Thanks are extended to the following people for their contribution to the Forum.

The various speakers Russell Mullett, descendent of the Gunai/Kurnai of Gippsland Dr Jane Lennon, heritage consultant Ian Stapleton, Historian & Educator Dr Ruth Lawrence, Outdoor & Environmental Education, La Trobe University Bendigo Peter Jacobs, Alps Parks Victoria James Hackel, Parks Victoria Philip Ingamells, environmental educator Rob Kaufman, heritage consultant

Discussion group coordinators James Hackel, Chris Smith, Catherine Bessant Kate Nelson Neville Wale John Hawker Helen Page Anne Sedgley Helen Martin

Poster presentations Chris Smith and Anne Sedgley, Huts in the High Country Andrew Swift, In search of golden footprints Juliet Bird National Trust of Australia (Victoria) – presented by Bryn Davies Rod Atkins, Australian Alps National Parks www.hutsvictoria.org.au

Forum rapporteur Peter Hiscock

Forum Planning Committee Peter Hiscock Helen Martin Neville Wale John Hawker Anne Sedgley

Forum Coordinator & report design Jane Andrews

Sponsors Heritage Council, Heritage Victoria, Australian Alps National Parks, East Gippsland Shire Council, Parks Victoria

Photographs Front cover photos supplied by: Anne Sedgley All other images and graphs thanks to individual authors (as specified)

Special thanks to all the local support, especially the Omeo Historical Society, Mesley Restaurant, Old Country Kitchen, Golden Age Motel, Omeo Bakery and Blue Duck Inn

Front images Bushwalkers walking east towards the Bluff, Victorian Alps Wallace’s Hut Omeo Court House Mt Feathertop from the south, from Hotham Table of contents

Omeo Court House reception/tour ...... 1 East Gippsland Shire & Omeo Historical Society ...... 1

Day forum ...... 2 Introduction to the Heritage of the High Country Forum...... 2

Program ...... 5 Speakers...... 6 Aboriginal cultural heritage and meaning of landscape...... 8 Heritage on high, reflections on designating alpine heritage places...... 10 Colourful characters of the High Country...... 20 Environmental history of the High Country ...... 24 Cultural heritage in the Alps...... 29 Alpine National Park Management Plan...... 40 Climate change and Victoria’s Alpine National Park...... 45

Poster presentations ...... 51 Huts in the High Country – heritage under threat ...... 51 In search of golden footprints ...... 52 National Trust of Australia (Victoria)...... 53 Strategic Directions for the Australian Alps national parks...... 57 Victorian High Country Huts Association...... 60

After dinner speaker...... 61 Gold & landscapes – a ramble...... 61

Workshops ...... 63 Summary ...... 63 1. Greater Alpine Parks Management Plan Review - a chance to have your say ...65 2. Tourism and recreation...... 65 3. Cultural Heritage: The tangible contributions to our alpine heritage of recreational use (walking, skiing), grazing, mining and hydro power...... 66 4. Education and interpretation...... 69 5. Natural heritage and landscape...... 70

Omeo – a distinctive heritage ...... 71 Omeo Justice Precinct...... 72 Walk up Day Avenue ...... 74

Self-drive tour...... 76 Heritage of the Bogong High Plains, Saturday 16 May 2009 ...... 76 Report on the driving tour of the heritage of the High Country ...... 81

Disclaimer This publication may be of assistance to you but the Heritage Council of Victoria does not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequence which may arise from you relying on any information in this publication. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heritage Council of Victoria or the Victorian Government.

© Heritage Council of Victoria, 2009. This publication is copyright. No part may be reproduced by any process except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Copyright for all images and graphs is vested in the speaker (author) unless otherwise stated. Permission to use them should be sought from the speaker (author).

Published by the Heritage Council of Victoria P O Box 2392, Melbourne 3001 November 2009 Also published on www.heritage.vic.gov.au

978 0 9806217 5 4 – print 978 0 9806217 6 1 – online 978 0 9806217 7 8 – CD-ROM

Heritage of the High Country Forum, 15 May 2009 Heritage Council of Victoria, www.heritage.vic.gov.au

R OMEO COURT HOUSE RECEPTION/TOUR

East Gippsland Shire & Omeo Historical Society Helen Martin, Planner & member of the Heritage Council E The Forum began on the evening of 14 May with a reception hosted by the Omeo Historical Society and East Gippsland Shire. This took place in the wonderful ‘new’ Court House (1893) – designed by Government architect A. J. Macdonald – warmed by a magnificent fire and, as time went on, by increasingly animated conversations.

Councillor Trudy Anderson, on behalf of East Gippsland Shire and as a local (Benambra) resident, welcomed all the forum delegates. Graeme Deveson, President of OHS, outlined the history ofC the Omeo Justice Precinct, which is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. Neville Wale, for the Heritage Council and the Landscape Advisory Committee, thanked the two organisations for their hospitality and described the programme for the next two days.

After an opportunity to view the historic displays and the court records stored in the new Court House, OHS members Graeme Deveson and Jeff Cooper took delegates on a guided tour of the whole precinct. This includes the 1862 Court House (Alfred Howitt, as Police Magistrate, onceE inhabited the rear two rooms), a log gaol and attached police cookhouse, a police house and police stables. The VHR statement of significance describes it as ‘the most intact example of a 19th Century police and court complex known to survive in Victoria’. Even though it was a ‘brisk’ Omeo night, tour participants enjoyed exploring its attractions.

Brett Lee, another OHS member, entertained those of the party who preferred to remain by theP fire, sharing his immense knowledge of the history of the Omeo district.

T I O N

15 May 2009 1 F DAY FORUM

Introduction to the Heritage of the High Country Forum ONeville Wale, Chair of the Landscape Advisory Committee, Heritage Council of Victoria Welcome to this the sixth annual Landscape Forum on Cultural Landscapes of the Landscape Advisory Committee of the Heritage Council. The Heritage Council is set up under the Heritage Act to advise the Minister and is responsible for the Victorian Heritage Register which lists post contact or non indigenous cultural heritage places of State significance. These places include buildings, shipwrecks, designed landscapes such as botanic gardens and avenues of honour, and some broad-scale landscapes such as Tower Hill and Bells Beach. R The program began last night with the function hosted by East Gippsland Shire and the Omeo Historical Society at the Court House in Day Avenue. I am sure all who participated would wish me to express our thanks to the organizers for an excellent event.

At today’s Forum we will receive papers from leading authors and researchers in the field of Ucultural heritage, environmental education and land management. Parks Victoria will also outline the process of consultation being undertaken for the Review of the Alpine National Park Management Plan. There will be an opportunity for brief presentations from organisations which have prepared posters. After lunch you, the audience, along with our speakers will participate in workshops in which we want to hear your views on the most important issues affecting the Cultural Landscapes of the High Country.

MWorkshop topics: ƒ The Alpine National Park Management Plan Review ƒ Tourism and Recreation ƒ Cultural heritage – what is it and what contributions from the past are important for the future. ƒ Education and Interpretation ƒ Natural Heritage and Landscape.

There is also an evaluation form which we would ask you for fill in and leave with Jane Andrews (our Forum Convener) at the end of the Forum. The Forum will conclude at around 5.00pm.

The papers from this Forum along with a summary of the workshop discussions will be published. All Forum participants will be sent a copy on CD and others will be able to access the material on the Heritage Victoria web site.

Tomorrow a number of us will undertake the Self Drive Tour – from the Court House here in Omeo to Mt Beauty taking in 90km of the Bogong High Plains Road and covering the range of activities past and present that have shaped or are shaping the future of the High Country.

What is the Forum about? ƒ Building awareness of historic places in the High Country – an area with many layers of cultural heritage from a rich aboriginal past continuing to the present, following the tracks of early explorers, prospectors and miners, cattlemen, the evolution of tourism and recreation (walking and skiing), and hydro power schemes.

2 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum

ƒ Seeking an understanding of the threats to cultural heritage – its values and the potential of heritage places. ƒ Providing opportunity for the community to share their ideas and aspirations. ƒ Understanding how managing the High Country may affect heritage values in the alpine parks including recognition of the potential impacts of climate change.

Past Forums I mentioned that this is the sixth Landscape Advisory Committee Forum. The first forum was held at Geelong in July 2004 and focused on the coastal landscape of the Bellarine Peninsula. It explored spiritual, artistic and practical relevance and meaning of landscape. It tried to demonstrate how working together with all stakeholders in landscape can define, protect and respond to cultural and natural landscapes.

The second forum was in 2005 on the Mornington Peninsula, an area that has been subject to comprehensive landscape assessment and conservation measures under various planning schemes since the 1970’s and most recently covered by the Government’s Melbourne 2030 study. Much of the hinterland and coastline of the Peninsula had been classified by the National Trust. The beach and foreshore area at Shoreham was one of the first cultural landscapes to be placed on the State Heritage Register by Heritage Council. The ability of policy and planning mechanisms to deal with problems of change, including the protection of rural and coastal landscapes from inappropriate development, were key questions.

The Historic Towns in the Country Forum in 2006, held in Buninyong, noted that significance is not limited to historic buildings, town street pattern or botanical gardens but includes the setting of the town. This often indicates how a town developed in the past and why it is located where it is. Pressures for expansion to accommodate the “sea and tree change people” attracted to the lifestyle of small communities, was found to have the potential to adversely impact the historic setting and character of many small towns.

