Cooma is the major town of the Snowy Mountains region of NSW, Australia and one of the state’s many “gold rush” towns. A hundred years after the Cooma Township was settled by Europeans in 1849, it became the headquarters for the huge Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. Its historic Avenue of Flags beside the Mosaic Walk represents the people of those 27 nations who came to the Snowies to help build one of Australia’s greatest feats in engineering.
The Time Walk is a unique presentation of the history of the Monaro District, re-created in 40 ceramic mosaics which were constructed to commemorate Australia’s Bicentenary in 1988.
The events represented in the mosaics are:
- Monaro aboriginals
- the discovery of the Monaro by European settlers
- the early squatters
- law and order
- Mount Kosciuszko
- Inns and accommodation
- religion
- health services
- mining
- business
- transport
- Nimmitabel
- education
- bush rangers
- building
- forestry
- sheep
- wool
- cattle
- snow sports
- Dalgety-Berridale
- mountain horses
- Wragg’s observatory
- pastoral & agricultural
- trout fishing
- Adaminaby
- Jindabyne
- local government
- Snowy River march
- mountain life style
- communications
- Michelago/Bredbo
- armed services
- tourism
- Kosciuszko National Park
- Snowy Mountains Scheme
- pioneer women and other organisations.
The mosaics were created by local artist Chris Graham and students at the local TAFE College in 1988 (Australia’s Bicentennial Year).
The Centennial Park is located at the corner of Sharp & Bombala Streets in Cooma, NSW.
For more pics on these mosaics (can’t show them all here as there are so many!!!) check out my Cooma Mosaics Set on Flickr.
Kim Grant Mosaics - Mania & Mischief 