Adaminaby, New South Wales
Encyclopedia
Snowy Mountains
The Snowy Mountains, known informally as "The Snowies", are the highest Australian mountain range and contain the Australian mainland's highest mountain, Mount Kosciuszko, which reaches 2,228 metres AHD, approximately 7310 feet....
located north-west of Cooma
Cooma, New South Wales
-Education: is Cooma's only public high school, it serves the town and seven of the neighbouring rural towns and villages such as Berridale, Jindabyne, Nimmitabel, Bredbo and Dalgety....
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, in the Snowy River Shire.
The historic town, of about 234 people, is a trout fishing centre and winter sports destination situated at 1017 metres (3,336.6 ft) above sea level. It is one of the highest towns in Australia, and snowfalls are not uncommon during winter. The construction of nearby Lake Eucumbene
Lake Eucumbene
Lake Eucumbene is a man-made lake on the Eucumbene River in the Snowy Mountains of Southern New South Wales in Australia. The lake was created by the damming of the river as part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The dam was built between 1956 and 1958....
made it necessary to re-locate the original Township of Adaminaby in 1957. The present township is located on the Snowy Mountains Highway
Snowy Mountains Highway
The Snowy Mountains Highway is a state highway in New South Wales, Australia which traverses the Snowy Mountains.The highway runs across the highland region in the southern part of the State. It starts at its junction with the Hume Highway near Gundagai...
and is known as the "Home of The Big Trout
Big Trout
The Big Trout is a 10m high fibreglass model located in Adaminaby, New South Wales, a popular fishing spot for trout. Built in 1973 by local artist and fisherman, Andy Lomnici, the Big Trout is part of the more than 150 Big Things located throughout Australia...
". In times of drought, the original township and relics of the old valley re-emerge from under the waters of the lake.
Today, Adminaby is a popular destination for horse riders, bushwalkers, fly-fishermen and water sports enthusiasts as well as a base for viewing aspects of the Snowy Mountains Scheme
Snowy Mountains Scheme
The Snowy Mountains scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. It consists of sixteen major dams; seven power stations; a pumping station; and 225 kilometres of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts and was constructed between 1949 and 1974. The Chief engineer was Sir...
.
History
The Snowy Mountains region was an important gathering point for the Aborigines of the Adaminaby and surrounding districts for many thousands of years, with inter-tribal summer meetings being held in the High Country involving up to a thousand people for feasting on the Bogong MothBogong moth
The Bogong moth is a temperate species of night-flying moth notable for appearing in large numbers around major public buildings in Canberra, the capital city of Australia, during spring as it migrates to the High Plains. The moth's name 'Bogong' is the same as the mountain ranges on the High...
. This practice continued until around 1865.
Man From Snowy River Country
Europeans penetrated the district from the late 1820s and Adaminaby first began to develop as an agricultural centre from the 1830s, with sheep and cattle becoming an economic mainstay. Some historians believe that Banjo PatersonBanjo Paterson
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood...
's most famous poem, "The Man From Snowy River
The Man From Snowy River
"The Man from Snowy River" is a poem by Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson. It was first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 26th April 1890....
", may have been inspired by the exploits of an Adaminaby stockman, Charlie McKeahnie
Charlie McKeahnie
Charles Lachlan "Charlie Mac" McKeahnie was an Australian horseman born in Gudgenby, ACT to Alexander and Mary McKeahnie into a family of five sisters...
. McKeahnie died in a riding accident in 1895 and is now buried in the Old Adaminaby Cemetery on the shores of Lake Eucumbene. Paterson's character, the Man From Snowy River, is most likely a composite character
Composite character
A composite character is a character composed of two or more individuals, appearing in a fictional or non-fictional work. Two fictional characters are often combined into one upon adaptation of a work from one medium to another, as in the film adaptation of a novel...
, based on various people involved in brumby
Brumby
A Brumby is a free-roaming feral horse in Australia. Although found in many areas around the country, the best-known brumbies are found in the Australian Alps region in south-eastern Australia. Today, most of them are found in the Northern Territory, with the second largest population in Queensland...
hunts such as were conducted in the Adaminaby district.
