Lured by captivating photos of space rocket playgrounds and models in space-age inspired miniskirts prancing around the Canberra Theatre (more about these later), I'd previously bypassed the four tiny fragments of the moon mounted on a wooden plinth and embedded in glass at the entrance to the exhibition.

Moon rocks are dime a dozen these days, aren't they? Well it turns out they're not, especially if they were collected during the Apollo11 mission just after Neil Armstrong's famous first steps on the moon were beamed around the world on July 21, 1969. Sure, on subsequent Apollo missions more rocks (a total of 382kg) were collected, but none of these boast the historical magnitude as those plucked from the surface by Armstrong and his fellow astronauts.

Screening on the wall next to the rocks is a video featuring Dr Megan Clark, inaugural chief of the Australian Space Agency. If anyone has a right to be blasé about moon rocks, it'd be Megan and her team of space go-getters. But that was far from the case, when last year exhibition curator Catriona Donnelly and a team of conservators transported the rocks to her Canberra office.

"After we finished recording, we asked if any of Megan's staff wanted to see the rocks [and] they immediately began queueing at the door," reveals Catriona. It seems the more you know about space, the more 'wow' factor they hold.

The rocks haven't always been so readily available for the public to view. In fact, after the they were gifted by the US government to the Australian people at a special ceremony at (Old) Parliament House in 1970, they temporarily vanished into a black hole.

According to the paper trail at least, the 0.05g pieces of the moon didn't surface again until the Joint House Department (absorbed into Department of Parliamentary Services in 2004) handed over custody of the fragile fragments to the archives in 1978.

So where were they in the interim? Squirreled away in a bureaucrat's bottom drawer, or heaven forbid, reduced to the role of a paper weight (which according to folklore Ned Kelly's skull once was)? The mind boggles.

As you'd expect, since being in the archives' safe hands, the rocks' every move, including a long period being gawked over by visitors to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla, has been dutifully documented. Unfortunately, this can't be said of all the Apollo11 rocks, which were gifted to 134 other 'friendly' countries as well as US states and territories. Some have been stolen, lost, others sold on the black market. Spain's is believed to be in the hands of the family of the late Spanish dictator Franco, while Ireland's was housed in the Dunsink Observatory in Dublin when a fire destroyed it in 1977. Heck.

Now, back to those rocket playgrounds. During the height of the space race they started popping up all over the country and the exhibition showcases a 1967 photo of a large metallic rocket in the Melbourne suburb of Kensington, with three children clambering over it. Catriona recently received a message from a lady who saw the photo on social media, and who "loved playing on it" as a child. "Her mum thought it might have been her at the top of the slide as her clothes, age and hair match," reports Catriona. "Even if it's not her it stimulated a family discussion and brought back memories of happy times."

I'd love to hear from anyone who can recall similar playgrounds in or around Canberra. One of the closest of these rockets to Canberra was apparently in Mittagong but your akubra-clad columnist wasn't on the playground circuit in the 1960s. Can anyone confirm? Sadly, most of these striking relics of the space age have disappeared over time, replaced with shuttles of the plastic variety that adhere more closely to contemporary safety requirements.

It also seems not all rocket playgrounds were in public spaces. Next to the image of the Melbourne rocket is a photo of a homemade space shuttle ready to launch from the front yard of a house on Belconnen Way, taken by a photographer from the Department of Immigration in 1970. If you look closely, peering out of the portholes of the suburban spaceship - which some could argue more closely resembles a giant bottle of Bollinger riddled with bullet holes, than a rocket - are three smiling faces. They are Frank, Diana and David Masciulli, children of a Canberra builder. I wonder if any of the trio took up careers in the space (or wine!) sector.

Finally to the fetching trio who strutted around in Pierre Cardin's spring/summer couture collection fashion parade outside the Canberra Theatre Centre in 1967. Has that dreary courtyard ever looked so vibrant? Even more entrancing than the photo is a video held by the archives in which the same models cavort in slow motion around the Shine Dome (where else?).

While the footage of the 1967 Cardin visit is a national treasure, a time capsule of experimental fashion during the height of the space race, it's nowhere near as priceless as those four tiny fragments of the moon, collected during the 1969 Apollo11 mission.

They are truly, dare I say it, out of this world.

Out of This World: Australia in the Space Age is on show at the National Archives of Australia until Sunday March 14. Free entry.

A revealing documentary, The Witch of Kings Cross, has just been released (available on some streaming services, video on demand) which explores the life and work of Rosaleen Norton. Rosaleen was infamous during the 1940s and 50s for living a bohemian lifestyle in Sydney. Especially controversial for the time were her beliefs about the occult and sex magic.

While I'm yet to view the tell-all doco, your akubra-clad columnist has stumbled upon a rather obscure connection between the artist-cum-occultist and none other than Sir William Dobell who was knighted in 1966 for recognition for his services to the arts.

According to The Canberra Times of September 29, 1966, after attending his investiture in Canberra, Sir Bill stopped at the Bushranger Pub in Collector which at the time was decorated with some of Rosaleen's rather risqué paintings which often depicted images of supernatural entities such as pagan gods and demons.

According to the article, Sir Bill opened conversation with the barmaid with "I see you have some paintings by Rosaleen Norton".

"How did you know? Are you an artist?" asked the barmaid.

"Yes, I paint a bit," he replied, to which the barmaid asked, "What's your name?"

"Bill Dobell," he said. To which the barmaid retorted: "Oh, yes ... and mine's Mona Lisa."

True story.

Sadly, like much historical memorabilia in the pub, Rosaleen's paintings are long gone. As a kid, Gary Poile remembers a large print of a "scantily clad girl, but can't remember when it was taken down or even if it was part of Rosaleen's mural".

Another long-term Collector resident, Helen Quirk, whose uncle "knew Rosaleen personally" confirms "she definitely painted the mural on the wall, but it was removed before I was old enough to come into the pub".

Does anyone have old photos of the interior of the pub that may include the mural?

Clue: Opposite an old cinema

Degree of difficulty: Medium

Last week: Congratulations to Fenji Stradwick of Queanbeyan who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's photo as a dead tree painted blue outside the Joint Emergency Services Centre in Dalby Street, Fyshwick. The photo was an easy-get for Fenji, a local ambo, who admits to being responsible for painting the tree. "It's part of the Blue Tree Project where over 600 dead trees around the country have been painted blue to help spark difficult conversations and encourage people to speak up when battling mental health concerns," she explains. Surprisingly it only took Fenji a "few hours" to paint the tree. "The firies loaned me a ladder so that probably made it quicker than it otherwise would have been," she says.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au The first email sent after 10am, Saturday March 13, 2021, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

Over the years, a number of enthusiastic green-thumb readers of this column have tried to out-do each other by attempting to grow the tallest Wollemi Pine and the tallest flower on a Xanthorrhoea in Canberra.

While he may not intend it, but in submitting this photo of a three-metre-tall self-grown tomato plant in his vegie patch, Gordon Fyfe of Kambah may have just started the latest backyard botanical battle to play out on these pages.

"To give some perspective of its height, the top of the ladder in the photo is 1.7m from the ground," reports Gordon. "Neither of its parents was higher than the average tomato plant, so I have no idea why it's grown so tall.

"I can't take any credit - anything I plant and lovingly nurture dies; anything I leave alone, or anything I try to kill with Glyphosate, thrives."

Ok, who can beat it?

CONTACT TIM: Email: tym@iinet.net.au or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick