Ironically, we got the email from Alex Wisser asking if we were still coming to Kandos these school holidays whilst we were driving down Narrango Rd on our way back into Kandos after a week spent in the awesomeness of Gunguddy (Dunn’s Swamp) campground. We had already made plans to go to Ironfest in Lithgow that weekend, so it was, that we found ourselves driving back to Kandos, once again, 3 days later…
After spending a week in a tent with kids with gastro we thought we were prepared for anything. What we didn’t expect was to be staying in such a beautifully renovated house that had just recently been re-stumped from it’s original site in the Shire. We found ourselves in luxury. It’s always a little disturbing when the living conditions in a residency are better than your own house..
Staying in Kandos feels a little bit like being back in art school. When we went to University, CoFA campus was tiny. It was quite hard to get around without bumping into friends and having a nice chat. Kandos- with Angus Avenue being the nexus point feels more like a campus than a town. We got to know the women working at the Kandos Charity Shop pretty well- we scored 2 Nerf guns and a copy of The Book of the Damned for 5 bucks! Fleur Macdonald lives across the road and she told us the dramatic story behind the busted glass frontage next to the Newsagency.
Fleur also took us over to the Kandos Museum, where we met her sister Fiona MacDonald who is one of the powerhouses behind the museum. We scored a copy of The Lady Bushranger after pouring over the artefacts housed inside the old church that is the museum. Not sure what our favourite object is: maybe the handsome mannequin with the wonky eye or the massive blown glass electrical transformer…
We had no major avenues of research in mind while in Kandos so we just hung out: visited the pool a couple of times, went for a walk down the old train line. Hung out at a great barbecue whilst rapping about the Orange people and cult activities in general. We went for a bicycle ride down Waterhole road outside of Mudgee and got a couple of flats- lunch by the waterhole with a mysterious piece of cooked meat submerged in the water… Read the tourist information brochure that describe Kandos as a town with a ‘quirky art community’ must have been written by the same guy that still describes warehouse spaces as ‘funky’ in real estate ads.
Now we are back home. Waiting for ideas to percolate. Let’s hope we can come up with something that can match the special nature of Kandos!
small work