Memories and Memorials

I had intended to drive past the old Ipswich Showground gates on our proposed route, where I planned to tell the girls the first of my interesting family history snippets.  We didn't but I told them anyway.

In 1939, my father was to go fishing in Moreton Bay with a group of his mates.  Unfortunately, my half-brother Roy had a really bad asthma attack, so Dad decided not to go; which was just as well because the boat and all on board were never seen again. You can read about it here. https://www.ipswichlibraries.com.au/the-fateful-voyage-of-the-nerita/

After we had changed into the first of our road trip outfits, we walked down the road to the Ipswich Jets Rugby League Club. We passed no 26 Downs Street, which is a beautiful old Ipswich house that I planned to photograph the following morning - along with the Jets Club, which is in a former Ipswich corner pub - but the weather had other ideas.

It turned out to be the weekly trivia night, but were a bit late and we were told that the room was probably full, so we decided to give it a miss and just concentrate on our food.

On our way back to the Motel Monaco, we walked along the eastern side of Downs Street, past Browns Park.  There is a memorial fountain there, built in memory of one James Sangster, who died in the 1893 floods, while trying to rescue two women who were clinging to a tree.  The interesting thing was that there were quite a few wreaths at the base of this memorial.

They were dried out, but not too old, so couldn't have commemorated the death of Mr Sangster who died in February.  Several were Lest-We-Forget type wreaths, and we could see from the business cards attached that some had been placed there by local politicians. But this is not a war memorial. If anyone can tell us the story, we'd love to know. (We passed the Leichhardt war memorial next morning and there were no wreaths there.) 

Next morning I woke early next to the front window and waited patiently for the sun to rise.  It didn't happen.  I took a better look and realised there was a decent fog outside. Like any good photographer, I hopped out of bed and wandered the streets of North Ipswich in my nightie, and was only sprung by one young man on a bicycle.  The sleepyheads in Room 8 missed it completely.

Once they had roused themselves, we dressed in our animal print clothing and headed for Riverlink Shopping Centre just down the road, to have a cafe breakfast.  This shopping centre is interesting on a couple of levels, one being that the railway line from the centre of town to the railway workshops at North Ipswich runs right through it, so it is the only centre I know that has a pedestrian level crossing in the middle.


The other is that many locals were upset that the development would overwhelm a historic old stone bridge, the Heiner Road Overpass, that was built over the short railway branch line to the wharves.  The solution was to incorporate it into the design of the shopping centre as well. Nice work, Ipswich.

After breakfast and banking, we headed for Lifeline in the centre as soon as it opened. A nice shop, but only 50c worth there for me.  It was also the only place on this trip where I found a serious spelling mistake.  The sign on the change room said '3 ITEMS ONLEY'. 

On the plus side, it has an upstairs level that is totally devoted to weddings.  And I mean not just bridal gowns, but sets of bridesmaids dresses, flower girl and pageboy outfits, men's suits, table decorations... Ipswich is the place for a budget wedding, folks.  And I happen to know that the Workshops Railway Museum just up the road is a great spot to get married. 

We were a bit obsessed all day with animal prints, since we were wearing them, and one of the best we found was in this Lifeline store.  Here's Jan with the animal-print mermaid number.

We drove back to the motel and parked in our allotted space, because the Red Cross shop was literally next door and it was now open.  We were greeted by a rather flamboyant young woman, compete with floral headdress, but somehow I forgot to photograph her. Gobsmacked, perhaps?

I did, however, find my first entry in the interesting book competition: not just interesting but relevant to our home life, if you know our cat, Fang.

Now it was time to leave Ipswich, with half of its opppies still to be explored by us at some other time, but the Lockyer Valley beckoned.







As we headed west, I took the girls on one more little detour to see another site from my family history.  We stopped at the Wulkuraka railway bridge where my paternal grandfather was killed in 1927, when he was hit by a train.