In 2007 the Cultural Landscapes of the Volcanic Plains Forum at Glenormiston, looked at broader landscapes and the role of underlying geology and geomorphology in the creation of the cultural landscape. It examined the features of a created landscape, the clearing of native vegetation, building of structures such as dry stone walls and formal tree plantings. Threats included pressure of climate and economic changes on agriculture and recent monoculture developments such as tree farms.

The Heritage and the Land Forum was held in Murtoa in 2008 and looked at the landscapes of the Mallee plains and examined the impact of changing climatic and economic circumstances.

The proceedings from the past forums have been published and are available on the Heritage Victoria web site. Selected papers from these forums are currently with the publishers and should be ready for launch as a compendium publication by the Heritage Council in October.

What are cultural landscapes? A cultural landscape is a landscape in which the influence of human activity over time may be discovered. Landscapes provide evidence of past use and occupation, not just old buildings but patterns of land use and the artefacts of industry and human activity. Cultural landscapes, whether urban or rural, are also a complex of incremental layers, reflecting changes wrought by development, decay, ongoing use or decline.

15 May 2009 3 Day Forum

Community ownership of “heritage” is needed, providing a vision of the past which informs a higher level of appreciation of landscape; also encourage employment opportunities in tourism and other related economic enterprises. Education, consultation and volunteer programs focused on management of cultural landscapes are important, while programs of financial and physical assistance are also necessary to provide tangible support for owners of significant landscapes. It has also to be acknowledged that there are difficulties of definition of cultural landscapes which complicate management and planning processes in comparison to heritage buildings and individual objects.

Quite apart from the need to physically define the extent of significant landscapes, the objectives of designating cultural landscapes need to be clearly understood to ensure a balance between “heritage” interests and local perceptions and values. Some communities may have difficulty accepting that a landscape may be “articulate about the past” while others may have no wish to be reminded of bitter past events. However research indicates that communities generally value landscapes – attachments that often surface when valued landscapes are threatened by unwelcome developments.

Some of the Issues for Heritage in the High Country that I anticipate will be brought out by our speakers today and we will discuss later will include:

ƒ Changes in the hydrology and environment of the High Plains with climate change ƒ Ever present threat of fires and the need for strategies for recovery. ƒ Opportunities for cooperation on cultural heritage involving the traditional owners, communities and governments at all levels. ƒ Retaining the character and charm of historic settlements ƒ Adequacy of management resources in times of economic downturn. ƒ Opportunities for education, interpretation and tourism ƒ Scope for community involvement and participation in caring for and promoting the High Country. ƒ Recording and managing the many heritage sites in the High Country. ƒ Managing new development and any expansion of resort facilities so that the beauty of the High Country is protected.

The Chairman of the Heritage Council, Darryl Jackson, is keen to develop cross cultural programs with the Aboriginal Heritage Council. He said recently that “only now are Australians able to recognise how seriously the coming of the European populace has affected a much older aboriginal realm of indigenous life with ideas some 40,000 years old” “Through a common understanding of past endeavours we will develop a well founded democratic and civilizing existence that is recognizably Australian”.

Thank you for coming and we await your contribution to this discussion of Heritage of the High Country.

I would particularly thank the organising subcommittee of the Landscape Advisory Committee, Helen Martin and Peter Hiscock, also Anne Sedgley and John Hawker of Heritage Victoria and Jane Andrews (our Forum Convener). Thanks also to our workshop group facilitators of whom you will hear more later on.

I also wish to acknowledge the sponsorship of this event by the Heritage Council of Victoria, Heritage Victoria, Australian Alpine National Parks, Parks Victoria and the financial and material support of the East Gippsland Shire.

4 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum

PROGRAM

8:00 – 8:45 Registration

8:45 – 9:00 Welcome, Heritage Council & LAC aims. Introductions & program outline – Neville Wale 9:00 – 9:15 Indigenous values & welcome to country – Russell Mullet

9:15 – 10:00 Heritage on high: reflections on designating alpine heritage places – Dr Jane Lennon 10:00 – 10:30 People in the Alps: tourism wilderness, human & spiritual values – Ian Stapleton 10:30 – 11:00 Morning tea

11:00 – 11:30 Environmental history – Dr Ruth Lawrence

11:30– 12:00 Cultural heritage in the Alps: values, threats, management and partners – Peter Jacobs 12:00– 12:30 Review of Alpine National Park Management Plan: process and consultation – James Hackel 12:30 – 1:00 Poster presentations Huts in the High Country – Chris Smith, Anne Sedgley Brandy Creek – Andrew Swift Australian Alps National Parks National Trust 1:00 – 2:00 Lunch

2:00 – 2:30 Climate change in the Alps – Philip Ingamells

2:30 – 2:40 Introduction to workshops – Peter Hiscock

2:40 – 3:45 Workshops – 5 topics Parks Victoria’s Management Plan Review, Tourism & Recreation, Cultural Heritage, Education & Interpretation, Natural Heritage & Landscape 3:45 – 4:15 Afternoon tea

4:15 – 4:45 Report back on workshops

4:45 – 5:05 Forum summary & where to from here? – Neville Wale

6:30 Dinner, Golden Age Hotel, 189 Day Ave. After dinner speaker – Rob Kaufman

Prospectors and perils: miners and the exploration & settlement of the High Country

15 May 2009 5 Day Forum

Speakers

Keynote speaker Dr Jane Lennon Jane is a heritage consultant based in Brisbane. She has a long involvement with heritage conservation in National Parks, forests, coasts, goldfields, inner urban areas and museums as a public servant (1973-93) and as a member of numerous professional and community associations. She is a former member of the Australian Heritage Commission (1998-2002) and the Australian Heritage Council (2004-8). She was a founding member of the cultural heritage working group of the Australian Alps Liaison Committee in the 1980s and delivered the centenary of National Parks address at the opening of the Heritage Festival at Mt Buffalo National Park (1998). Her childhood was spent gazing up at the Victorian High Country and she has visited many high places in her conservation work around the globe.

Russell Mullett Russell is a descendent of the Gunai/Kurnai of Gippsland and is currently Chairperson of the Gunai/Kurnai Land & Waters Corporation. He is a past member of the Victorian Coastal Council, a past member of the Wilsons Promontory National Park Advisory Committee, and a founding Board Member of the Associate Dip. of Aboriginal Studies (Monash Uni - Gippsland). He has been surveying, recording, managing and protecting aboriginal cultural heritage for the last 20 years.

Ian Stapleton Ian is a teacher who has spent most of his life living and working out-of-doors in the mountains. He ran the Outdoor Activities Department at Timbertop School (near Merrijig) for ten years, and founded Mittagundi (near Omeo) and later, Wollangarra (near Licola). His keen interest in the mountains has resulted in a set of books about the colourful characters of the High Country.

James Hackel James Hackel, Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, has worked with Parks Victoria for the past eight years and has had roles undertaking management of Indigenous cultural values in Victoria's East including the Alps. James is presently a project officer with the team undertaking the review of the management plan for the Greater Alpine National Parks. The review encompasses the Avon Wilderness Park, Snowy River, Errinundra, Baw Baw, Mt Buffalo and Alpine National Parks, as well as adjacent Historic Areas.

Dr Ruth Lawrence Ruth is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies in Outdoor & Environmental Education at La Trobe University. She has extensive research and teaching experience in the Victorian High Country, having written a PhD on the historical interaction of the environment, land use and hydrology of the Bogong High Plains and published multiple papers on the topic. She has worked as a consultant to local government and educational providers in the region, and frequently runs educational field trips for a variety of organisations to the High Country. Recently, Ruth was primary investigator in a research project into the importance of High Country peatlands for water production in the major catchments draining from the High Country to the Murray River and Gippsland.

6 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum

Peter Jacobs Peter has spent most of his career in and around the Australian Alps as a ranger, planning officer and now Chief Ranger for the Alpine District with Parks Victoria. Fire and fire recovery has had a major influence on the Alps over the last 6 years. The effect of fire on cultural heritage, the emergence of good relations with traditional owners and the removal of cattle grazing in 2005 have led to cultural heritage being a key focus in the Alps. Peter is also convenor of the Australian Alps Liaison Committee which manages a very successful and innovative cross border co-operative program between Victoria, NSW, ACT and the Federal Government.

Philip Ingamells Philip is an environmental educator and has worked in both the public and private sectors, particularly in relation to protection of Victoria's national parks and reserves. He is the author of guidebooks for two of Victoria's oldest national parks: Mount Buffalo and Wilsons Promontory. He is currently running the Park Protection Project for the Victorian National Parks Association, one of Victoria's oldest member-based nature conservation organisations. The project is aimed at radically increasing resources for management of our national parks in the face of climate change.

Rob Kaufman Rob has a background in mining and other rural industries, which gives him a unique perspective as a heritage consultant. His projects include interpretation plans and conservation management plans for many heritage sites in the Victorian Alps, and broad surveys such as Lone Graves in Gippsland and post-bushfire surveys of remote sites in NE Victoria and Gippsland. He wrote Remembering Lost Places for the AALC, a book about historic huts lost in the 2003 bushfires. He also prepared the Australian Alps Mining Heritage Conservation & Presentation Strategy.

