Occasional Tales from the Mountain No. 01

Occasional Tales from the Mountain No.1 A love letter to the Dandenongs Towards the end of 1928, Mrs Gwynnivere (Vere) Frazer (1886-1976) brought her large brood of children, aged from four to 15 years to stay in Olinda after her doctor suggested the clear mountain air would be beneficial for her eldest boy, Harry, who had suffered several bouts of pneumonia. The Frazers were from Swan Hill and Vere’s husband, Robert Frazer (1885-1946), returned after a brief stay to the Murray River town to manage his business interests. The family rented a house in Dodds Lane, close to `The Castle’ in Range Road, a property managed by Mrs Frazer’s brother Will Wiltshire and his wife Mary.1 Their son, Denis, was a service car driver with Tutt and Storrie in Sassafras. On their first visit, the family stayed for three months, returning again later in 1929 and 1930, staying almost six months this last time. As semi-permanent visitors, at least six of the Frazers’ eight children were enrolled at the Olinda State School, causing “quite a stir”, the youngest child would later recall. Laurie Frazer (1924-2017) remembered his school days at Olinda fondly, even though he thought his teacher Mr Ellis was “a bit of a martinet”. Thirty years ago, Laurie passed onto MDDHS stalwart Pat Hogan a delightfully lyrical reminiscence written by his mother, the text of which is reproduced in full below Originally addressed to a person or persons unknown, this “love letter to the Dandenongs” – while a times a little fanciful – was written nearly a century ago and captures so much of what the hills were like in those distant, simpler days. John Schauble The Dandenongs – Olinda 1928 It requires scant imagination to reflect on just what this wonderful range means to the metropolis of Melbourne and to the state of Victoria and what it will further mean in another twenty years. It is indeed a remarkable national asset. Most great cities have their places of beauty and rest, but in the Dandenongs Melbourne can boast a vast fairyland of great scenic beauty, varied in its loveliness, and close as it is to the city offering a sanitorium for all time. 1 Glenleven or “The Castle,” was designed by prominent Melbourne architect Edward Bates (1865-1931) in the style of a Scottish castle for Mary (May) Lydia Reid (1872-1955), a member of a wealthy Melbourne mercantile family. It was built in the years immediately after World War 1. May Reid was the daughter of Robert Reid (1842-1904), a Scottish-born businessman and politician, who served in the colonial Victorian Parliament and briefly in the Australian Senate. The approaches to Melbourne’s favourite mountain range are along modern roads, mostly bitumen covered, gradually rising from the flats to the foothills until entrance to the range is reached at Fern Tree Gully, and through Ringwood and Croydon on the other side. Along the roads the fruit and flower sellers, and vendors of drinks and teas lend a picturesque touch to the roads. In the valleys, with every change of sun and season, the picture changes. The storm lends a sombre setting and a thunderstorm in the (2/…) mountains with its vivid flashes of lightning and crashing thunder echoing through the hills is so grand and awe inspiring that it makes us think and appreciate on the mightiness of God. Next morning when we stand on the hills, there below us is a wonderful mystic lake, a sea of white clouds, with its waves and ripples. The morning sun disperses the mist fantastically, but whatever the changes the picture is always arresting. To the west a clear hot day shows Port Phillip and Hobsons Bay like a burning mirror, to the north-west Donna Buang and Ben Cairn. In Sassafras lies Sherbrooke Forest. A dozen visits will not exhaust the wonders of this ferny glade, the Sherbrooke Falls, Jacobs Ladder and the Giant Tree. One can crawl inside for 60 feet. It is of 66ft girth. From the Blacks Hill2 one can look down on the country as on a map, seeing all Southern Gippsland in every direction. The countless birds, thousands of tree ferns and wealth of timbers of all kinds impel one to respond reverently to the call of the wild. I often think of Mrs Hanly and her recitations of “Butterflies” as they are here in all their colours – gold and brown and crimson. (3/…) The intense silence, as soon as one enters this forest, except for the calls and singing of the birds, makes one indeed feel “Far from the Madding Crowd”. If we keep quiet and are fortunate, we will see the Lyre Bird dancing in the gully. As I’m sitting now on my favourite seat on top of a great fallen tree (to be clear of snakes and ants, etc) watching the sunset from the top of Mount Olinda,3 I wish I could describe it adequately, behind me Donna Buang and the Spur, and Dandenong and in front shimmering in the distance the waters of the Bay, from the Heads along to Mornington , right round to Port Melbourne showing the shipping, the most wonderful lights and colourings in the sky, touching the tops of the hills with rose and gold. Lights like points of flame shining where the sun strikes the windows in the houses on the hillside, the valleys being in shadow. Later one when it is dark, we will be able to see the lights of Melbourne like a big fairyland. Yet in spite of it being only a little over an hour’s run from town, some (4/…) of the villagers here are delightful rurals that we hear and read about. 2 This is possibly a reference to Black Hill in Selby. 