Category: Grampians Gariwerd History

The Flumes

The Flumes near Barri Yalug

In the late 1800s, water was needed for the community in Stawell and Halls Gap and for the expanding gold mines at Pleasant Creek.

In 1869, the Stawell Shire Council engaged Government Surveyor C. Bagge to provide a report on the best way to get water. The scheme chosen was the Glenfyan scheme proposed by Borough Engineer John d’Alton in 1872. The plan was to blast a tunnel through Mt William range and supply this with water from a dam on Fyans Creek using Flumes (open aqueducts). The water would then pass through the tunnel to a pipeline (24km long) and onwards to a reservoir on Big Hill in Stawell.
Work commenced in February 1875. The Flumes ran for 10km` to the tunnel. The scheme took more than 6 years to complete finishing in July 1881.

Remnants of the Flumes can still be seen today, … Read the rest

Grampian – Gariwerd Memories from Bill Cunningham.

Grampian- Gariwerd Memories from Bill Cunningham.

I was born in Stawell, Western Victoria in October 1938.

Our farm St Leonards

My mother and father owned a 2,000 acre farm near Dadswell’s Bridge, about 20km from Stawell on the main highway between Melbourne and Adelaide. They bought it in 1936, and named their dream “St Leonards”. The farm was partly cleared, but some paddocks still had a lot of big trees: redgum, yellow box, stringy bark, and wattles. There were beautiful views to the Grampian ranges, about 12km at nearest, which was Brigg’s Bluff, at the foot of which was a delightful little waterfall, called Beehive Falls. Two early industries in the area had been timber cutting, using the huge old red gums for bridge supports and rail sleepers, and tobacco growing, evidenced by a couple of curing sheds I can recall in one of our paddocks, near Mt William Creek.… Read the rest

History – from November 1994

Tidying up my photo albums I came across a copy of the Halls Gap monthly newsletter “Fill the Gap” from November 1994.There’s an article headed “F.O.G.’S NEWS”. (1994 was before we added Gariwerd to our title). The article reports that our next activity was to meet at the Giant Koala at Dadswell’s Bridge to look for small milkworts with the Department of Conservation and Environment. It also has details of our application for a grant to research the impact of foxes on the small mammal populations of the Grampians Heathlands. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive the grant but some FOGGIES assisted Ed Muelman in his PhD research into small mammal populations. I find it interesting that even though Halls Gap was already a cat-free town, we concentrated on foxes and had no thought as to the impact of cats.… Read the rest

Miscellaneous History Bits

I have been tidying up my computer and found the posters I made in 2005 celebrating FOGGS 21st birthday, and ones made in 2009 all displayed at the HG wildflower show. I’ll put some here and more next issue.

The 2009 posters were on the history of the National Park and started with:

THE PERIOD ENDING WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF A MULTIPLE USE POLICY BY THE FORESTS COMMISION IN 1938. (Three pages. Here are just a few entries)

For thousands of years Indigenous Australians occupy the Gariwerd area. They gathered food, farmed eels, hunted, celebrated and dreamed here in the mountains and the  surrounding plains. Their culture, despite damage by white settlement, still is alive today.

1836: The first European,Major Mitchell, sights, climbs and names the Grampians. He collects 150 plant specimens, of which 40 were new to science, including our Thryptomene calycina.

1853: Ferdinand von Mueller … Read the rest

Grampians Rock Art In The News

EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE IN THE AGE JAN 13

The AGE had a long and chatty article on a fascinating newly discovered art site. It is far too long to copy here, but I do recommend that you read it on line – The Age

Or you can contact me (Margo) and I can send it to you.  It is the need to protect valuable sites like this one that makes it so important to educate rock climbers, and where necessary ban some sites.

‘Now the legendary bunyip has been found – or ancient rock drawings of it at least – in a shallow cave atop a cliff in the Mt Difficult Range. Four bunyips, to be precise, lurking in a sandstone shelter on an outcrop that commands sweeping views of the plains of north-western Victoria.

