On the road to Canberra..

It’s been there since I can remember (if it’s the blue metal thing that looks like a navigation device).

It’s a sheep flinger. Everyone knows that.

It was constructed by a sculptor, and the farmer who owned the land allowed him to put it there, as the artist chose that spot, particularly because he thought it would suit the landscape. It is actually quite a well constructed piece, and has been there over 30 years, I would say.

The thing on the hill 10 kms this side of Cooma is a stylised kangaroo, on the hop.
This is local knowledge.

I know it was about the same time that the artwork went up but I don’t recall if the two events are/were connected. Though, I must say that it was a grand time to be in the sleepy little town of ‘Coma’ when 10,000 or so “Friends of the Earth” descended into town (or more accurately onto the banks of the ‘Bidgee near Dromore) for their festival.

Two indecents that I recall were:

The chap who walked into “Joys Fashion Fabrics” and paid for some material for a new lap-lap/sarong type thingy. He even paid for the ladies to stitch a tie on each end so it would stay in place and then he promptly dropped his old one and put on the new in the store. Ladies were fainting for days afterwards. Apparently underwear was optional.

Or the young lady who washed her clothing in the sinks in the park dunny and then hung them to dry on the bandstand. She sat and waited for them to dry. … but the only problem was that they were the only clothes she had at the time. Sitting starkers in the park (albeit sitting there very clean) was still too much for the local constabulary to accept.

There were many stories going about at the time of people bonking in the tree house in the park and I recall hearing about Junie Morosi flashing her breasts in the Bredbo Pub to some oggling locals. I do know that the hippies charged non-participants an entry fee to go in and have a look around the campsite/township, though not that many locals took up the offer *L*

Thanks to the Snowy Scheme, Cooma was very much a multicultural and cosmopolitan town (for it’s time) with 7 Nightclubs, 6 Pubs and 3 or 4 Clubs. Other than going to Sydney, if you wanted to get have a drink and a dance after midnight in the 60’s and late 70’s, then Cooma was about the only other place you could go… but being cosmopolitan didn’t mean that the Cooma people were as open minded as the hippies would have liked hehehe.

I think the sculpture was built at the time of the late ’70s ‘Down to Earth’ Festival that was held nearby on the banks of the Murrumbidgee. Down to Earth was an alternative lifestyle movement with Dr Jim Cairns as one of its leading lights.

Thanks all.
I do prefer the Alien landing site suggestion….perhaps thats the one Ill use if asked.

It’s the same sculpture DoppelFrog – the initial post was talking about the sculpture on “the left”, but driving in the other direction.

What’s the ‘other’ scultpure then ? It’s on your right driving towards Cooma from Canberra (or it used to be), and it looks like a tangle of metal beams.

Thumper. .

I grew up in Cooma, and knowing some of my old mates… well, if they don’t land there now Im sure they used to at some stage hehehehe