Wind farms would make an attractive destination for Sydneysiders on their bikes, and create a destination for tourists setting off on a rail trail from Goulburn. Photo: David Carmichael.
After building their new home near Woodhouselee north-west of Goulburn more than a decade ago, tree-changers Wendy and Ian Anderson now see a future filled with tourism opportunities.
The retired couple envisage streams of sightseers on bicycles, a cafe and carpark at their back door centred on a rail trail from Goulburn to wind farms near Pejar Dam.
They have named their 56-hectare property Graywood Siding and registered it with the Lands Department to safeguard its history.
More than a century ago the enterprising Gray brothers, quarrying and processing lime at nearby Kingsdale, were lobbying for a tramway running from Norwood on the Goulburn to Crookwell railway branch line to deliver firewood for their burgeoning business.
The brothers’ lime kilns burned 24 hours a day. Timber-getters cut firewood furiously around Woodhouselee, where the Grays built Graywood Siding alongside the branch line.
The tramway never eventuated. The Crookwell branch closed in 1989 and today lichen creeps over remnant rail infrastructure. Yet the 50-metre wide corridor remains, along with a slow-burning proposal for a rail trail, fanned by the Andersons who live nearby.
After buying the property, Ian had travelled every week from Sydney to slash his block. At the end of one Thursday in 2016 two men approached his property as he was leaving.
The visitors were Bob Kirk and David Mullen from Goulburn who told him of their rail trail plans for Goulburn and Crookwell.
Ian Anderson on a section of remnant railway lines at the original Graywood Siding, Woohouselee. Photo: John Thistleton.
“Our grandchildren were bringing their bicycles out here to ride around,” Ian said. “They were looking for things to do; we didn’t have the river walks at that stage.” So he was readily open to the two men’s ideas.
Since then Ian has become a committed rail trail campaigner, drawing on his earlier working life for keeping faith about the inevitability of dramatic change everywhere we look.
Ian began in banking when information technology had just arrived to reshape the financial industry. He and his wife Wendy spent 20 years overseas, living in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
After two eventful decades they returned to Sydney and later in 2011-2012 began looking for a country place for their future retirement. They settled on the Goulburn region because of its proximity to Sydney.
Wendy and Ian Anderson have turned a patch of poor country north-west of Goulburn into a green oasis with native and exotic trees surrounding their home which they built at Woodhouselee. Photo: John Thistleton.
Wendy knew her mother Ruth Kerslake had grown up at Roslyn, a small rural community about another 10 kilometres further along the railway line. More research revealed Wendy’s grandfather, Henry Kerslake was the stationmaster at Roslyn until 1925. “There is a lovely family home there and the pine trees there, I think my grandmother (Amy) would have planted in the early 1900s that are beautiful now,” Wendy said.
In the years following their arrival at Woodhouselee, building a home there and other accommodation, planting native trees and improving the soil, the Andersons have watched support for the rail trail ebb and flow.
“I saw resistance to it; I couldn’t see a reason why you would not do it,” Ian said. “I had seen our own family’s excitement coming to the country, experiencing nature and all the rest of it. The tourism and industries it would strengthen. You could see the potential and proven now by the Tumbarumba to Rosewood Rail Trail.”
Even though Upper Lachlan Shire has withdrawn its commitment to the Goulburn-Crookwell rail trail, Ian’s enthusiasm for the modified trail that ends alongside his property is undiminished.
“A lot of the rail trails are from somewhere to somewhere,” he said. “So my selling point is Goulburn to the wind farms. I think the wind farms are a selling point for people who live in the city and have never seen them.
“There are opportunities for farmers that are located along the corridor to be able to have some small businesses,” he said. “ If you look at models like Tumbarumba to Rosewood Rail Trail, there are coffee shops, bicycle hire, accommodation. They are the key things.”
Wendy Anderson taught Year 6 to Year 8 pupils in the Hong Kong International School, wrote a new curriculum and led fundraising while living abroad. Her contributions for American students was recognised in 1994 in Singapore by United States President George Bush (senior) and his wife Barbara, above with Ian, left, and Wendy, right, at a Citibank leadership event. Photo: Anderson family collection.
Meanwhile, activist body The Goulburn Group says in a submission tens of millions of dollars from large solar and wind farms could pay for community projects such as the rail trail, changing the future of our region.
Under a draft policy adopted by Goulburn Mulwaree Council, the community benefit funds that developers of solar and wind farms are required to contribute could be combined to finance long-term projects such as the rail trail and social housing.
