Castlemaine is a place that played a starring role in my childhood for different reasons to why the town’s name rings a bell in my own child’s head now.

I think of the happily twittering birds in the old English garden surrounding my grandma and pa’s house on top of a hill.

He thinks of the roaring 1600-horsepower big-block ‘War-Bird’ burnout car, a 1965 Ford XP Falcon built at the famous Castlemaine Rod Shop.

My dad grew up in Castlemaine, my parents owned their first home there, my siblings were born there.

When they relocated to the Goulburn Valley before I was born, my grandparents remained in the town.

My pa died in 1988.

My grandma lived until 2017, but spent her twilight years in Melbourne.

When she moved from Castlemaine, we had little reason to return there.

There’s something about living in or frequenting a town as a child that tends to void it as a holiday destination later in life.

For all our road-tripping around the state since I’ve had my own kids, we haven’t often made it past Bendigo when travelling in that direction.

Castlemaine was suggested by my petrol-headed 17-year-old, who is growing more interested in car culture the closer he gets to driving age, when we were looking for somewhere to go during the school holidays.

He wanted to visit the Rod Shop and catch another glimpse of War-Bird and whatever else was in the showroom.

It was our first stop.

The tourist signposts directing us to it as soon as we entered town nullified Google Maps and gave promise that this place was worth visiting.

For members of the custom car appreciation society, it most definitely was, but even still, it only filled about half an hour of our time.

War-Bird was nowhere in sight — packed up and bound for a weekend at Thrashernats we suspect — but Real Deal, a hotted up Holden Torana with a Ferrari engine inside, was on the showroom floor, among other high-performance and shining beauties.

You could argue that quantifiable content is more valuable than duration of time spent taking it all in, but with petrol prices still nibbling somewhat painfully at the purse, I would argue that driving two hours somewhere for 30 minutes of joy to turn around and drive two hours home isn’t worth it, unless, say, that half an hour was spent with Charlie Hunnam.

Maybe that’s just me. I like driving. But not aimlessly.

Either way, I don’t ever travel somewhere to do just one thing.

I will pack more into an itinerary than a suitcase whose zipper I broke overloading it.

So, I bored the kids with a history tour, chauffeuring them past Grandma and Pa’s grand old home before visiting their final resting place in a shared grave at the cemetery.

I pointed out the bulk lolly shop where my brother, sister and I would excitedly venture to, pants filled with pocket-money, hopping over cobblestone drains, grassy hills and historic bridges that crossed the creek to load up on sugary treats for our stay.

We went past my parents’ first quaint little weatherboard home, with the Old Castlemaine Gaol forming a unique backdrop perched on the hill behind it.

Then we went up for a closer look at the gaol, not knowing what had become of it in recent years.

The former prison was modelled on Pentonville prison in London.

It was built in 1861 to detain criminals from the nearby goldfields and surrounding towns.

Until 1908, it housed all kinds of criminals, from debtors to ‘lunatics’.

Ten men were even hanged there.

From 1909 to 1951, it was a reformatory school for boys aged 16 to 25, before it closed until 1954.

Between then and 1990, it was used as a prison once more, to house medium-security prisoners from across Victoria.

Once it was decommissioned as a prison, it was used as a tourist attraction and accommodation, as well as housing the local community radio station and various small businesses.

In 2018, six-time Archibald prize finalist David Bromley purchased the historic landmark.

Today it serves as a gallery for his extensive artworks.

From the entrance and the gardens, to both levels and every cell, there is art.

If not created by the artist, by historic architecture.

Concrete walls. Iron bars.

It feels charmingly old world, not spooky.

Welcoming, not haunted.

Though we were the only visitors at the time, even in the dark and quiet depths furthest away from the ticket box we weren’t unsettled.

Then again, that might only be because we didn’t read about the 10 hangings until after we’d left.

Bromley is known for painting and sculpture, having begun his career as a potter in Adelaide.

His work features a lot of children and butterflies, nude women and birds.

While we couldn’t walk through Grandma’s garden to hear the singing birds and we caught no glimpse of a fully-blown War-Bird, we took on jailbird personas and enjoyed Bromley’s avian-inspired art instead.

By caging ourselves in a tangible piece of history on top of that, we made our four-hour round trip more than just a half-hour flying one.

With that, I feel I’ve given enough wings to puns for one week.

Time to flock off before I ruffle too many feathers.

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Wednesday, 27th December 2023

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