Wandering in the Bicentennial Park Part 2

I’m back again to finish my wander in the park in my lunch break.

I briefly mentioned “The Cairn” in the last post.

Here it is a bit closer.

Next year, Bathurst commemorates its Bicentenary – the oldest inland settlement in Australia (although not the oldest City, Goulburn was declared a city before us).  There are lots of plans being made for the celebrations.

The circular wall surrounding the cairn has plaques of many pioneering families.

We will now start to wander back the way we came. 

However, this time we will detour through the Peace Garden.

It didn’t look like this when I was a kid.  The steps were there and the bust and plaques, but it was overgrown and a mess.

 

As well as tidying up the steps area an addition was made to the Peace Garden.

I love visiting here.

This was a community project.  The local brickworks provided the blocks of 5 bricks, which were still attached to each other, and hadn’t been fired.  Community members or groups could obtain one or more of these blanks and carve them.  The idea was to have round sections top and bottom and rails in the middle section.  They were then returned and fired at the brickworks.  There is so much creativity here.  Let’s have a look at just a little few.

There are some that are just patterns, some have Australian themes.

Some have political and peace themes.  Notice the Amnesty International symbol on the left hand one below.

And the special thing for me is to find the one below with the “88” on it, as my Dad made it.  He would say he was not at all artistic, but he got involved in the project and his simple designs really stand out.

His second contribution is the block on the left with 1788-1988 carved in it.  It is a nice legacy he has left.

And then it was time to go back to work.  I really enjoyed my couple of strolls in the parks.  I may have to venture somewhere else one day.