Paterson was not the only Australian writer to find inspiration at Adaminaby - the poet Barcroft Boake
Barcroft Boake
Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake was an Australian poet.Born in Sydney, Boake worked as a surveyor and a boundary rider, but is best remembered for his poetry, a volume of which was published five years after his death....
also wrote about McKeahnie's ride in "On the Range", in which McKeahnie chases down a well bred horse which had escaped with a brumby
Brumby
A Brumby is a free-roaming feral horse in Australia. Although found in many areas around the country, the best-known brumbies are found in the Australian Alps region in south-eastern Australia. Today, most of them are found in the Northern Territory, with the second largest population in Queensland...
mob of wild horses; while Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winning author Patrick White
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White , an Australian author, is widely regarded as an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative...
worked as a jackaroo at Adaminaby's Bolaro Station in the 1930s.
In addition to agriculture, the fortunes of the town were affected by the discovery of gold at nearby Kiandra in 1859 and subsequent introduction of recreational skiing to the district around 1861, when Scandinavian gold prospectors are reputed to have strapped fence posts to their boots and slid down the snowbound hills of a landscape too frozen for mining. Kiandra's ski facilities were permanently shifted "up the hill" to Selwyn Snowfields
Selwyn snowfields
Selwyn Snowfields is a small ski resort in the northern part of the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, in the Snowy River Shire and Kosciuszko National Park...
in 1978 and Adaminaby remains the main service centre for the Northern skifields - one of the oldest areas for recreational skiing in the world.
Early graziers used the high country wilderness above Adaminaby as summer pastureland. The area was set aside as a National Chase in 1906 and later became the Kosciuszko National Park
Kosciuszko National Park
Kosciuszko National Park covers 690,000 hectares and contains mainland Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko for which it is named, and Cabramurra the highest town in Australia...
. Today the area is renowned for its historic huts and access to unique wilderness areas, including the Mount Jagungal
Mount Jagungal
Mount Jagungal is a mountain within the Jagungal Wilderness Area of the Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales, Australia. At 2061 metres AHD, Mount Jagungal surpasses any elevation except for peaks in the Main Range and Gungartan . Because it stands alone in an extensive plain Mount Jagungal...
Wilderness Area.
Relocation of the original township
The most momentous episode in the town's history, came with the construction of the vast network of tunnels and dams of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, which began at Adaminaby in 1949. A lake nine times the volume of Sydney Harbour eventually flooded the valley in which the original townsite lay. A prolonged drought saw the ruins of the old township begin to resurface in April 2007, attracting the attention of global media - and even comparisons to the mythical city of AtlantisAtlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
The remarkable story of Adaminaby's relocation was the subject of film produced by the Snowy Mountains Authority Film Unit in 1958, entitled "Operation Adaminaby" (to see clips click here. It was also was the subject of a 2001 documentary by historian Jeannine Baker, entitled "Our Drowned Town", which screened on SBS Television. Entire houses, and even the Commercial Bank Building were transported on the back of trucks and over 100 buildings were re-erected at the new townsite. Transportation of the first house from Old Adaminaby to New Adaminaby (a distance of just six miles) took six days. Today a tourist village has been built around the handful of buildings which were not relocated from the newly created lakeshore at Old Adaminaby.
The current town served as a construction hub during the building of the Snowy Scheme. The distinctive "architecture" of the buildings in the main street, defined by cost and engineering requirements of the time, is similar to the main street of Tallangatta, Victoria
Tallangatta, Victoria
Tallangatta is a small town in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. At the 2006 census, Tallangatta had a population of 950.The town is situated on the banks of the Mitta Arm of Lake Hume, approximately south-east of Albury-Wodonga along the Murray Valley Highway.-History:Tallangatta was founded in...
, which was reconstructed around the same time and for similar purposes. A Snowy Mountains Scheme Museum is planned to be constructed in the town.
In September, 2007, Adaminaby recognised the 50th anniversary of its move to the new town site. The weekend of remembrance and celebration recognised the physical and emotional trauma exacted by the relocation.
