Palmer’s Mystery Hike No. 4

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This photograph was taken by Tom Lennon in 1932. This is Palmer’s mystery hike no.4 which was held at Stanwell Park on the 7th August. Here you can see a massive crowd of walkers and in the foreground, the Movietone News film camera-men. Our collection records state:

In 1932 five mystery hikes around Sydney were organised by the railways, with the department store F.J. Palmer and Sons as the commercial sponsor. Hikers purchased a two-shilling train ticket and joined a train from Central Station to a mystery destination. The hikes, held on Sundays, were enormously popular. The third Mystery Hike from Cowan Station to the Hawkesbury River on 24 July 1932 used 12 trains to carry almost 8,000 participants. (See Melissa Harper. The Ways of the bushwalker: on foot in Australia. Sydney, UNSW Press, 2007 pp. 179-192]

Photography by Tom Lennon
No known copyright restrictions

Tags: 1930s, black and white, bush, Mystery Hikes, NSW, Stanwell Park, Tom Lennon, walkers, walks

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.