Monday 11 April 2016

Goodbye Grottoes

Sadly/happily, I have now left the misty Blue Mountains and moved to the open plains of Castlemaine in central Victoria. 

There are a couple of grottoes I failed to photograph while living in the Blue Mountains, namely the dilapidated one that exists on a track down a hill behind the Katoomba Falls Kiosk near Scenic World in Katoomba. When I did my talk on grottoes in 2015 at Pecha Kucha (grotto talk), a young boy told me about it, and how he has turned into his own private cubby house. There's also another grotto in the lower mountains on a walking track that I lost the directions to that someone else told me about - bad bad researcher!


So, if anyone cares to continue with photos for this blog, send me an email and I'll post them here and credit you: thecarrotjoke[at]gmail.com


Also, my blog about my arts practice and 'deathie' stuff is here: www.thecarrotjoke.blogspot.com 

Thanks, it's been fun!






P/S
I wrote extensively about grottoes in my Masters exegesis (still being assessed), from their history in Baroque landscape architecture and as devotional grottoes - aswell as discuss my own use of the grotto in my practice and other artists who have used the grotto in their work. Here's a little snippet particularly about the Blue Mountains grottoes that may be of interest, cut and paste from my exegesis:

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Colonial Australian landscape design adopted the English Landscaping School of the 1800s. The ‘Picturesque Movement’ eradicated geometric designs and embraced designs that replicated nature.[1] This familiar design served English settlers well as the recognisable English foliage mitigated homesickness. Building a grotto on one’s property was often part of this plan and so the grotesque also made its way into Australian landscape design.

The Blue Mountains in New South Wales hosts a number of artificial grottoes (known locally as picnic huts) sitting silently in town parks and deteriorating slowly from concrete cancer. Here, they are not found in private gardens but exist in public parks. The history of these grottoes dates back to the post-WWII period when teams of returned servicemen were put to work to create picnic huts and shelters particularly in the upper Blue Mountains towns of Katoomba and Leura. The creation of the grottoes, which were made from cement-rendered steel, was most likely led by Tom Adams.[2] Adams was a landscape designer who also built similar structures at Taronga Park Zoo, notably Monkey Hill that now houses mountain goats [see figure above]. There is scant information on Tom Adams and his projects in the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains City Council and local historians are aware of his importance to local history yet little documentation exists on record.



[1] Hambrett, J 2006, Rise of the Australian Plant Garden, A Short History of Australian Garden Design, viewed 25 July 2015, http://anpsa.org.au/design/rise.html
[2] Mount Victoria, The Crossing Town on the Edge, Mount Victoria Memorial Park, the grottos and the war memorial, viewed 25 July 2015, http://mountvictoria.org.au/our-great-places/the-imperial-park-zoo

Image credit: Mandy G., Goat Hill, Taronga Zoo, Sydney, 2014, digital image, viewed 1 July 2015, http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g552107-d257406-i91334615-Taronga_Zoo-Mosman_Greater_Sydney_New_South_Wales.html

Thursday 18 February 2016

Leura Cascades

Leura Cascades has some magnificent examples of grottoes.

Here's a link to the site and the walks in the area, it's a beautiful place to explore: Leura Cascades

The Picnic Hut:




The Archway to the walk:




The toilet facilities!
Men's entrance:


Ladies entrance:



Saturday 24 January 2015

Gordon Reserve, Leura

My local grottoes are also my favourites. These two can be found in the park at Gordon Reserve, kids climb over them weekly, they are very popular.







Wednesday 26 March 2014

The Gully

This ugly monolith sits at the edge of an old swimming lake in The Gully (officially Frank Walford Park) and behind the Katoomba Aquatic Centre.

The Gully was given back in 2005 to the Gundungurra and Darug peoples after they were forcibly removed for the building of Catalina Raceway (remnants still remain) in 1957. You can read more about this area here: Catalina Park/The Gully and here: Blue Mountains Local Studies Blog

I recently used this grotto for a performance work, you can see stills of the dvd on my blog: www.thecarrotjoke.blogspot.com - '1 million years' is currently showing at NCCA in Darwin.





Mount Victoria

Yesterday morning provided strangely misty and sunny moments so I drove to Mt.Victoria to the old 'Imperial Park & Museum' to photograph the strange cluster of grottoes that live in the park opposite the Imperial Hotel. 

Apparently they were part of a native animal zoo built in the 1930s. Have a look at Kara Smith's blog for (a little more) information - Mt Vic & me Blog

















Monday 17 March 2014

Echo Point

This grotto is possibly the most well kept grotto in Katoomba, it also has a fantastic view over the mountains. 

It was a pretty hot summer's day when we met two guys who were just about to use the grotto for their afternoon Asr prayer to Mecca, it was cool in that grotto.