It was a find that would shine new light on an age-old story – … Read the rest

March 26 2018 : Bunbury, Bunyips, and Bunjil: the family letters of Capt Richard Hanmer Bunbury of Barton Station

2018 Professor Ian D. Clark, Federation Business School, Federation University Australia, Ballarat

Professor Ian Clark, a Western Victorian local now at Federation University Ballarat, gave us a fact-filled afternoon talk on the 1840 accounts of Capt. R. H. Bunbury of Barton Station, south of Moyston; the origins of the Bunyip as recorded by early settlers in conversation with local Aboriginal people and from Aboriginal ground drawings in Western Victoria. The Bunyip also was a key player in the story of Bunjil and in the interpretation of the painting of Bunjil in the Black Range near Stawell. Bunyips have been recorded from most areas of Victoria, and while all are associated with waterholes or rivers, the descriptions vary considerably: from a giant emu to a fur seal to an extinct Palorchestes (that died out some 40,000 years ago). The best description, however, comes not from verbal accounts but from a depiction … Read the rest

An Interesting History Project

‘The towneys watched back’ is a project by artist Fernando do Campo, who has been researching the histories of house sparrow introductions across the USA, Argentina and Australia. Through archival research, colonial language, and site-specific artistic interventions across Ararat, Fernando do Campo explores this local narrative and the house sparrow as a potent symbol of colonisation.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the ceremonial release of house sparrows from a balcony at the former Bull and Mouth Hotel, Barkly Street, Ararat.  As the Advertiser explained in 1867: ‘On Tuesday morning last a cage of English sparrows arrived in Ararat by coach…’ The local community of Ararat rejoiced their release … for hours afterwards wherever one or two could be seen knots of persons gathered to watch their movements…’… Read the rest

A Piece Of History – Beyond the Smoke

In April 2007 the book covering the devastating fires of January 2006, and also the way the vegetation responded, was launched at Willaura. FOGG were the instigators of the project, then many others came on board to support it. As well as the book, there were art and music workshops and performances in different places around the Grampians, culminating a festival day in Halls Gap.

To me, one of the highlights was the set of songs which emerged from the workshops with Fay White. Too long to put here, but here are excerpts from two of them. (I will ask Frank to put the complete ones up on our website.)

 

FIRE SONG

The fire came through with roar and noise, awesome power and might.
Somehow we found the strength to stay, that long and anxious night.
At dawn the sound of cracking rocks, the fall of dying trees.
We … Read the rest

Camping and Fishing at Jimmy’s Creek – 1939

I received a most interesting article from one of the long term members of Stawell Field Naturalists.

“Black Friday”, the 13th January 1939, saw the Grampians burnt  from the northern end to the southern end. Although there was utter devastation, one bright side as far as my family was concerned was that now the Wannon river at Jimmy’s creek was now accessible from the Dunkeld Rd without having to bash through the thick undergrowth of bracken fern, titree etc.

In those days the Grampians were far different from today. Most people didn’t have a car and so very few of the visitors to the Grampians went further south than Myrtlebank on Dairy Creek. About the only people to frequent the area south of Myrtlebank were the forest workers/ sawmillers and those who had grazing rights. It was virtually an isolated area of peace and beauty.

Late summer 1939 Dad decided … Read the rest

History Corner

FOGG member Win Pietsch has sent us some extracts from the minutes of the Stawell Field Naturalist Club, of which she, Thelma and Ian were core members.

 July ’57: Over 300 koalas liberated in Halls Gap area

Feb ’58: Aboriginal caves discovered in the Billywing, Glenisla. A visit to them in March.

July ’60: Ian McCann discovered snow daisies Brachyscame nivalis, growing at the southern end of Major Mitchell Plateau, confirmed as the most westerly occurrence of this plant in Australia.

Aug ’63: Mr Wakefield camped in the Grampians and came to check the contents of an owl pellet deposit found in the Victoria range. He sieved through the contents and found bone fragments of up to 400 animals, including 21 native species.

Feb’ 77: A greater long eared bat found for the first time in the Asses Ears area. Bat trapping in the Victoria Valley captured … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd