Glen Osmond is on the eastern boundary of Adelaide and is historically important, as the main road through the Adelaide Hills passes through Glen Osmond and a Tollhouse was located there in the Early Days of South Australia. There were also mining activities taking place in nearby hills, and some of this mining heritage has been preserved for current generations. Glen Osmond is still the starting point for the main road through the Adelaide Hills, which is now known as the South Eastern Freeway. This road has recently been extensively realigned and the Hans Heysen Tunnels now take the road up a constant incline to Crafers and Stirling, and replace the old switchback road which previously served travellers to and from the east of Adelaide.
The 1841 Tollhouse is undoubtedly one of the best-known landmarks on the eastern boundary of Adelaide. You know you've arrived at Adelaide when you pass it on the way down, and you know that you've left Adelaide when you pass it on the way up. Because planning regulations have allowed the Hills Face Zone to remain undeveloped, although the Tollhouse dates from the middle of the 19th Century, it is still on the boundary of Adelaide, and hasn't been swallowed up by urban sprawl as so many historic landmarks are.
The Tollhouse has been maintained as a historic site, but the roof of the building is blindingly bright galvanised iron, which is obviously fairly new.
Two of the views above are of the sweeping curve of the newly realigned main road, which becomes the South Eastern Freeway just up the road from these views. It isn't "Freeway" all the way to the Tollhouse because there are some regular turnoffs by the Tollhouse.
The third view is of interest, as it is a B-Double: a type of semi-trailer which consists of a prime mover, a turntable mounted trailer with a turntable to the rear; with a second turntable mounted trailer attached to that. These vehicles were in regular use on the switchback highway which was replaced during 2000 by the new highway routed via the Hans Heyson Tunnels. You must admire the drivers of these vehicles (for which a special licence is required) as they were able to drive them around bends marked with advisory speeds of just 25kph. (That's only 15mph!)
It is also possible to see the original Tollgate behind the Tollhouse. Here are two better views of the Tollgate.
The other historic aspect to Glen Osmond is the mining operations from the Early Days of South Australia.
As a child, I can remember what a landmark the old mining chimney half way up a nearby hill was. These days, due to a change in grazing policy, you have to really look hard to even see this chimney. Nearly all of these trees have grown since the 1960s.
A roadside museum has been set up near another old mine at Glen Osmond. This is literally just off the side of the road, and the picture of the B-Double truck was taken from the car parking area designated for the museum display.
Here I have photographed an adit, or horizontal drive into the hillside. The narrow gauge railway lines show how the ore was removed from the mine.
Here is an engine of the type which would have run into this mine. I find the "R.Follet Mt.Barker" on the front of the engine interesting, as there were still Follets in Mt.Barker until at least the 1970s. I expect that they're probably related in some way.
Turning from the historical back to the present day, no page on Glen Osmond would be complete without a mention of the new Water Feature, built at the traffic lights where Adelaide-bound traffic usually spends some time waiting!
These two photographs both show the new Glen Osmond Water Feature, which has been built as part of the project to upgrade the section of the South Eastern Freeway from Glen Osmond to Stirling. Some technical details of the photography are interesting here: the picture on the left was shot on 200ASA Agfa, while the one on the right was shot on 25ASA Kodak and was tripod supported. The Kodak yields a much warmer rendition of the scene. I wasn't totally successful at eliminating lens flare from the longer exposure by shading the lens with my hand. The lens in question was a super wide angle zoom, and there was great danger of my hand being included!