3 The township was sometimes known as “Mount Olinda” in the early 20th century. Mt Olinda itself has largely disappeared from both modern maps and usage but is a geographic feature about halfway along Range Road. The milkman leaves his home on his morning round about 11am, finishing at 3pm and his evening round from 9 to 11 pm, summer and winter. A dear old lady4 that has a little fancy shop says she can always sell more if her shop is untidy, her stock is scattered all over the counter and on the floor and when we go in to buy anything we always help in the search for what we want, then she’ll discover something else that she’d forgotten she had in stock. I went in to buy some tartan, she had no tape measure so measured by the `Sun’ newspaper which she says measures half a yard. In the midst of measuring, she heard some people go past and dropped everything to run out and see who it was. And yet the quality of her stock is very good indeed and to see here garden in her home is a revelation. She lives alone and says the flowers give her such a greeting when she comes home. The shops open and close when they think fit. If they are not open when you want them, you go and hunt them up. (5/…) There is a splendid library5 with over 600 books – a fair sprinkling of the classics, though good old books and some of the latest novels but the so-called modern “smart” book is banned. The small fee is only 1/6 [per] quarter. It is on our walks off the main tracks that we find some of the loveliest places. Hidden among the timber we find a deserted garden, the lovely old farm house falling into decay and covered with moss. Rows and rows of raspberries, red currants, gooseberries and cherry plums going to waste within an hour of Melbourne. It is so hidden in the gully and off the main track that the ordinary tourist would never find it. Indeed, when I asked some of the Olinda people themselves, they didn’t know anything about it and within a mile of the village but they grow so many berries and fruits themselves that they don’t bother. One lady that I met near the garden said that two school boys had been up the day before and picked a cart of raspberries and red currants, their father calling for them in a car. We picked as many as we (6/…) could turn into jam. I picked a bucket to send to Swan Hill but next morning they were too soft to carry. If only we’d discovered the garden a week earlier and they’d have carried better. We spent a nice day in that garden with Mr & Mrs Thos. Scott (formerly of Swan Hill) exploring all the lovely places in it. It makes one wonder where the owner can be. It had evidently been unoccupied for years. All through the hills the choicest flowers such as rhododendrons, azaleas, hydrangeas and gladioli and the old fashioned but lovely lavender grow almost wild, and the commonest flowers take on the most wonderful colours. In Nathania Springs at Monbulk the tame blackfish come when their particular name is called and the tame kookaburras eat out of your hand and it was from here in 1881 that Baron Von Mueller obtained the largest tree fern in the world and forwarded it to the Czar of Russia who was an ardent collector. There is an old pioneer hut in the gardens, an old log cabin which must have been built many years ago. It looks like (7/…) the remains of an old wayside inn probably there when the miners were fossicking for gold in the gullies. 4 This was Miss E.B. Oates, whose haberdashery shop was in the main strip along from Dodds’ store and next to the newsagency. The shop, along with others adjoining, was destroyed by fire in 1939. 5 This would have been at the Olinda Hall and Mechanics Institute. Up here one meets such a mixture of the old bush days and the March of Progress. Just on the other side of Nathania Springs the great Silvan Dam is being built. It will be one of the largest reservoirs in the world when finished.6 350 workmen are engaged there, thus making a small township of their own. Already three thousand acres are under construction with a view to obtaining more for a second lake, the concrete walls to be 135ft high – taking the overflow from the Warburton Reservoir7 and the creeks around thus ensuring an ample supply for water for Melbourne for the next fifty years, or so it is hoped. The blasting of the stone from the quarries for the concrete, etc used in the making is done at 7.30 and 9am, at noon and at 5pm, thus serving as a time keeper for the district. They hope to release the water from the first lake in 1932. One drawback at Olinda we never have (8/…) Mass here or at Sassafras, and only about once a month at Monbulk, four miles distant and over a very steep hill.8 The priest comes from Fern Tree Gully and we feel almost like pioneers when we have to rise at six on those mornings, get all the children ready to leave by 7.30 to be in time for 9 o’clock Mass. And yet we don’t seem to feel the distance. The children run along in the clear morning air as happy as the birds, last time jumping over a sleeping black snake in the path before they noticed it. I must close now or you will be weary but if anyone ever wants a quiet, health giving holiday and a real rest then let them come to the hills. To describe autumn in the hills, well one wants to see it to appreciate, and I remember the glorious colours of the oaks, maples, holly and rowan berries and many others when the chestnuts and blackberries are everywhere. The sunsets are glorious (no other word describes it). I was finishing writing last night when Harry came rushing in to tell me that the bushfire was coming up the other side of the hill. So he changed into his old clothes to be off with the men to fight it. It is a terrifying spectacle while it lasts to see the showers of parks flying and the great tees crashing but the Bush Fire Brigade seems to be well organised and every man ready to help but unfortunately sometimes the wind is against them. Last night some of the women were helping with tea and refreshments for the men and fortunately got that particular one under control without any homes going. So they have the bushfires to contend with where we have our drought which I suppose may even things up just a little in this life. Yours sincerely V. Frazer p.s. Best of all the hills have always been a wonderful cure for any of the children’s chest troubles and for my own. VF 6 Silvan Dam was in fact a relatively small reservoir, even compared to others in the Melbourne system. 7 A reference to the O’Shannassy Reservoir at McMahons Creek, which was built in the 1920s. 8 There was no Catholic church in Olinda until 1983. Mass was also held at the Ferny Creek Mechanics Institute in the 1920s and 30s. A sample page of Vere Frazer’s original letter.