Tim The Yowie Man delves into the history of the Tuggeranong Homestead

The Canberra Times

During World War II, the nearby Stranger Hill Reserve was used by the Royal Australian Air Force squadrons for ‘bombing practice’.

Transcript

00:00If I was standing on this hill during World War II, I may have needed one of these.

00:09Not because of enemy aircraft, but because of practice bombing.

00:14During World War II, three Royal Australian Air Force squadrons used this area to drop

00:21chalk bombs in metal casings.

00:25In later life, local farmer Merv Edlington remembered in quite graphic detail his close

00:32encounter with one of those chalk dust bombs.

00:38By gee, I had to duck one day.

00:40A plane came so low that I got covered with the leaves off the tree I was under.

00:46The wing of the plane chopped them off.

00:49The horse I'd been riding took off and took a week to catch.

00:55Earlier in World War I, the area was slated as an arsenal with 4,000 people and their families

01:02to move here to manufacture armaments.

01:05With Tuggeranong Homestead as the administrative centre.

01:09Thankfully, the war ended before the arsenal came to fruition.

01:15Instead, at Tuggeranong Homestead at the end of the war, Charles Bean and his team moved

01:21in and used it as a base to research and write the history of Australia's part in the Great

01:29War.

01:31In more recent times, the homestead, one of the region's more historical pastoral properties,

01:36has become an events centre.

01:38But on rare open days, you can still see links to its colourful past.

01:47Places like this convict barn built in the late 1830s, when adding a concrete floor to

01:52house his Model T Ford, Bean apparently found an iron shackle here from the convict times.

01:59You can also see the remains of what, according to local folklore at least, was a whipping post.

02:06This restored a furphy water tank.

02:08Of course, these Aussie icons have a connection to World War One as well.

02:12They were used to cut water for Australian army personnel at Gallipoli and the Middle East

02:17and other places.

02:18The carts became popular as gathering places where soldiers could exchange gossip, rumours

02:23and fanciful tales.

02:25Much like today's water cooler discussions.

02:28Hence the word furphy entered our lexicon.

02:33And this senescent willow tree, believed to have been planted in the 1830s from a cutting

02:40collected from a tree shading Napoleon's grave on the island of St Helena.

02:48Oh and not to forget this old cricket pitch.

02:51It's the oldest concrete cricket pitch in Canberra.

02:55It was added for recreation during the Bean era.

02:58A word of caution though, they ran out of concrete, so it's a few yards short of a standard length.

03:04Which means, if you are facing a fast bowler, you might need one of these.

03:09Peace!

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03:38Peace!

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