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The
original design of Mudgee was streets and roads combining on a grid system
running approximately north/south and east/west. Inevitably, areas outside
the Central Business District became known as North Mudgee, East, West
and South Mudgee. As the town has grown it has been impossible to maintain
the grid system even though it remains very obvious in the central area. |
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We
live in South Mudgee, which is a relatively new sub division of the town
and one where new residential building is currently at its height. However,
it cannot stretch too far because of the rising hills on the southern
side. Madeira Road runs east/west and is really the southern edge of the
original grid layout. We live at the very westerly end of the road, which
is the highest point on the road and one of the highest residential spots
in Mudgee. The photograph at the top of the page is looking east down
Madeira (as with the North Americans, the word "road" or "street"
gets missed), with the edge of the Flirtation Hill Nature Reserve on the
left. Our house is a little further back on the left. We are at about
500 metres above sea level (just over 1500 ft in old money!). |
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The
beauty of the Flirtation Hill end of Madeira Road is that, to the north,
the town is below one's line of sight mostly hidden by either trees or
Flirtation Hill itself, whilst to the west and south the wooded hills
rise to make a lovely backdrop to the scene. There is new development
in progress, but thankfully most of it is out of sight and it will impossible
to spoil our open view to the north east, north and north west.
When
blocks of land are sold for residential development some are very often
large enough to meet the minimum size requirements for a sub-division,
thus creating two plots on which to build. The consequence is that two
houses are built one behind the other. The one to the rear is accessed
by a driveway down one side and the property is known as an "Axe
Handle". |
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The
3 blocks of land, of which we are the middle, are like this, so eventually
there will be 6 houses on 3 blocks. At the moment, the block on our right
hand side is vacant. It has been sold and there is a development application
currently before the local council. We imagine that the development will
start as soon as the plans are accepted. |
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We
own the "Axe Handle" land and house on our sub-divided block,
which means we own the driveway as well. The house itself is difficult
to see from the road because it is tucked away to the right of the drive
and behind the dwelling in front. If you look down our driveway from the
top, you cannot see it at all. . It also means that we are away from the
noise of traffic (although be do hear the Wheely Bin Men sometimes, emptying
the rubbish at around 3am on a Tuesday morning) but are normally very
private. The huge bonus is the open view to the rear. The property on
the other side of our rear fence, (literally "below us") is
accessed from a different road, being at the end of a cul-de-sac. The
land there is much lower, so we look across their garden and roof. |
We
were the first to move into this small almost self-contained community
and wondered what our neighbours would be like. They have turned out to
be terrific. The house in front of us is owned by a young Australian lady
and her New Zealand partner, who both work for local wineries, whilst
a retired couple from California (via Hawaii) have bought both houses
to our left. They live in the rear home with Shelby (dog) and Thumper
(cat), and have rented the front house to a young lady teacher. |
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Like
most roads in rural towns, Madeira is very wide. Once out of town there
are no pavements/sidewalks, but across the front of every property is
a council owned strip called the "nature strip". It may be grassy
or gravelly depending on the area. This is where people walk, ride their
horses or cycles and where the "Postie" rides his small motorcycle
delivering the mail to individual mailboxes usually placed on the front
boundary at the top of one's driveway. As you can imagine, this means
that houses are well set back which makes the road seem even wider. Each
property owner is expected to maintain the nature strip even though it
is council owned. (A cunning move - don't you think?) |
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