15 May 2009 7 Day Forum – Russell Mullett

Aboriginal cultural heritage and meaning of landscape Russell Mullet, descendent of the Gunai/Kurnai of Gippsland This paper will focus on the Aboriginal Heritage of the Alps and in particular the eastern highlands.

Documented information on the aboriginal history of the Alps is and always has been very sketchy though there are traces that lead us to many different sources or areas. Aboriginal tribes were portrayed as individuals with no past, visitors or travellers in their own country, described as people going to the mountains for bogong moths or workers for people: there is no clear information about who or what they were up to. Very few Europeans were interested in aboriginal people. The few who did, such as Alfred Howitt, enhance our understanding of traditional life and belief systems and give life and sense to aboriginal people.

What we do know from documentation is that early European explorers used aboriginal tribesmen as guides to find access into the mountains. McMillan, Strezlecki, Brown and others employed the skills of aboriginal people to help them navigate the mountains. It wasn’t until the 1970s that writers began to give us some understanding of aboriginal importance to early exploration of the North and East Gippsland region. Historians like John Wells, Peter Gardner and Patrick Morgan have provided a much broader perspectives of Gippsland history. People accessing archives in the records office have continued to put further information into the mixing bowl of knowledge.

In relation to the historical documentation the archaeological record has complemented these researchers. We’ve known for sometime that the archaeological record in the lower Gippsland region has evidence dating back to 17,000 – 20,000 BP. This significant time frame implies that there may well be older occupation periods waiting to be discovered in the Alps; for example the archaeological dig undertaken at Mt Cope that produced a chronological date of about 6,000 B.P. This site is one of Australia’s highest and oldest recorded human settlement sites. The opportunity to locate and excavate the site came after the 2003 bushfires which made possible one of the biggest archaeological surveys undertaken in Victoria if not Australia.

Major bushfires e.g. 1997 Caledonia River, 2003 Great Divide and to a lesser extent the 2006/7 fires, provided the opportunity to undertake archaeological field surveys. These fires allowed easier access to the full range of environmental zones – lower flood plains to peak alpine areas. Surveys were conducted in a range of different land use sectors i.e. river valleys, protected forest, logging coups, sub alpine and alpine, etc… The methodology predominantly used in the field involved foot surveys; much time was spent pouring over topography maps and ascertaining the places likely to contain evidence of aboriginal settlement. Funding for the Caledonia Firs came from Aboriginal Affairs Victoria; the 2003 and 2006/7 surveys were funded by Parks Victoria.

What was found? In 1997 the Caledonia River Pilot Project found 27 sites. The area covered 939 hectares and investigators walked approximately 54 kms over a ten day period. The environmental sampling covered ridge lines, river valleys and plateaus. 32% of the sites were on mountain plateaus, 24% on saddles associated with stone outcrops and 20% for river terraces. This survey is thought to indicate a pattern of settlement relating to summer environmental conditions – we can conclude that the plateau area has a higher array of usage because:

1. in summer it is cooler and there are sources of water and food 2. it is safer than settling in the lower river areas particularly if bushfires are lit by man or occur through lightning strikes.

The study area for the 2003 Great Divide Bushfires ranged from e.g. 70 kms/2 (Mount Mittamatite) to 3160km/2 (Dargo area). Using predictive modelling the survey covered approximately 434 hectares which only represented 0.1% of the project area. Survey teams recorded 325 Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal archaeological sites. Once again the location of sites was related to

8 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Russell Mullett

different elevation levels and hence different vegetation zones. The predominant findings were stone artefacts – perhaps the only surviving relic left by aboriginal people in the open landscape.

In this study it was decided to undertake two dig areas – one at Mt Cope and the other on the Dargo High Plain, which also produced a significant date around the 1500 year ago mark. We also found that some historical areas have evidence of aboriginal heritage which needs research to provide a clearer understanding of its association.

Out of these surveys many recommendations have been put forth in relation to aboriginal resource management. Many of those recommendations have not been acted upon and we continue to pursue better ways to management aboriginal heritage. A number of obvious observations were clear to us after these surveys

1. that aboriginal travel routes became cattle routes for cattlemen who were taking stock onto the High Plains for summer grazing or access points into the mountains 2. that the cattlemen’s huts built in the mountains were often in locations that contain aboriginal evidence of settlement. 3. that fire containment lines were the big destroyers of aboriginal heritage in bushfire situations 4. that there needs to be much more work to understand the aboriginal occupation of the High Country

Aboriginal Cultural Heritage does not get the credence that it demands: for example we are more inclined to protect a bird habitat or a species of plant than to look at the protection of sites that are 1000 years old or more. We know that during the period between 10,000 – 12,000 years ago the world became a very hard place for hunter – gather groups to survive in, with climatic conditions fluctuating from extremes of drought and cold. What we are seeking from the archaeological records are clues to how and where people survived in order to answer questions about adaptation and survival and resource use. This information may provide us with answers to help us make better decisions about land and water management today.

Climatic changes are again evident today as Australia learns to cope with major floods, drought and bushfires, changes that have been experienced before by people all over the world.

Aboriginal Sites are important places to aboriginal people today, Aboriginal people continue to press for involvement in land and sea management because of their ancestral past, and they want to maintain involvement for future generations. Certainly the important factors that protect heritage is the need for a legal framework, on-going funding and political good- will, and people who have the passion and commitment to fight for heritage. Heritage and its social influence are very much a part of all peoples understanding and generally forms a part of who we are, our identity and relationship to land and place on earth.

15 May 2009 9 S Heritage on high, reflections on designating alpine heritage places

Dr Jane Lennon, Heritage consultant

P

E

Mt Buffalo – looking across the Gorge Photo: Jane Lennon

A

Here where red dust rose The drover and his dray But where my skis trace To raddle sheep and men Have gone; and on this hill Their transient snow furrow, KAnd the kelpie tongued at noon, I find myself alone For generations both Silence has come again. And time standing still. Man and beast will follow. The great–boled gumtrees bow Printless the white road lies Now in this winter passage Beneath their load of snow. Before my quiet skis. I cross the deserted stage.

David Campbell’s poem, Winter Stock Route, conjure up images of the falling snow blotting out the Eevidence of human use and activities in the High Country. I see this as a metaphor for how we see cultural values in the Alps – recognised, then forgotten, buried or overlain by the grandeur of mountain scenery.

Cultural values may be seen in items, places and physical features, and they can also be associated with intangible qualities such as people's associations with or feelings for an item/place or in other items such as cultural practices, knowledge, songs and stories. Is Rthere a process to reconcile all heritage values?

The criteria for assessing cultural heritage values are based on those in the Burra Charter of Australia ICOMOS (1999)

ƒ Cultural significance means aesthetic, historic, scientific, social or spiritual value for past, S present or future generations. ƒ Cultural significance is embodied in the place itself, its fabric, setting, use, associations, meanings, records, related places and related objects. ƒ Places may have a range of values for different individuals or groups.

10 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

The cultural values of our alpine environments, a biogeographic unit covering a small area of Australia, are a specialised type and many of these values appear to be of national significance:

The Alpine region.... 0.3% of the area of this time-worn continent, only one-fiftieth of whose surface rises above 1000 metres…

Because of this unique topographic phenomena among the continents, and because both human responses to environmental challenges and the nature of social and technological activities in mountainous terrain are distinctive, it is essential to treasure evidence relating to Australia's alpine cultural heritage. And not only for its scarcity value, or for its representativeness of unique living conditions and achievements, but even for its individuality rather than its typicality (Mulvaney, in Scougall, 1992: 9).

Historic themes provide a framework in which to assess heritage values and they are used as a way of grouping places with similar cultural values. At the 1991 Jindabyne Symposium on the Cultural Heritage of the Australian Alps these themes were:

ƒ Aboriginal occupation and interaction with the environment prior to European contact ƒ Exploration and survey ƒ Pastoralism ƒ Mining ƒ Logging and silviculture ƒ Water harvesting ƒ Recreation and tourism ƒ Communication and transport ƒ Conservation and park management

After a review in 2002 to incorporate new data and research, the 1991 themes headed Exploration and Survey, and Transport and Communication, have been subsumed into other themes such as Pastoralism, or run right through all the themes.

Meanwhile the assessments of cultural values have moved to a wider contextual consideration, in which the overarching value of all heritage items is their value to society, and other attributes, such as aesthetic, scientific or historic value, are seen as subsets of this general social value (Byrne, Brayshaw and Ireland, 2001).

A summary of key values follows for each theme in the Australian Alps, based on work done by Lennon for the Australian Alps Liaison Committee in 1999 and updated in 2002.

Aboriginal values: ƒ Aboriginal occupation in the Australian Alps for at least 21,000 years. ƒ Alpine country – traditional gathering place for the Bogong moth ‘festival,’ ethnographic evidence, continuing Aboriginal tradition, sites, routes and physical remains of scientific, historic and social value. ƒ New evidence especially after the 2003 fires for increased Aboriginal use of alpine country – human adaptation to ancient landscape. ƒ Emphasis on archaeological research and role of men in Aboriginal society resulted in biased analysis of Aboriginal cultural heritage – and an emphasis on places at the expense of landscapes. ƒ Aboriginal landscapes are invisible to many Australians. ƒ Contemporary Aboriginal connections are often unrecognised or actively denied (Young 2000). This threatens cultural significance of the Aboriginal heritage in alpine areas.

