I Met A Fairy In A Garden In Nairne

Back in 1839 Matthew Smillie arrived in South Australia from Leith, Scotland and bought 4000 acres of green undulating land in what is known today as Hay Valley. He was far too important a man to farm the land himself but he invited settlers to take up tenant farming and surveyed part of the land to establish a village settlement which he named Nairne in honour of his wife’s maiden name.

We visited Nairne on our way home from Hahndorf.  I'd ridden from Mount Barker to Hahndorf, an expedition which was barely 13km in length and took me the better part of two hours due to multiple stops for photographs and the necessity of walking up steep hills.

There was a tunnel too, relieving me of the necessity to play dodgems with the freeway.

I saw 'Fire Track' and knew I would be walking soon.

It was a beautiful day for walking up hills.

I like cattle.

I couldn't resist a photo, but must confess I continued on my very nice downhill gravel fire track rather than the unmaintained trail to Totness.

The main street of Nairne was very quiet, particularly after Hahndorf on a Saturday morning. We walked up one side of the street and down the other, along the way finding the Nairne bakery which was allegedly the best bakery in the Hills but shush, don't tell anyone else, because the locals (and we're here for 5 weeks, so count ourselves local) want to keep it to themselves.  Market research to be conducted at a later date.

Meet Malcolm. He won't say hello in return though.

Just up the road from Malcolm I stumbled across the remains of a magnificent red gum to which (allegedly) prisoners were chained during change of guard or at other times when restraint was deemed necessary. T'was a grand old river gum, so the story goes, and lasted until just before Nairne's centenary when, in a fit of public safety, the powers that be deemed it riddled with white ants and chopped it down.  On closer examination it was discovered that the tree didn't have white ants after all but oops, it was not possible to un-chop a chopped-up tree and so the stump was preserved instead.

It doesn't have quite the same presence as a big tree, though.

Once the District Hotel, Nairne.  Police quarters and jail were in the basement.  I'm not sure what the local policeman thought about that.

We wandered happily over to the train station, remembering at the last minute to pay attention because this was, after all, the main freight line to Melbourne so some level of situational awareness was prudent whilst wandering.

Nairne railway station had seen better days.

No freight trains.

Just down the hill lay the old flour mill, now a private residence and thus off limits for wandering.  

It wasn't the first flour mill in Nairne: that was the one built in 1842 by John Dunn, which took the honour of being the first  wind-driven mill in the State.  By 1864 John Dunn owned this one as well: it was steam driven and in no time at all the surrounding area was denuded of trees felled to feed the mill.  The mill closed in 1906 and I'm glad to report that the trees have made an impressive comeback in the last 120ish years.

In front of the mill was a garden and in the garden was a fairy all sparkling and pink, blowing large and iridescent bubbles in a carefree, fairy-like way. We chatted, the fairy and I, and she blew bubbles for me. Some of them were very big and one floated lazily up to the main street before popping gently in front of a very confused bird.

She was very clever, blowing all sizes of bubbles using just her bare hands and a bucket of special fairy bubble mixture.

"I just finished a fairy bubble party," said the fairy. "I had more bubble mixture left so I found a garden and made more bubbles. I like doing that." She gave me her card. I put it carefully in my pocket because you never know when you might need a fairy to come blow bubbles in your garden. 

We went home to the dog.  After all, how better to end the day than with meeting a fairy?

A flower to finish the day.