My home - in 1996

As some of you will know, Albury/Wodonga was where I called "home" in 1996 when I was here as part of a teacher exchange.  Albury/Wodonga is the broad settlement incorporating the twin cities of Albury and Wodonga which are separated geographically by the Murray River and politically by a state border: Albury on the north of the river is part of New South Wales while Wodonga on the south bank is in Victoria.  Albury was established as a town in 1839 and still has a number of heritage buildings located within the centre of the town.  Although living here was certainly a change for me, it was, and is, a very pretty town and a place I comfortably called "home".

The Albury Railway Station was first used for service in 1882 and was once one of Australia's most important rail terminals as it acted as the transfer point for the change in rail gauge between NSW and Victoria.  At over 450m, the station's platform has been credited as one of Australia's longest.

The Station Master's Residence was built at the same time as the railway station and featured a sitting room, dining room, scullery, pantry, kitchen, front verandah and five bedrooms upstairs.  The plans for the house showed that every room had its own fireplace and, very unusual for the times, water was piped directly into the home.

Statue outside the Station Master's house

The former Waterstreet's Hotel is a classic example of the late colonial style, two-storey country hotel. It was built in 1884 and also served as a quarantine centre during the outbreak of Spanish Flu in 1919.

Albury Public School was built in 1891 and known to local school kids as "The Castle".  The building is still in use today (as part of Albury Public School) and has been placed on the Register of the National Estate. 

St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, which opened in 1872 is actually the second Catholic Church erected in Albury - the first was in 1858.

St. Patrick's Presbytery is located beside the church, also built in 1872.

This grand old building was once Australia's largest inland woolstore.  After several redevelopments over the years, by 1962 its total floor space was a whopping 2.75 hectares, and it could warehouse 12, 000 bales of wool - a reminder of the importance of the wool trade in the development of Australia.

Kia Ora was Albury's first major commercial building - it opened its doors as The Bank of New South Wales in 1858.  It was described at the time as "...an ornament to the town and a standing monument to the value of Albury granite".  Today it is a private residence.

Not big, but the 10 acres which comprise the Albury Botanic Gardens was always a nice place to enjoy a coffee,

(you've got to be careful in gardens here, especially when it's hot!)

and today is was also a nice place to watch a large flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos.

Built between the 1850s and 1880s, the "Beehive Buildings" still today make a significant architectural contribution to Albury's main street.

The Globe Hotel was a two-storey, eighteen-room hotel with stables that opened to travellers and locals alike in 1860 and was located at the corner of what was the centre of town at that time.

The Albury Post Office building dates back to 1861 when its main function was the Telegraph Office, and by 1877 it also included private accommodation for the postmaster, stables and a buggy house.  The bells of the clock tower first rang out in November of 1879.

The Mate's Building is one of Albury's most iconic and much-loved edifices.  The site was originally purchased by T.H. Mate in 1860 however the original Mate's Building was destroyed by fire and replaced by the current structure in 1915.

The Albury Court House was constructed in 1860 and inside there is still a feature of a bygone era - two holding cells at the rear of the building.

The former Town Hall is now the Albury Art Gallery.  It was officially opened in 1908 and when built was intended to show the 'energy, enterprise and grit' of a district recovering from harsh times.

The T&G Building evokes the glamour of 1930s New York and to this day the T&G Building stands as one of Albury's landmark buildings and remains in a virtually unaltered state.  To the right is the Australian Mutual Provident (AMP) Building which was built in 1940.  This building is topped by fine statuettes, with a Latin inscription that reads "Amicus Certus in re incerta' or "A sure friend in an unsure world'.

The current Murray Conservatorium of Music is the former Albury Telegraph Office - built in 1886 and used as the Telegraph Office from 1888 until 1904.

The former Union Bank building, built in 1907, featured a small banking chamber and strong room in the centre, with a manager's residence on the second floor.

Another of Albury's prestigious commercial building, the. Colonial Mutual Life (CML) Building was erected in 1925.  It's five-story clock tower has, for almost a century, helped to define Albury's main street.

Images first flickered onto the silver screen of The Regent Cinema in 1927.  The original theatre seated 1,286 movie-goers and, from the late 1940s, circle patrons were able to stroll out to a rooftop garden, where a waterfall disguised the cooling tower.

'The Big Store' - otherwise known as The Australian Building - was built in 1911.  Key features include the detailed parapet and the Australian coat of arms on the corner facade.  Now over a century old, 'The Big Store' remains one of Albury's important architectural characters.

The Albury parish for which this is the parish church dates back to 1850 however much of the original building was destroyed by fire.  The church was destroyed, apart from the walls, in a devastating fire in 1991. The St. Matthew's Bells survived the fire and today are still a feature of Albury life.