We took a long drive yesterday – up to Glen Innes, then east on the Gwydir Highway for a short way, and then on the old Glen Innes to Grafton road to Nymboida. It’s beautiful country, mostly winding along the river valleys between the steep hills of the Gibralter Range. It was a gorgeous, sun-filled autumn day – the perfect day to explore old byways.
Morning tea was at a riverside picnic area, where we had this view of Tommy’s Rock through the trees. The casuarina trees and pines give quite a Canadian impression, but its definitely Australia!
Further a long the road, at the ‘locality’ of Newton Boyd, there is little evidence left of the community that sent around 30 of its young men off to the Great War of 1914-1918. The War Memorial, on a bend of the lonely dirt road, records the names of those men, and the 8 who died.
The names on this memorial are all for the First World War; there have been none added for the Second – suggesting that the population decline had already hit the area by the 1940s. However, the fading wreath laid at the foot of the Memorial was evidence that someone – or perhaps a group of nearby residents – remembered these soldiers on ANZAC Day (our day of remembrance), just two days before we were there.
