Monday, April 20, 2020

And now, a word from our sponsor

9 comments:

bruce said...

Just a slight touch of hyperbole there.

That poster is from the 1930s. Here's the actual place now:

https://www.lakestclairlodge.com.au/about-lake-st-clair/cradle-mountain-lake-st-clair-national-park/

I think it's supposed to depict Mt Ida:
https://www.gettyimages.ie/detail/photo/mount-ida-on-lake-st-clair-tasmania-australia-royalty-free-image/130838366

Spiny Norman said...

My mother corresponded VERY regularly with a pen pal in Tasmania for more than 50 years (until mom passed in 2013). She and my sister went on a 10-day in Australia in 2002 (or maybe it was 2003), and the highlight of the trip was the two Sandy's finally meeting each other face to face. My sister said any stranger would have thought that they were actual sisters, they were so much alike (accept for the accent, of course). Their lives were also almost completely parallel. The Examiner in Launceston ran a story on the occasion (my sister has a copy).

Spiny Norman said...

Actually, 60 years, as their meeting was a "50-year anniversary".

bruce said...

That's a nice story Spiny.

Spiny Norman said...

I thought so. I'm genuinely sorry I couldn't be there myself.

I looked through the Examiner's website, but couldn't find a link to search their archives to try to find the article. Maybe a "subscriber only" feature if they have it.

Mike_W said...

That is a cool story, Spiny.

Paco said...

Lovely story. I hope you can track down that news article somewhere.

And thanks, Bruce, for the links. I'm not sure there's too much exaggeration, there; the area looks beautiful.

Skeeter said...

Spiny, if you haven't already, a search on trove.nla.gov.au›newspaper is worth a try.
Trove is the National Library of Australia's collection of digitised newspapers. I've just tried a search on "Launceston Examiner Norman" with 26,380 results.

Spiny Norman said...

Thanks for the info Skeeter.

Well, I tried a couple of different searches for 2003, but no luck, literally no links (I gather "pen pals" in Australia are, or were, "penfriends", as there seemed to be more links to that phrase), but I could find no links to pages newer than 1954. Strange.

(My sister confirmed their trip was June-July of 2003, but also that she does NOT have a copy of the newspaper, and that if they brought it home it would be in mom's stuff - she said "good luck with that".)