15 May 2009 11 Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

Pastoralism values ƒ By early 1850s the Australian Alps were nominally occupied by pastoralists. ƒ Huts, homesteads, transhumance routes are of historic significance as physical evidence of pastoral life only found at these altitudes. ƒ The physical setting of the alpine region is of aesthetic significance given its celebration in Australian literature and art and it forms part of the national psyche. ƒ Social value to communities in their continuation and celebration of pastoral traditions and respect for physical remains, Orroral Homestead, Namadgi National Park wild horses, and stock routes of Photo: Jane Lennon the Alps. ƒ The Man from Snowy River is an Australian icon and this is a social value of the theme of national importance.

Mining values ƒ Mining rushes 1850s and 60s had a major impact on the Alps due to intensity of the operations, migration of large numbers into the sparsely settled or unexplored Alps. ƒ Provided impetus for regional industries, fledgling towns, ruins dot the landscapes. ƒ Kiandra gold field – most extensive and successful gold field at this altitude; range of mining features rather than individual sites; demonstrates a cultural landscape. ƒ Innovative technology used in Alps as at Cassilis – significance.

Timber and forestry values ƒ Timber processing and its associated clearing of land is a theme of national importance in developing regional economies. ƒ Logging alpine ash forests requires understanding of silvicultural conditions for regeneration for sustaining the industry. ƒ Timber production is of regional importance supplying building materials for mines, huts, buildings in the Alps. ƒ Sawmill sites using different technologies represent range of techniques to process mountain ash timber from water wheel through to steam and diesel power. ƒ Logged landscapes illustrate historical processes and could be of cultural landscape significance. ƒ Plantations like that at Jounama, north of Kiandra, are of significance as they represent the national theme of learning to live with Australia's diverse environments.

12 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

Water harvesting ƒ Water harvesting is also a theme of historic and social significance in the Alps given it’s the catchment roof of Australia. ƒ Supply for domestic use, stock and agriculture, power (waterwheels) for sawmills, mining treatments, later hydro-electricity. ƒ The Snowy Mountains Scheme (1949-74) was the largest engineering scheme ever undertaken in Australia; operated for 25 years, directly recruited 60,000 Europeans. It has been recognised as an engineering feat of national significance, symbol of Australian achievement, and a basis for Australia's post-war multicultural society. It had a lasting impact on its workers, on the life of the regional towns and their social mores.

Scientific research, conservation and park management values ƒ Before 1940, alpine science was incidental, unrepeated, descriptive; the science of exploration by individuals, Von Mueller, J. Maiden, Edgeworth David, A.W. Howitt, Clement Wragge. ƒ Since 1940, alpine science has been experimental, problem-oriented, sustained over repeated visits; often institutional e.g. vegetation analyses shaping soil conservation work in Victoria and NSW. ƒ Zeal to restore ‘pristine’ environment ignored Aboriginal heritage, also led to destruction of valuable historic heritage fabric, e.g. at Kiandra. ƒ Challenge now is to integrate management on the ground of all heritage values.

Recreation values ƒ Kiandra – birthplace of Australian skiing in 1861 ƒ Helms noted in 1898 that grazing damage to the High Country was interfering with ‘the artist and tourist who seek the picturesque’. ƒ Mt Buffalo reserved as national park -1898 ƒ Mount Kosciuszko is a national symbol, source of inspiration, recreational attraction for visitors. ƒ Ski fields and resorts – historic, aesthetic and social values ƒ Pioneers of Australian ski industry commemorated in names ƒ Ski tube at Blue Cow – innovation in a sensitive environment ƒ High country huts as historical markers of overlapping land use

Assessing national heritage values for the Australian Alps There is a logical process used. First Sieve: selection of potential NHL themes and sorting data by these. Second Sieve: Using NH indicators of significance Third Sieve: Assessment against NHL criteria, applying thresholds Appendix 1 gives the National Heritage criteria. Unlike the States and Territories heritage criteria, the NHL criteria are integrated with natural, Indigenous and historic/cultural values all considered. The area assessed for National Heritage values was all public land – the Australian Alps National Parks of about 1,653,180 ha across eleven national parks and nature reserves in the ACT, NSW and Victoria. The formal gazettal was announced by the Minister in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette [No. S237, Friday, 7 November 2008]. The values assessed which were found to be over the threshold as having outstanding value to the nation were criteria a, b, d, e, g and h. The full analysis may be found in the Australian Heritage Database under National Heritage List at: http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/index.html

15 May 2009 13 Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

A summary is offered here by values for each criterion.

(a) outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place‘s importance in the course, or pattern, of Australia's natural or cultural history ƒ Glacial and Periglacial Features five alpine lakes, 13 cirques and associated moraines, ice-grooved pavements and erratic boulders; unique in the low-latitude, low-altitude Australian continent. ƒ Fossils Mt Howitt fish fossil site ƒ Karst Yarrangobilly karst area ƒ Biological Heritage Alps 1 of 11 sites recognised in Australia by the IUCN as a major world centre of plant diversity ƒ Moth Feasting Bogong moth as basis for past large-scale annual gatherings of different Aboriginal groups for ceremonies sets the these gatherings apart making it exceptional in Australia ƒ Transhumant Grazing historic seasonal grazing that commenced in the 1830s ƒ Scientific Research since 1830s relating to botanical surveys, soil conservation exclosures, karst research, fauna research, meteorology, fire ecology plots, arboreta and glacial research sites, space tracking in the Apollo 11 moon landing mission. ƒ Water Harvesting contribution to the social and economic development of Australia; Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme and the Kiewa Valley Hydro-electric Scheme also contributes to the electricity needs of south-eastern Australia. ƒ Recreation from 1861 with the Kiandra Snowshoe Club to a multi-million dollar snow sport and tourism industry. Chalets in scenic locations in early twentieth century when mountain retreats highly regarded for good health.

(b) outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Australia's natural or cultural history ƒ Landscape and Topography includes all peaks over 1,900 metres, uncommon alpine and sub-alpine ecosystems and glacial lakes. ƒ Glacial and Periglacial Features Kosciuszko Plateau only place irrefutably exhibiting landforms shaped by Late Pleistocene glaciers and demonstrate the widespread effects of cold climate in the Quaternary. ƒ Fossils Mt Howitt fish fossil site – globally rare preserving fish at all stages of life cycle. ƒ Alpine and Sub-alpine Ecosystems evolved to harsh conditions of high altitudes; many species endemic to the Alps, especially bog and fen communities

14 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

ƒ Eucalypt Flora Community outstanding example of the adaptability of the genus Eucalyptus, along a steep topographical transect from the lowlands to as high as the alpine region, where the Snow Gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora) defines the treeline.

(d) outstanding heritage value to the nation in demonstrating the principal characteristics of: (i) a class of Australia's natural or cultural places; or (ii) a class of Australia's natural or cultural environments. ƒ North-East Kosciuszko Pastoral Landscape outstanding for demonstrating use of mountain resources, namely the summer grasses and herbfields. As a relict landscape of past grazing leases it conveys the principal characteristics of transhumance and permanent pastoralism in a remote environment, these being large areas of open grassy landscapes between timbered ridges and hills, stockman's huts, homestead complexes, stockyards and stock routes. Currango is the largest, most intact example of pastoral settlement above snowline – 25 remaining buildings and ruins spanning 150 years.

(e) outstanding heritage value because of the place's importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group ƒ mountain vistas, including distinctive range-upon-range panoramas, evoke strong aesthetic responses ƒ highly valued for its remoteness, and naturalness ƒ snow-covered eucalypts, huts in mountain settings and mountain landscapes are distinctive Australian images captured by numerous artists and photographers, e.g. Charles Kerry, Colin Totterdell, David Tatnall, Klaus Hueneke. ƒ mountain landscapes inspired poets, painters, writers, musicians

(g) outstanding heritage value because of the place's strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons ƒ widely recognised by Australians as the 'High Country' ƒ many community groups have a special association for social and cultural reasons. ƒ Mount Kosciuszko – an iconic feature for all Australians, association is highly valued by Australia's Polish community. ƒ pioneering history of the High Country featuring in myths, legends and literature. ƒ The Man from Snowy River epitomises horsemanship undertaken historically in the rugged landscape. ƒ stories, legends and myths of the mountains lifestyles romanticised in books, films, songs, and television series – many such as the Elyne Mitchell’s Silver Brumby novels are part of Australia's national identity. ƒ mountain huts special associations with cattlemen, skiers and bushwalkers but particularly with huts associations that have been maintaining mountain huts and associated vernacular building skills for over 30 years.

15 May 2009 15 Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

(h) outstanding heritage value because of the place's special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Australia's natural or cultural history. ƒ Baron Ferdinand von Mueller-extensive and thorough botanical collections of the Australian Alps ƒ Eugene von Guerard – significant nineteenth century artist producing a prolific record of Australian landscapes. His 1863 painting, the North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko, is regarded as one of his finest artistically and is in Australia's national collection ƒ Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson, through his ballad "The Man from Snowy River", captured the Australian imagination, stimulating a passion for the High Country; his iconic ballad has had a lasting influence on Australians. ƒ Elyne Mitchell, writer, and David Campbell, poet, lived near the mountains – expressed strong association in their nationally important literary works.

