Regular readers may recall the yellow concrete-filled barrel weighing in at over 300 kilograms that's squirrelled away near the top of Mt Foxlow, located between Carwoola and Captains Flat.
Avid bushwalker David Wardle was first to alert this column to the curiosity early last year when he stumbled upon the out-of-place "large concrete weight" on a bushwalking club trek. And since then, its origins have remained one of this column's longest-running mysteries.
What is it? A giant geocache? The remains of a bizarre scientific experiment? One reader dared to suggest, one hopes tongue-in-cheek, "perhaps it's related to alien activity?"
Well, it turns out, the baffling barrel did originate from the heavens after all, but it wasn't quite the handiwork of aliens from a far-away galaxy.
"It's actually a remnant from when the area was used by helicopters for training," explains David Hanzl of Carwoola who has researched historical aircraft incidents in an area known as "D442" to the east of the ACT which includes the area near Mt Foxlow
"It was a training area for low-flying aircraft, used by Defence from World War II until the 1990s," he explains.
"Apart from moving soldiers around the battlefield, another very common task for military helicopters is to carry heavy loads (such as ammunition, heavy weapons, fuel, water and rations) underslung from the cargo hook to support Army troops," David reports. "Yellow painted 44-gallon drums like the one atop Mt Foxlow were filled with varying amounts of concrete as training loads, and these were shifted around the landing pads to simulate these support tasks."
Each barrel was tagged with the accurate weight details stamped on it in case the painted numbers had peeled off the barrel.
"Complex calculations had to be quickly undertaken by student pilots to ensure the all-up weight such as aircraft, fuel and barrel was taken into account," David says.
According to David, not all training exercises went to plan. "Practising external lifting [of] heavy loads is not without its own hazards and over the years a surprising number of damaged aircraft were hauled out of the field by helicopter.
"The equipment for lifting the load had an electrical mechanism for releasing the hook instantly ... usually this would be needed at the end of the flight to unhitch the load, but it might also be needed in an emergency so, if the electrical actuator didn't work, there was also a manual back-up."
The most common fault was that the hook would fail to release. On rare occasions however, the opposite occurred, and the load was inadvertently dropped. Over the decades that military helicopters were operating over D442, David has uncovered three instances of this startling occurrence. Each of course was the subject of an investigation.
As to the barrel on Mt Foxlow, "it's unlikely that one was the result of a fault, more likely it was just forgotten after the training area closed in the 1990s," David says. "However, I've recently heard stories of crews purposefully placing the barrels on hilltops and under trees to make it hard for the next bloke to pick up."
In fact, the lone barrel atop Mt Foxlow may not be the only one waiting to be found in the former training area. "I'm reliably informed there were a couple of barrels inadvertently dropped from height and that only one of these was never found as they dug themselves into the ground quite well," David reports.
Perplexing pole
While one case file at Mt Foxlow has been closed, another has opened up.
While traipsing around the heavily timbered summit with David this week, we noticed a rusting guyed metal climbable pole near the peak's 1210-metre trig. Presumably it's related to some sort of previous telecommunications in the area, or perhaps an old fire tower dating back to a time when there was less vegetation on the summit? However, all the usual suspects I've spoken to about the tower are unaware of its origins.
In fact, even Lauren Ogden, this region's intrepid trig hunter, was unaware of it.
"I'm sure I didn't see it when last there in 2021, yet it looks old and rusted," she muses.
Someone must know.
Foxlow Flat ruins
Only a couple of kilometres to the south-east of Mt Foxlow in little known Yanununbeyan National Park are the Foxlow Flat ruins.
Haven't heard of the park? Most haven't. In fact, it's a mix of national park (3500 hectares) and nature reserve (40 hectares) which were gazetted in 2001, and state conservation area (4135 hectares) gazetted in 2003. Apart from the occasional sign, it's hard to know whether you are in the park, nature reserve or conservation zone but is a fascinating place to visit.