Home of the Big Trout
The town is a popular base from which to fish on Lake EucumbeneLake Eucumbene
Lake Eucumbene is a man-made lake on the Eucumbene River in the Snowy Mountains of Southern New South Wales in Australia. The lake was created by the damming of the river as part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The dam was built between 1956 and 1958....
and surrounding rivers and the town centre features a large sculpture of a trout
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
, standing 10 metres (32.8 ft) high. Commonly known as the Big Trout
Big Trout
The Big Trout is a 10m high fibreglass model located in Adaminaby, New South Wales, a popular fishing spot for trout. Built in 1973 by local artist and fisherman, Andy Lomnici, the Big Trout is part of the more than 150 Big Things located throughout Australia...
, it was one of the earliest of Australia's Big Things
Australia's Big Things
The Big Things of Australia are a loosely related set of large structures or sculptures. There are estimated to be over 150 such objects around the country, the first being the Big Scotsman in Medindie, Adelaide, which was built in 1963....
and in May 2006, the lake Eucumbene Chamber of Commerce adopted the tourist attraction as a marketing and promotional 'brand'. The Big Trout was built by Andy Lomnici and was restored and repainted by Skins Alive in January 2007, with funding from the Snowy River Shire Council.
Claims to Fame
- Resting place of Charlie McKeahnieCharlie McKeahnieCharles Lachlan "Charlie Mac" McKeahnie was an Australian horseman born in Gudgenby, ACT to Alexander and Mary McKeahnie into a family of five sisters...
, claimed by some as the original "Man From Snowy RiverThe Man From Snowy River"The Man from Snowy River" is a poem by Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson. It was first published in The Bulletin, an Australian news magazine, on 26th April 1890....
". - Gateway to the Northern NSW Snowfields and Mount SelwynSelwyn snowfieldsSelwyn Snowfields is a small ski resort in the northern part of the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, in the Snowy River Shire and Kosciuszko National Park...
- the oldest ski district in Australia, where recreational skiing has been conducted since 1861. - Site where construction of the Snowy Mountains SchemeSnowy Mountains SchemeThe Snowy Mountains scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. It consists of sixteen major dams; seven power stations; a pumping station; and 225 kilometres of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts and was constructed between 1949 and 1974. The Chief engineer was Sir...
began in 1949. - Along with Jindabyne, Talbingo and Tallangatta, Adaminaby is one of a unique collection of Australian towns which were moved to make way for dam construction.
- In 1959 Hollywood came to the newly resituated Adaminaby race course for the filming of "The SundownersThe SundownersThe Sundowners is a 1960 film that tells the story of an Australian outback family torn between the father's desires to continue his nomadic sheep-herding ways and the wife's and son's desire to settle down in one place...
", starring Robert MitchumRobert MitchumRobert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
, Peter UstinovPeter UstinovPeter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
, and Deborah KerrDeborah KerrDeborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
. - In 1984, the Adaminaby Race Track doubled for Mexico in the Australian horse-bio-pic "Phar Lap (film)Phar Lap (film)Phar Lap is a 1983 film about the Australian racehorse Phar Lap. The film starred Tom Burlinson and was written by famous Australian playwright David Williamson.-Plot:...
", starring Tom BurlinsonTom BurlinsonTom Burlinson is an Australian actor and singer.He attended Pittwater High School on Sydney's Northern Beaches and was the School Captain in his final year...
. - Home of the World's Largest TroutBig TroutThe Big Trout is a 10m high fibreglass model located in Adaminaby, New South Wales, a popular fishing spot for trout. Built in 1973 by local artist and fisherman, Andy Lomnici, the Big Trout is part of the more than 150 Big Things located throughout Australia...
. - Site of the Snowy Scheme Museum (Currently under construction).
External links
- Photos old Adaminaby and new Adaminaby
- Official website of Adaminaby
- Adaminaby page at regional website.
- Listing and history at smh.com
- Lake Eucumbene Chamber of Commerce
- Barcroft Boake poems of Adaminaby and district.
- Snowy Hydro
- http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/nsw/content/2006/s2058617.htm
