The Windmills of My Mind

Callington Mill

I've been trying to write my road trip posts in chronological order, as those posts unfolded in the days of my road trip, but when I came to write about the windmill I visited in Oatlands on the first day that I was in Tasmania, an important historical village on the shores of Lake Dulverton in the centre of Tasmania, I realized that I would have to jump ahead and write other posts first, so I could point out why the lyrics to the song 'Windmills of Your Mind' meant so much to me in hindsight.
The Art of Driving to Hobart
Like the first snowball that I would ever make on the top of Mt.Wellington/Kunyani when I saw snow for the first time in my life.
The revolving door I would have to enter and leave constantly at Wrest Point Casino and the revolving restaurant on the 17th floor of the same casino that I stayed in for four nights.
The spiral painting hanging on the casino wall that impressed me so much I had to take a photo of it when I saw it as it reminded me of the spiral symbol from the movie 'The Revenant'.
Which also reminded me of the Sioux saying, "the longest journey that you will ever make in your lifetime is from your head to your heart".
The fact that Tasmania is known as the Apple Ilse and that Apple founder Steve Wozniak wants to live in Tasmania, as well, strikes a chord with the spinning apple lyric of the song.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak house hunting
 in Sydney, but bound for the Apple Isle

Also, the obvious connection about jingling keys in my pocket, as I was on a three-week road trip, so when my keys weren't hanging from the ignition switch in the car they were mostly in my pocket.
I would also visit the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, so hanging pictures on a wall and, "Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone" seemed rather apt, because you have to descend into a cavern like gallery and work your way back to the surface in MONA.
I also drove under the Sydney Harbour on the way down to Tasmania, by getting in the wrong lane for the Sydney Habour Bridge and having to take the Sydney Harbour Tunnel instead. 

Entrance to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel

The cavern like galleries in MONA

The autumn leaves (even though it was winter) all around me I found fascinating with me living in sub-tropical Queensland all of my life.
And of course, touring the windmill in Oatlands is the key linking the song and my road trip. 

The shores of Lake Dulverton in the centre of Tasmania

The (Shining?-) shores of Lake Dulverton?

It's not like this song suddenly came on the radio, or that I even heard it anywhere recently, but when I got home to write this post up the song sprung into my head when I thought of the image of the windmill.
It is a song that I heard playing a lot as a child on the radio and on records that grown-ups would play when I was around, so it had a rather nostalgic feeling for me and I thought that I would throw it into this post as a meditation on windmills, but as I listened to the lyrics I was amazed that so much of what was written in the lyrics happened, or resonated with my journey of those three weeks, almost like a lyrical road-map of what I would encounter.

A painting hanging on the wall in Wrest Point Casino

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel

The Secret of 'The Revenant'

Like a snowball down a mountain

Wrest Point Casino from a snow-caped Mt. Wellington/Kunyani

And the world is like an apple
whirling silently in space

A Tasmanian flying saucer?-)

Apples growing (spinning?-) at
  Callington Mill, Tasmania

Like a clock whose hands are
sweeping past the minutes of its face

Revolver

The Wrest Point Casino entrance:
Like a door that keeps revolving

Keys that jingle in your pocket,
words that jangle in your head

When you knew that it was
over in the autumn of good-byes

'The Windmills of Your Mind' 
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly? Was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find in
The windmills of your mind!

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
When did summer go so quickly? Was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over in the autumn of good-byes
For a moment you could not recall the color of his eyes!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find in
The windmills of your mind!

The Windmills of Your Mind
""The Windmills of Your Mind" is a song with music by French composer Michel Legrand and English lyrics written by Americans Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. 
The French lyrics, under the title "Les moulins de mon cœur", were written by Eddy Marnay. The song (with the English lyrics) was introduced in the film, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)."

"In the original 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, the song is heard – sung by Noel Harrison – during a scene in which the character Thomas Crown flies a glider at the glider airport in

Salem NH: having edited the rough cut for this scene utilizing the Beatles track "Strawberry Fields Forever" producer/ director Norman Jewison commissioned an original song be written for the glider scene which would reference the ambivalent feelings of Thomas Crown as he engages in a favorite pastime while experiencing the tension of preparing to commit a major robbery."

The path leading up to
Callington Mill, Oatlands, Tasmania

I had no intention of visiting Callington Mill at Oatlands in Tasmania. 
In fact, I nearly drove straight past it, only turning off the highway at the last minute when I caught sight of the windmill actually working.
My first thought was what are you doing Darren, chasing windmills like Don Quixote when you should be heading to Hobart?

But I found out that you could actually pay to tour this working windmill, as they ran hourly tours.
I thought I had missed the tour, as it was just after 11am when I got to Callington Mill, but I got my own personal tour from a lady who as coincidence would have it was originally from my home state of Queensland, although she was from Cairns, a part that I've never been to.

You couldn't take phones or iPods with you on the tour, as it was a working flour mill and they didn't want the flour igniting and causing a fire, so the images I've used here for inside the mill came from the mill's website.
Afterward I was given some fresh scones to try baked from the flour ground in the mill.
Yum. 
And check out the rest of the town of Oatlands while you are in the area, if you ever stop by the mill on your travels.

 I thought it was rather interesting that I was the 237th viewer to watch the above video at You Tube.

Don't OVERLOOK these trees if you visit Oatlands;-)

I also found it interesting that if you follow the lane from the windmill and cross the road to the lake you'll come to these shrub animals a little like Stephen King writes about in his novel 'The Shining'.
I also notice the Oatlands post code is 7120, which written in reverse, 0217 is King's room number from his novel 'The Shining';-)
And Kubrick changed the room number to 237 in the almost discarded Stephen King story for the movie adaption of King's novel for the big screen.

I just wonder how long it will take for the Tasmanian tourist commission to came along and read this post and pinch all my thoughts to make a winter tourism commercial with the Callington Windmill and 'Windmills of Your Mind' as the centre cog of their ad campaign?