Cassowary Crossing

CAMPBELL TOWN, TAS – Alfred Barrett Biggs’ made the first long-distance telephone call Australia. In 1876, having cribbed Bell’s design from the English Mechanic magazine, Biggs rigged his wooden receiver onto the railway’s telegraph line.
He next rubbed a pencil over the receiver. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked the stationmaster far off in Launceston, about […]

BAIRNSDALE, V – For six shillings a day, back in 1931, Frank Floreani painted heaven and hell and purgatory in St Mary’s Cathedral.
He did the saints too, each man holding a symbol of his own martyrdom. He shows a smouldering soul trying in vain to clamber onto the balustrade. The fresco is both eye-popping and […]

AGNEW, WA – Story goes, the former owner of the ‘Agnew Hilton’ used to offer fish and chips as a counter meal. Unfortunately the fish comprised a tin of John West sardines, and the chips, a pack of Samboys.
Any complaints could be directed to the pub’s Managing Director, being the name of the owner’s […]

Merry new year one & all.
To crack the calendar open, I’ll be handpicking eccentric entries from the Cassowary Crossing guidebook, an A-Z of bizarre stories and places to visit around Oz.
The picks-of-the-crop will be appearing, three a week, from now till Z, as well as the regular Birdbrain puzzles to make sure you’re awake.
The Big […]