Universal themes – seasonal movement to mountains on high In considering the comparative context of the Australian Alps it is also useful to consider universal themes such as those used in World Heritage assessments.

ƒ Transhumance is a European term relating to seasonal movement of herds and flocks to harvest the summer resources of the alpine meadows below the rocky peaks. Its history in Europe, Asia and the Andes goes back centuries. ƒ Pastoralists in the southern regions of NSW had been doing something similar since the 1830s, although most of them used mountain pastures only in dry years… other differences… Europeans grazed their stock on commons… NSW stock grazed illegally on crown land or else on leased land… Whereas Europeans often completed their journey from lowlands to mountains in a day or two, New South Welshmen might take weeks and sometimes months. In many parts of Europe the annual stock migration was linked with a festival of some sort… in NSW only a post-shearing muster and the assembling of a droving team marked the event… nevertheless, the pastoralists of NSW were following a long established management practice (Merrit, 2003:13-14).

Pyrenees: ƒ Mont Perdu/Monte Perdito on the border of France and Spain was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1997 as a cultural landscape. The site includes two of Europe’s largest and deepest canyons on the Spanish side and three major cirque walls on the more abrupt northern slopes with France, classic presentations of glacial landforms. The site is also a pastoral landscape reflecting an agricultural way of life once widespread in the upland regions of Europe but now only surviving in this part of the Pyrenees. Provides exceptional insights into past European society through its landscapes of villages, farms, fields, upland pastures used for transhumance and mountain roads (Fowler, 2003:103).

Cultural transference ƒ Outstanding examples of European transhumance have small villages of stone and timber construction for shelter for both people and animals. ƒ Timber vernacular villages are a feature of Scandinavia and central Europe, e.g. Vlkolinec in Slovakia was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1993 as a remarkably intact and outstanding example.

16 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

ƒ This timber building tradition was transported to the USA and Canada, with backwoods cabins, log houses and barns as well as log rail fences and corrals (yards). ƒ While Australian alpine huts associated with transhumance are nearly all timber and tin – the nearest available and easiest materials to transport – their styles reflect some European traditions.

Australian Alps have relict features in a current national park landscape with natural regeneration but devoid of pastoral activity since the last Travelling Stock Route was cancelled in 2008. But it had seasonal movement, the longest practised in the world associated with Aboriginal use.

Australian Alps National Parks relict features Photos: Jane Lennon

Seasonal movement as a cultural tradition in Australia could be of outstanding universal significance because of its possible expression over 21,000 years and more consistently over the last 4,500 years.

Cultural continuity is expressed in the landscape by the same pathways or corridors being used by successive occupants over the last century, e.g. use of Aboriginal pathways by explorers, stockmen, scientists, skiers, motorists and bush walkers along parts of the old travelling stock routes along the Alpine Way [Kosciusko] and Ingeegoodbee Track [East Gippsland]. And let us remember that fire is a constant in renewing the alpine landscape. It brings new stories, new landscapes, new connections.

15 May 2009 17 Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

Fire effects – Mt Buffalo National Park, Oct 2007 Photos: Jane Lennon

Finally, thank you to all those friends and colleagues who have contributed to building up this knowledge of alpine cultural heritage which encouraged the legislative protection of the Australian Alps National Parks as a National Heritage List place.

References: Byrne D, Brayshaw H & Ireland T, 2001. Social Significance: a discussion paper. NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Hurstville Campbell, David, 1978. ‘Winter Stock Route’, Selected Poems, Angus and Robertson, Australia, p.4 Fowler, Peter, 2003.World Heritage Cultural Landscapes 1992-2002, World Heritage papers no. 6, UNESCO, Paris. Lennon, Jane.1999. The international significance of the cultural values of the Australian Alps, report for the Cultural Heritage Working Group, Australian Alps Liaison Committee, 103pp. Lennon, Jane. 2003. The Cultural Significance of Australian Alpine Areas, in Historic Environment, vol. 17, no.2, pp.14-18. Sullivan, Sharon and Lennon, Jane, 2002. Cultural Values, in Independent Scientific Committee, An Assessment of the Values of Kosciuszko National Park, interim report, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, pp.181-227. Merrit, John, 2003. Currango Summers, A snow belt pastoral property 1851-1946, Turalla Press, Bungendore, NSW. Mulvaney, John, 1992. The alpine cultural heritage in perspective, in Babette Scougall, ed., Cultural Heritage of the Australian Alps, pp.9-18. Young, M., with E. & D. Mundy. 2000. The Aboriginal people of the Monaro: A documentary history compiled by Michael Young with Ellen and Debbie Mundy, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.

18 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Jane Lennon

Appendix 1: National Heritage Criteria (a) the place has outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place's… importance in the course, or pattern, of Australia's natural or cultural history; (b) …possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects… (c) …potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding …; (d) …in demonstrating the principal characteristics of) a class of Australia's natural or cultural places or environments; (e) …in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group; (f) …in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period; (g) …strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons; (h) …special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance… (i) …as part of indigenous tradition.

[Paragraph 10.01A (2) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Regulations 2003 (No. 1).]

15 May 2009 19 Day Forum – Ian Stapleton

Colourful characters of the High Country

Ian Stapleton, Historian & educator (summarised by Anne Sedgley) Ian Stapleton’s talk was about all sorts of people of the Victorian mountains, on the basis that the people of the region are inseparable from its heritage, and indeed have shaped it. Ian has published a number of books about the High Country, including a series of four books on the lives of some of the “Colourful Characters of the Victorian High Country”. At the Forum he did not speak from a written paper, but had the hall in gales of laughter as he recounted tales of some of these characters – all from memory. When he was asked to send in a paper for publication in the Forum Proceedings, he replied “It’s all in my books”. The four books are:

1. Hairy-Chested History: colourful characters of Hotham and Harrietville, 2003 2. From Fraser’s to Freezeout: colourful characters of the Dargo High Plains, 2004 3. From Drovers to Daisy-Pickers: colourful characters of the Bogongs, 2006 4. Weatherbeaten Wisdom: colourful characters of the Victorian High Country, 2008

What follows comes from notes made during his talk, and extracts from some of these books. It does not reproduce his dry asides, or his wonderful comic timing, and it lacks the striking photographs that he kept throwing up on the screen.

He started with several stirring photos of the mountain aborigines including Neddy Wheeler and Black Mag and moved on to the Pendergasts who settled around Benambra in the 1830s and 1840s. The nearest trading town then was Eden (or Twofold Bay). James Pendergast was one of the earliest settlers. He married Matilda Shean, who ran the Golden Age Hotel when it was a bark hut! Matilda was a force to be reckoned with and lived to well over 100.

He talked about Mother Morell who spent 9 years in her little shanty at Mt St Bernard, from 1863 – 1872, providing rough accommodation for whoever came along the track to Omeo, Grant or the Dargo River. She also fed the postman who came through each week on snowshoes in the winter on his way to Grant.

Bill Spargo lived at Hotham Heights, and built his hut near Mt Loch. When on the move, he carried no tent but a sheet of corrugated iron. He founded the Red Robin Mine after the 1939 bushfires. Later, he moved to Queensland where he bought two houses on Stradbroke Island, but he didn’t live in them for long, preferring to camp out under the tank stand. A born prospector, they say he found a rich seam of coal in the back yard just before he died….

Eric Johnson brought supplies to Hotham Heights. He travelled by night, using home-made snowshoes on his horses and sled. Many of the Chinese in the High Country had endured the Buckland Riots in 1857, and some of the evicted Chinese had fled to Harrietville, including two with the same name, Ah Young and Ah Young. A few Chinese even crossed Hotham in mid winter and travelled down to Omeo. Ian said there were many sad stories of Chinese who didn’t find gold, and lived sad and lonely lives in all sorts of remote mountain places.

Granny Svenson came to Mt. Lookout (which she later had renamed Aberfeldy) in the 1870s with her husband. Ian Stapleton says of her:

“– she was a truly remarkable old lady. For nearly sixty years she successfully operated a complex business involving a farm, hotel, butchery, bakery, post-office and packhorse delivery service to some of the most isolated communities in the mountains. She accomplished all this whilst raising her own family of eleven at an altitude of 3,500 feet. Hundreds of miners throughout the surrounding hills were totally dependent on Granny’s

20 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Ian Stapleton

well-known ability to get things done, in the halcyon days when every gully in the district was ringing to the sounds of picks and shovels. …. Her parents had come out from Scotland in 1862 when Granny was a young girl. She had many siblings, but “She cleared out because she was jealous that her parents had adopted a boy and settled all their money to him.” Weatherbeaten Wisdom (WW) p. 49 – 50)

Granny was a fearless horsewoman, well known for riding full speed, side saddle….. No passer-by, down on his luck, was ever denied a good meal because he didn’t have the money to pay for it, and he always left Aberfeldy with enough food in his swag to carry him on to the next town. (WW, p.50)

[Granny and her children] milked their own cows and made their own butter, baked their own bread, ran sheep, horses, cattle, goats, pigs, fowls and turkeys. They had a slaughter shed and a shearing shed. They grew paddocks of hay, potatoes, and swede turnips for the pigs. They had fruit trees of all kinds and grew their own vegetables. The children all had to help with the chores around the place such as milking, rounding up cattle, scrubbing the wooden floors and cooking for the hotel guests. Granny had … a firm rule that no minister or priest, or anyone at all from Walhalla, was ever to be charged for accommodation. (WW, p.51)

