demand exceeding the supply. The food, which was presented by a number of citizens, was given to 187 families, representing 854 people.”

The 1880s and 1890s are known as the long depression in New Zealand with widespread unemployment marked the 1880s. Emigrant ships discharged their passengers at ports where unemployment was already rife and especially in the winters when there was no seasonal work to be had on the land there was visible hardship and distress. Immigrants who had arrived, primarily from England and Scotland in the 1870s began to send less positive messages home and the free settlement ship passages ended. Fewer new settlers arrived, and people began to leave looking for work and, as many New Zealanders today, many went to Australia, where Marvellous Melbourne was experiencing a boom brought on by the gold strikes.

In 1888 about 10,000 more people left New Zealand than arrived, and in the years from 1881 to 1900 the net gain from migration was only about 40,000 (almost 100,000 less than in the decade of the 1870s). By the dawn of the 20th century New Zealand had fewer foreign-born people than 20 years before and the proportion of the non-Maori population who were born overseas went from a half to under a third.
In the towns, work was very difficult to find – high competition for the few jobs available meant that employers could pay extremely low wages to employees. Sweatshops of women and children appeared (working 72 hour weeks), and when an investigation was called into workplaces of New Zealand, a full-scale scandal resulted – the workplaces of NZ were like the ones back in Britain!

The Sweater

(Poem from the Lyttelton Times, 23 March 1884)

Who robs the widow of her right,
By work that takes her day and night,
To earn her poor starvation mite?
The Sweater.

Who is it who makes girls go astray,
To earn their bread in a sinful way,
Because for work he will not pay?
The Sweater.

Who is that will cheat and lie,
And every cunning trick will try,
His greed of gain to satisfy?
The Sweater.

Who is the vilest, meanest thief,
That trades in flesh and blood and grief,
Till from his fangs death brings relief?
The Sweater.

He is society’s disgrace,
And must be told so to his face;
So out with him, leave him no place,
The Sweater.

Women, put in the invidious position of having to feed themselves and their families, were easy pickings for pimps.  With the foreshore reclamation of Auckland Harbour, Fore St evolved into Fort St and by the 1880s it was the haunt of prostitutes. Customers were led into the back lanes amongst the barrels or even further into the decrepit laneways and slums off Chancery Lane and Queen Street became known for as a “parade for immoral characters”.

Hear the stories of historical Auckland and don’t miss out on the best parts of both new and old with an Audio Tour of Auckland.

Site of former Gun Alley Melbourne

80 Collins St, Melbourne now stands on what was once an area of small laneways and buildings with a variety of businesses including hotels.

Murder in Gun Alley

Early in the morning on New Year’s Eve 1921 a man and his daughter were collecting bottles to sell and instead of bottles, in Gun Alley off Little Collins St, he finds, the naked body of a young girl.

She had been raped and strangled. Her reddish golden hair lying stretched out and her legs folded up partially beneath her. Quickly gathering up his daughter he goes to a local butcher’s shop and telephones the Police.

Alma Tirtschke Victim Gun Alley Murder

The girl’s name is discovered to be Alma Tirtschke who lived in the nearby suburb of Jolimont with her grandmother. She had been sent the previous day to a butcher’s in Swanston St where her Uncle John worked as a secretary. She was to have collected a parcel of smallgoods and returned directly to her Aunt’s house, left the parcel and then continued home. She had never made it home.

Like many of the laneways of Melbourne “Gun Alley” was lost during the vast redevelopment of the Melbourne CBD cityscape in the 1970′s but the story of young Alma’s tragic murder and the conviction and hanging of Colin Campbell Ross for her murder has not been lost and is just one example of the stories behind the cityscape you will hear on Talk’N Tours “Marvelous Melbourne” audio tour. If you are traveling to Melbourne, don’t miss out on the audio tour that will bring your visit alive.

And the postscript to this story:

Colin Campbell Ross Convicted of Murder

On May 27th, 2008 Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced that Colin Campbell Ross was posthumously pardoned. After an extraordinary examination of facts found he was wrongly convicted of killing a schoolgirl in Victoria’s Gun Alley murder. The unprecedented pardon had been granted – 86 years after Ross was hanged.

Of course no murderer has been named but you listen to the story and see if you don’t end up with a very good idea of who really should have been charged and hung!