Brayshaw's hut

interior, brayshaw's hut
Originally uploaded by moncur_d.

As well asbeing Easter Sunday today is the first day of daylight saving in Canberra, and suddenly it's autumn with all the non native trees turning yellow, red and gold, the heating is starting to come on in the mornings and the evenings.

Autumn is one of the nicest times of the year in Canberra, lazy and golden, after the heat of summer and before the cold of winter.

Neither of us felt much like working or gardening so we drove out to Brayshaw's hut, an 1890's preserved graziers hut on the southren edge of Namadgi National Park, and looking much as it did when new. Traditional, slabsided, two rooms,with a fireplace at one end it gives an indication about what life must have been like.

The slabs are sections of tree trunk set vertically. The caulking between the slabs has long since gone, hence the 'see-through' effect. In places there are fragments of newspaper still stuck to the interior walls - in the old days they used to paper the walls with newspaper to give a final finish. Sometimes they painted over the surface - sometimes not.

(There are some slighly newer huts at Ororal valley which have a better set of newspaper remnants)

Brayshaw's hut was inhabited until 1931 until, old Mr Brayshaw fell off his horse on the way home from what was eupemistically described as a 'good lunch' with his brother who had a neighbouring property.