Long time Seaton identity, Dave Aubrey, said: She thought nothing about having had most of her 12 (sic) kids up there, with no doctor for miles around. That sort of thing was quite normal then, she’d tell you, and besides: “After the first half dozen or so they just sort of fall out anyway”. (WW, p.55)

After the first car (a T Model Ford) had made it to Aberfeldy in 1917, “the family was sitting around the fire with a few locals, discussing the pros and cons of motorcars versus horses. Skinny was quite impressed. But Granny wasn’t so easily won over. She had noticed how long it took them to get the bloody thing going again in the morning. “What if you were in a hurry! People aren’t going to be throwing away their hard-earned money on some highly-strung contraption like that,” she told them. “You mark my words – they’re just a passing fad.” (WW, p.57)

Pioneering bushwalker Alex Trahair said: “Granny Svenson. Rough as guts with a heart of gold. I stayed with Svensons often. The place was just dripping with history. You could feel it. … Endless stories. …All about the wild days of the gold mining era. …There was one about an old shopkeeper at Aberfeldy who bought his wife for 10 pounds from another old gent down at Donnelly’s Creek. Granny thought she was very poor value for money.” (WW, p.57)

Les Lawson tells how, by the time he lived up there, Granny was very old and weatherbeaten, and had only one tooth left on the front, “and when she smiled it stood out pretty well. One evening, Jack Collins, who “really fancied himself as a ladies man, … decided to ask Granny at what age a woman loses her sexual urge. She flashed a toothy grin at him and politely explained that he’d have to ask someone older than her about that. “But what are your plans for tonight, love?” she asked. Jack Collins couldn’t get out of the place fast enough. Granny was chuckling about it for weeks! (WW, p. 61)

Ian pointed out that Bullockies, Teamsters and Wagoners – “the long distance truckies of the time” – actually walked the whole way beside their teams. One of them, Charles Wykes, even rolled a 37 foot water wheel from Port Albert to Walhalla, 100 miles.

15 May 2009 21 Day Forum – Ian Stapleton

Agnes Buntine was one of the first white women to go into Gippsland. She had the first white baby born in Port Albert in a tiny hut. Ian writes six pages of stories about Agnes:

Of all the colourful characters who graced the pages of Walhalla’s short, spectacular, star- studded life, and their amazing array of impressive achievements, Agnes Buntine, in my opinion, towers above them all. It was she who, against all odds, managed to get the first food supplies into that remote little gully, amidst a wilderness of the roughest steepest country imaginable, when the name of Walhalla meant nothing to anybody. (WW, p.63)

She revelled in the challenge of establishing a new farm. She was terrific with horses and could work a plough as well as any man. She was a crack shot with a rifle and could knock off a couple of birds for breakfast every single time. She stunned the neighbours as she cleared the country with bullocks and chains, split hundreds of posts and rails from the fallen timber, dug all the postholes and had their first paddocks fenced in record time. She excelled in the hard physical yakka, and developed a real skill with the bullock team that she had put together. (WW, p.64)

Her husband meanwhile looked after the store and all the children! In 1889, George Dunderdale wrote of her:

She not only did the cooking and housework, but she rode after stock, drove a team, killed fat beasts, chopped wood, stripped bark and fenced.

Mr J. O’Connor from Tarraville wrote that he was in a little roadside pub in Toongabbie.

Just then, in walked this great rough-looking woman….. Buntine impressed me as being a wonderfully fine and interesting character …

But another, anonymous contemporary writer said:

There is Mrs Bunting (sic), an enormous fat woman. ….Nothing could exceed her bulk, unless it were a Turkish dome or a steam boiler on horseback.

You would have to read Ian’s pages on her, pp. 62 – 69, WW, to find out more.

Ian spoke of many more characters, such as Fred Fry’s mother, who died in childbirth with her 16th child, Granny McGowan, the sister of Jack Riley (the man from Snowy River?) who ran a rough wine shanty at Wombat under Mt Wills, and old “Doc” Doherty from Licola, who would boil up an onion, an apple and a sausage all in the one billy, and then use the water for washing up after. It was said that he only washed twice a year, and that he had perfected the art of washing his entire face without taking his pipe out of his mouth.

John Henry Gamel, who was Danish and came to Australia in the 1850s, was a forebear of the Treasures. Emily Treasure travelled with her four young children on horseback from Harrietville to the Dargo High Plains (carrying her new baby all the way), and went on to spend 20 years there. Emily was married to George Treasure, who was a bare-fisted champion and also the head- butting champion of the High Plains.

Not least, there was Cecil Cooper, who had lost his right ear before Ian met him. Cec had many eccentricities, but the one I liked best was that he had made his own teeth. When his own false teeth started falling apart.

22 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Ian Stapleton

He managed to procure a whole shoebox full of second-hand false teeth at an Op Shop in Bairnsdale, and by careful selection of suitable bits and the deft use of glue and some very fine tie-wire, he crafted his own “personalized” set of pearly whites. …. Every year on October 8th the Mittagundi crew would head around to Cec and Norma’s place with a large (and pretty rough) bush cake and an equally large number of recycled candles, to celebrate his birthday. He always took great delight in the attention and would insist on blowing out every last candle. This really tested out …. the teeth, most of which invariably ended up embedded in the icing, thereby ensuring that Cec nearly always got to eat the entire cake himself. WW, p.6

This is just a small selection of the tales Ian Stapleton told at the Forum. For lots more characters and a whole collection of wonderful old photos, you need to see his four books on Colourful Characters of the High Country. Contact Ian on 57 592740, or at Feathertop Track, Harrietville, Victoria 3741.

Ian Stapleton Photo: Anne Sedgley

15 May 2009 23 Day Forum – Dr Ruth Lawrence

Environmental history of the High Country Dr Ruth E Lawrence, Outdoor & Environmental Education, La Trobe University Bendigo A 2009 visitor to the Victorian High Country will see quite a different landscape to that experienced by someone visiting the area in 1999, 1929 or 1859. Changes in climate, land use and environment have all occurred over the last two centuries, and the purpose of this paper is to outline some of those changes and to explore possible links between them.

I. Historical climate changes Compared to other continents, Australian climate is typified by variability. For the Victorian High Country, there have been three statistically-significant, albeit minor, climatic (rainfall) changes since European settlement. The first occurred around the 1890s, when the climate in eastern Australia moved from a wetter to a drier regime (Gentilli 1971). The drier period after the 1890s featured two extended droughts (the Federation drought of the late 1890s, and a drought in the late 1930s which culminated in the 1939 bushfires), and was a period when major dust-storms in south- eastern Australia occurred. A second minor climate change occurred in the mid 1940s, when conditions became considerably wetter (Pittock 1975). Of particular note was the wet year leading up to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, and the two exceptionally wet years in the mid 1970s. Just how the pre-1890s and post-mid 1940s wet periods compare has not been fully explored. There has also been increasing evidence that south-eastern Australia has been drying out over the last decade or two, culminating in the worst drought in 200 years that is currently affecting much of south-eastern Australia (Garnaut 2008).

Focusing now on the Bogong High Plains as a case study of the Victorian High Country, it can be demonstrated that some land uses have responded to those climate changes over the past two centuries. The land uses to be considered are cattle grazing, mining, hydro-electric power generation and tourism.

II. Land use history overview (a) Grazing The Bogong High Plains were ‘discovered’ by Europeans in response to adverse climatic conditions, as graziers found (unburnt) pastures there following the extensive 1851 bushfires (Carr 1962). For the next four decades, unregulated and low-intensity grazing occurred, but this changed following the rabbit invasion of the 1880s when lowland pastures became severely degraded and ‘relief pastures’ were sought (Cabena 1980). The Victorian Lands Department then introduced a grazing lease system, but numbers remained unregulated until the 1940s. During the drought years of 1884/85, 1902/03, 1908, 1914/15 and 1939/40, excessive numbers of cattle, sheep and horses were grazed on the Bogong High Plains and surrounding alpine peaks (Cabena 1980). The Soil Conservation Board (later Authority) introduced grazing regulations in 1945 and, until 2003, grazing by stock was restricted to cattle, and numbers declined from about 12000 to zero. All cattle grazing leases were terminated on the Bogong High Plains in 2004.

There is a broad correlation between historical numbers of stock grazing on the Bogong High Plains and climatic conditions from the 1850s to 1940s. The droughts of 1902/03, 1908, 1914/15 and 1939/40, when large numbers of cattle, sheep and horses were depastured on the Bogong High Plains, all occurred during the drier climatic period between the late 1890s and mid 1940s. This resulted in severe landscape degradation, as climatically-stressed plant species were subjected to very high grazing pressures. Since the 1940s, forces other than climatic factors have dictated the grazing pressures on the Bogong High Plains, as concern for High Country ecosystems and sedimentation rates into water reservoirs, has seen the control and ultimately demise of grazing by introduced stock in the Victorian Alps.

24 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Ruth Lawrence

(b) Mining The Bogong High Plains are surrounded by major gold fields in the Ovens Valley, Omeo, Mitta valley and Mt Wills areas (LRGM Services 2002). During the 1850s, alluvial gold mining activities yielded sporadically good returns and devastating environmental consequences, and from the 1860s to 1890s, miners organised themselves into companies to extract reef gold and sometimes made good money on their investments. There was a minor resurgence of mining during the 1940s, when the Red Robin and associated reefs were found and worked, and gold continues to be mined from the Red Robin reef today.