According to the park's management plan, "Foxlow Flat is considered to have high local archaeological significance as it contains one of the largest artefact scatters recorded in the park, but it also contains ruins of a shepherd's hut and other signs of past European grazing such as old fences and yards."
In the long grass it's currently hard to find the remains of the collapsed post-1880 hut but just to the west, under a tree we stumble on the remains of a secondary shelter, with collapsed bullnosed corrugated iron roof. It's littered with empty 20th century glass bottles - a future archaeologist's delight.
West of here in the conservation area, once stood a single-room 1930s schoolhouse (now completely gone) at an area evocatively known as "The Murdering Shed Flat". I'd love to know who, or what, was murdered here. Does anyone know?
Memories of Tumut bridge flood back
Several readers responded to this column's call for bridges around Canberra region other than the Tharwa Bridge that boast pedestrian refuges, or as they are often called, manholes.
The escape pods especially brought back fond childhood memories for Karen Hoad who reports there is one on either side of the old town bridge in Tumut.
"The bridge is no longer in use even for pedestrians, but I remember standing with my dad on the downstream side when the river was in very high flood in the 1950s," Karen recalls. "It was soooo exciting."
Karen reports she also learned to swim in the Tumut River, just below the Anglican church. The section of river for the 6.30am lessons were accessed via a millet paddock that supplied the local broom factory. And yes, that's the same handmade broom factory still going strong after nearly 80 years.
Meanwhile, Maureen Marshall of Nicholls reports there are also a couple of safety refuges on the 200-metre-long 1931 Taemas Bridge at its crossing of the Murrumbidgee River on the Yass to Wee Jasper Road. "They are situated about half-way across this bridge which does not give you much of a chance if you are caught on foot between the middle and the end of the bridge," she reveals.
It was at this landmark bridge that according to records, in 1840, a "yowie" was apparently killed by locals. In Out of the Shadows, Mystery Animals of Australia (Ironbark, 1994), authors Tony Healy and Paul Cropper explain: "Harry Williams, an old Ngunnawal Man, told of seeing a large group of warriors kill one [a yowie] on a hillside below the junction of the Yass and Murrumbidgee Rivers, near the present site of Burrinjuck Dam ... dragging it down the hill by the ankles." According to Williams, it was "...like a black man but covered all over with grey hair." Heck.
WHERE IN THE REGION?
Rating: Medium - Hard
Clue: Not far from the snowy
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday February 11 wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
Last week: Congratulations to Ian McKenzie of Fisher who was first to identify last week's photo as the closed Golden Fleece service station at Wee Jasper. Ian just beat Jonathan Miller of Curtin, who wonders if "the new Wee Jasper Distillery will prompt a re-opening of the servo and general store".
Meanwhile, Ian recognised the location immediately, having been temporarily stranded there on a cold and wet evening about 40 years ago after a "Boys' Brigade" weekend caving expedition.
"On the way out of the campground we ran over a rock, which didn't just puncture a tyre of my mighty little Datsun 180B, but sliced it open," reports Ian. "We had to unload everything and change the tyre."
However, there was one slight problem with Ian's plan. "We were travelling with the expedition leader who had all the caving gear and to fit all the caving gear into the car he'd removed the spare tyre to use the space in the wheel well," recalls Ian.
With the NRMA failing to come to the party, using the public phone, Ian rang his father who also happened to have a 180B.
"Eventually Dad arrived, and we changed the tyre in the rain, and we finally made it back to Canberra in the wee small hours, cold, tired and wet and having to front up for school the next day," explains Ian. "I don't remember a lot about the caving, but I sure remember those cold, dark, wet hours waiting outside the Wee Jasper servo."
SPOTTED
Last weekend Liam Camilleri and his partner headed off for their annual weekend to run across the main range, but as is so often the way in The Snowies - unseasonal weather got in the way. "There was way too much snow to be running, but the scenery was spectacular and I'm not sure we'll see snow like this again in February," says Liam who while walking part of the main range track "noticed these billy buttons poking above the fresh snow". Beautiful.
CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, GPO Box 606, Civic, ACT, 2601.
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