The great mining era of the second half of the nineteenth century occurred independently of climatic factors, being driven by economic and political factors. The minor gold mining resurgence between the late 1930s and 1940s coincided with the Great Depression, which was also an extended drought period, and could conceivably have climatic links.

(c) Hydro power development The Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme was first proposed by a private company in 1911, and then bought out by the State Electricity Commission, who proposed their own versions of the Scheme in 1920, 1929 and 1938 and 1947. Initial construction was based on the 1938 proposal, but when the grandiose 1947 proposal was accepted by the Victorian Government, construction staff increased seven-fold. However, the 1951 recession resulted in another revision, and when completed in 1961, the Scheme comprised three power stations generating a combined output of 241 megawatts, which then powered all of north-eastern Victoria, but today only serves to meet the State’s peak energy demands. In late 2009, a fourth power station is due to be completed bringing the expected power output to 381 megawatts.

The Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme was constructed during the wetter years of the 1940s and ‘50s, when the water resources of the Upper Kiewa Valley were abundant. Construction during those moist years resulted in extensive environmental damage, as relatively high precipitation rates led to high levels of runoff, erosion and sedimentation (Lawrence 2001). The expansion of the hydro scheme is set to occur during drier times, but the present climatic conditions will probably be offset by the fact that the Kiewa catchment is the most water-rich catchment in Victoria (Weston et al 2009).

(d) Tourism Tourism in the Bogong High Plains area originated with the Bright Alpine Club when, following the decline of the mining era, the club lobbied for an upgrade to the Alpine Road between Bright and Omeo. From the late 1880s to the 1920s, the focus of most tourism activity in the Victorian Alps centred around coach travel between Bright and Omeo, with overnight accommodation provided at either Mt St Bernard or Mt Hotham. The 1920s and ‘30s were the decades of the great hiking boom, when large parties of walkers traversed the High Country, and the formation of many walking groups led to the establishment of the Federation of Victorian Walking Clubs. Following World War II, the Victorian Railways were instrumental in promoting and facilitating tourism across Victoria, as they combined rail and horse transport to take visitors to the Alps (Johnston 1974). The skiing industry and associated alpine resorts began to play an important role in attracting tourists to the snowfields from the 1950s to the present. The declaration of the Bogong National Park in 1979 and its inclusion into the Alpine National Park in 1989 coincided with the development of multiple and varied recreational pursuits over the last few decades.

15 May 2009 25 Day Forum – Dr Ruth Lawrence

There are limited connections that can be made between climatic and tourism trends over time. Of possible significance is the expansion of the alpine ski resorts during the wetter years since the 1940s, when snow cover was probably more extensive and reliable, and the questionable sustainability of further expansion in recent drier times.

III. Environmental change over the last two centuries

In addition to the land use changes that have occurred in the Victorian High Country over the last two centuries, there have been noticeable and significant changes to the environmental characteristics of the area. Changes considered here include fire extent and frequency, ground cover and soil exposure, and vegetation species type and dominance.

(a) Fire The 1851 bushfire that burned across large swathes of Victoria did not burn the Bogong High Plains, as graziers found relief pastures for their stock there in early 1851 (Carr 1962). Following the discovery of gold in that same year, fire was used extensively by miners as a tool to expose auriferous deposits, and resulted in many small fires in the region surrounding the High Country (Lawrence 1990). The first fire to burn extensive parts of the Bogong High Plains and surrounds occurred in 1926, and was followed thirteen years later by the devastating 1939 ‘Black Friday’ bushfires, which is still regarded as the worst fire in Victoria in terms of area burnt. Following the establishment of the Country Fire Authority in the mid 1940s, the areal extent of fires affecting the Bogong High Plains diminished, due to improved fire-fighting facilities. The ‘Ash Wednesday’ fires in 1983 didn’t burn the Bogong High Plains area, but extensive fires affected the area in January 2003 and December 2006.

There appears to be a strong relationship between the occurrence of the so-called ‘megafires’ in 1926, 1939, 2003 and 2006, and the prevailing climatic conditions of the time. All megafires have occurred during drier periods, suggesting a relationship between the extent and frequency of large bushfires and climate. The frequency and extent of smaller fires (during the mining era and since the mid 1940s) could also be climatically related, as those wetter decades may have precluded the transformation of smaller fires into megafires.

(b) Ground cover and soil exposure The records of early explorers and visitors to the Bogong High Plains strongly suggest that in the early days of European visitation, there was almost complete vegetation cover in the High Country. This assertion is supported by artistic impressions and early (pre-1890s) photographs of the area, which indicate an almost 100% vegetation cover (Lawrence 1999). However, the extent of ground cover decreased noticeably between the 1900s and 1940s, as sustained high, and sporadically intense, levels of grazing activity resulted in palatable plants being selectively removed from the High Country. Photographic evidence from these decades commonly depicts scattered plant cover and extensive areas of soil exposure, and even the presence of stone pavements. Grassland and peatland vegetation alliances seem to have been most affected by the sustained intense grazing pressures, and the breakdown of the peaty wetland communities appears to have compromised the water storage capacity of High Country catchments (Weston et al 2009). The decline in percentage plant cover, increase in bare ground exposure and associated sediment infill of lowland water supply storages prompted intervention by the Soil Conservation Board/Authority in the 1940s. The reduction in the numbers and duration of grazing stock during the summer months since the 1940s has resulted in a gradual improvement of vegetation cover and an amelioration of the erosion problem.

26 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Dr Ruth Lawrence

It is not a coincidence that ground cover declined and soil exposure increased during the drier years between the 1900s and 1940s. The drier climatic conditions of those decades contributed to increased grazing pressures and associated environmental degradation. Although the improved ground cover after the 1940s resulted from government management decisions, it also coincided with a wetter climatic period, which probably contributed to the ecological restoration process.

(c) Vegetation type and dominance The same explorers, visitors, artists and photographers who recorded the nature of the Bogong High Plains in the nineteenth century, also indicated the environment consisted of a mosaic of snow gum woodlands, shrub complexes, grassland communities and peaty wetlands. Early records suggest that up until the 1890s, there were a greater proportion of grasslands than shrub communities on the gently undulating slopes, and substantial peaty wetlands along watercourses. This changed when the climatic dried out somewhat, and increased grazing pressures in the early twentieth century resulted in increased soil exposure. Associated with the decreased ground cover was a shift in the dominance of what vegetation cover existed from grassland dominance to shrub dominance. Many of the shrub species present on the Bogong High Plains respond positively to disturbance factors such as grazing or fire, and seem to have preferentially benefited from them (Wahren et al 1994). Even when grazing pressures were reduced after the 1940s, shrub communities continued to dominate the vegetation cover for about five decades. They were beginning to recede in dominance by the 1990s, due to their natural life cycles, but the bushfires of 2003 and 2006 will probably perpetuate their dominance for another 50 years or so. The peaty wetlands suffered noticeably from high grazing pressures during the drier years of the early twentieth century, and their extent have only marginally improving since grazing controls were introduced (McDougall 1989).

IV. Synthesis A summary of the environmental history of the Bogong High Plains is given in following graphic. It is argued in this paper that climatic changes that occurred in the Victorian High Country have directly resulted in some land use changes, which other land uses have occurred independently of external climatic influences. Of particular note is the relationship between climate (particularly drought) and grazing activities. These climatic and land use changes have then resulted in environmental alterations commensurate with those land use changes.

A summer visitor to the Bogong High Plains in 1859 would have encountered a landscape reflective of a moist climatic regime with an almost complete vegetation cover dominated by grasslands on the gentle slopes and extensive peaty wetlands along valley floors. By 1929, visitors would have been astounded at the changes in the environment: drier climatic conditions; evidence of extensive and frequent fires; large numbers of sheep, cattle and horses grazing on the High Country pastures; a high incidence of bare ground and erosion; and the existing vegetation dominated by shrub communities. By 1999, evidences of damaging past land uses were beginning to dissipate, as the more moist climatic conditions and reduced grazing pressures led to improved ground cover, albeit with a shrub dominance and wetland depletion. In 2009, visitors to the Bogong High Plains encounter a recently burnt landscape, with vegetation alliances reflective of past climatic conditions, land use activities and environmental changes.

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Environmental history of the Bogong High Plains synthesis

1850 1900 1950 2000 || || Rainfall <------Moist ------> <- Drier -> <-- Wetter --> <-- Drier Cattle <--- Few ---> <---- MANY ----> <---- Declining ----> Gone Mining <- Extensive -> <------Sporadic ------> Hydro Construction <-Operation-> Tourism <------Many forms ------> Skiing <----Village dev’t-----> Fire xxx x x x Xx X X X Veg’n <-- Grass --> <------Shrub dominant ------> Cover <- ~100% --> <---- Declining ----> <----- Improving ----->

References Cabena, P.B. 1980. Grazing the High Country: an historical and political geography of High Country grazing in Victoria, 1835 to 1935.M.A. thesis, Department of Geography, University of Melbourne Carr, S.G.M. 1962a. The discovery of the Bogong High Plains. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 75: 285-289 Garnaut, R. 2008. The Garnaut Climate Change Review. C.U.P. & www.garnautreview.org.au Gentilli, J. 1971. Climatic fluctuations. In: World survey of climatology. Volume 13: climates of Australia and New Zealand. Ed: J. Gentilli. Elsevier (Amsterdam), pp 189-211 Johnson, D. 1974. The Alps at the crossroads. V.N.P.A. (Melbourne) LRGM Services, 2002. Australian Alps mining heritage conservation & presentation strategy. Report to the Australian Alps Liaison Committee Lawrence, R.E. 1990. The interaction between the environment, land use and hydrology of the Bogong High Plains Area from 1850 to 1985. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Geography, University of Melbourne Lawrence, R.E. 1999. ‘Vegetation changes on the Bogong High Plains from the 1850s to 1950s.’ Proceedings & Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria, 111: xxix-iii Pittock, A.B. 1975. Climatic change and patterns of variation in Australian rainfall. Search, 6: 498-504 McDougall K.L. 2003. Aerial photographic interpretation of vegetation changes on the Bogong High Plains, Victoria, between 1936 and 1980. Australian Journal of Botany, 51: 251-256 Wahren, C-H.A., Papst, W.A. & Williams, R.J. 1994. Long-term vegetation change in relation to cattle grazing in subalpine grassland and heathland on the Bogong High Plains: an analysis of vegetation records from 1945 to 1994. Australian Journal of Botany, 42: 607-639 Western, A., Rutherfurd, I., Sirawardena, L., Lawrence, R., Ghadirian, P., Coates, F. & White, M. 2009. The geography and hydrology of High Country peatlands in Victoria: Part 2: The influence of peatlands on catchment hydrology. Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, Technical Report Series No. 174. Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria

28 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Peter Jacobs

Cultural heritage in the Alps

Values, threats, stewardship and partners Peter Jacobs – Chief Ranger – Alps, Parks Victoria Introduction The protected area estate in the Victorian Alps is dominated by the Alpine National Park covering a diverse landscape of over 650,000 hectares and including one of Victoria’s oldest national parks, Mount Buffalo, dedicated in 1898. The cultural heritage values of these parks and adjacent wilderness areas and historic reserves are outstanding, representing a range of themes. Threats to these values come from many sources and a key stewardship function is managing these threats. Community appreciation and involvement in managing cultural heritage is a crucial part of good stewardship. The focus of this paper is on non-indigenous heritage.

Themes and values A number of distinct themes and sub themes are represented in national parks and reserves in the Victorian Alps.

Living in remote areas Of the Living in Remote areas theme, “struggling with remoteness and hardships” is particularly evident through a number of tangible examples of transhumant grazing and early settlement.

An outstanding example is the famous Wonnangatta Valley. Now deep in the Alpine National Park the valley was once a remote cattle station and stopover for many a weary traveller on the journeys from Gippsland to North East Victoria and remote gold mining areas. Today this is represented by the old homestead site, characterised by a range of introduced tree species and associated hut and yards that was once the base for more recent cattle graziers who held the small freehold area surrounded by grazing licences on vast areas of public land.. The open pastoral landscape of the valley remains along with the original cemetery.

Transhumant Grazing: Now ceased in alps national parks Photo: P Jacobs

For many, the Alps maintains a strong “connection to place” as families and communities with lineages connected with those early settlers continue settlement in the area. This historical connection lives today through terms like “The High Country” a proud representation of the special qualities and traditions of this unique area and the hardships associated with early settlement. The “Man from

Harrington’s Track: living heritage Photo: Parks Victoria

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Snowy River” epitomises the rugged and tough characters and individuals. Routes and journeys such as Harrington’s Track in the headwaters of the Murray River in the heart of the Alps, are relived today in celebration of Jack Riley, the archetype and source of the legend of the man from Snowy River. Communities are proud to be associated with the High Country and all it suggests that is bred in character; tough, rugged and individual yet spectacular and inspirational.

Utilising natural resources Opportunities to exploit the vast natural resources of the Alps were identified in the nineteenth century with cattle grazing appearing in the 1830s followed by mining, logging and utilising water for hydro-electric schemes.

Connections with grazing are evident though many huts in the Alpine National Park that were originally built to support High Country cattle and sheep grazing. The oldest, Wallace’s Hut is now over 120 years old and on Victoria’s National Heritage Register.

Utilising the power of water dates back to 1909, with the Victoria River hydro electric scheme being established to power the Cassilis gold mining area, followed by the massive Kiewa Hydro- Electricity Scheme resulting in 2 large dams on the Bogong High Plains and a series of tunnels and power stations.

The valuable timber of the vast Alpine Ash Forests was realised in the mid 1900s and was a blockage for many decades to establishing a large national park in the Alps. Once forestry began, a vast road system resulted, an example being the Howitt Road constructed along the once remote Snowy and Howitt Plains deep into the Alps to the headwaters of the Macalister River to supply timber to the Heyfield sawmill. Logging camps, old snig roads and bridges and silvicultural regrowth from those forestry days are evident.

The Historic Area Reserves such as Grant, Howqua Hills and Mount Wills have a rich heritage of goldmining dating back to the 1800s, both early alluvial gold work and its rich Chinese history, and later reef and industrial mining. Today this is manifest in evidence of old townships now gone and the remaining cemeteries left to tell the story. Mines, batteries, water races and chimneys fill in the picture. The Grant township can still be traced and the substantial Maude and Yellow Girl complex at Glen Wills is more recent example of industrial level mining: unfortunately both sites were damaged by massive the alpine fires in 2003 and 2007. Conserving and presenting Mount Wills Historic Area Recent mining activity continues Photo: Parks Victoria the history.

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Accessing natural treasures Mount Buffalo is one of Victoria’s oldest national parks, established in 1898, and has been a significant place since the mid 1800s for early tourists seeking to enjoy the High Country. The fascinating story of those endeavours is told in the park through the legend of “Guide” Alice Manfield, who with her family were some of the first to seek to present the Alps to visitors though huts and hospices built on and at the base of the mountain.

Mount Buffalo Chalet and Alpine Club promotion Photos: Parks Victoria

In lobbying the Government for a national park at Mount Buffalo, the Bright Alpine Club said in 1887; “The complete isolation from the world of business, the exhilaration of wildness and magnificence of the surroundings brings the tourist in close sympathy with nature”

Building on the success of early eco-tourism providers, the grand Mount Buffalo Chalet was built in 1910 and for much of its time was run by the Victorian Railways, along with a number of other hospices around the Alps at Mount Feathertop and near Mt Hotham. The later are now gone, succumbed to bushfires, however the Mount Buffalo Chalet continues to stand today.

Cope Hut on the Bogong High Plains was also an early government foray into providing tourist accommodation in the Alps, built for recreation and tourism in 1920s.

Cope Hut Photo: Parks Victoria

Exploration and survey There is a rich history of exploration associated with early grazing, mining and timber harvesting. Hundreds of kilometres of tracks were also surveyed and established to access and link the remote mining areas. Some are now gone through lack of maintenance however tracks such as the Howqua Track are living cultural heritage, used today by walkers and horse riders to access the Alps as they did then.

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It is Australia’s Federation however that led to one of the most significant survey events. The Victorian Alps abuts a long section of the eastern border of Victoria with NSW. The straight section from the source of the Murray River near The Cobberas to Cape Howe, is known as the ‘Black Allen” Line, named after the two surveyors who spent months surveying, clearing and marking the border. Today the characteristic large stone cairns are still evident, scattered along the line, most of which is still in very remote areas with difficult access.

Black Allen Line Photo: Parks Victoria

Science in high places The Alps have attracted scientific interest almost since white settlement. Most significantly, among early visitors was Baron Von Mueller, who passed through the Alps on many of his famous expeditions whilst establishing Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens. He visited Mount Buffalo in 1853.

One of the most famous examples of long term scientific endeavour is epitomised by ‘Maisie's Plots” on the Bogong High Plains. Maisie Fawcett as a young scientist established plots to determine the effect of grazing on the High Country. These plots have been monitored ever since and today provide graphic visual evidence for the student of the High Country as well as solid science that contributed to the final removal of grazing in 2005.

Maisie’s Pretty Valley Plot Photo: Parks Victoria

The science of water has a long connection with the area, dating back prior to the establishment of the Kiewa Hydro Scheme in the 1940s. The ruins of Wilkinson’s Hut lay testament to those early scientists.

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Journeys and pathways Visitors to the Alps today follow many of the original pathways established to access the area for mining, tourism, timber harvesting and grazing. These journeys are by conventional car, 4WD, foot, horseback or bicycle. The iconic Great Alpine Road was once a mining track; McMillan’s Track, named after the famous early explorer, Angus McMillan, is still a maintained walking and driving route and Harrington’s Track, the original track providing access to the then remote Tom Groggin Station and the last journey of the Man from Snowy River, Jack Riley, is now a horse trail. The main walking track to Mount Feathertop follows the historic track established to access the Feathertop Bungalow, a significant hotel in the early 20th century before the 1939 fires. There many other examples.

Threats The relics that manifest these significant themes in the history of the Victorian Alps are now fragile and subject to a range of threats to their ongoing integrity. These threats to values include:

Pilfering and removal The taking of moveable items of historic value from buildings and past mining and grazing sites can severely affect the integrity of sites. Much if this occurred prior to national park protection with the removal of large mining machinery such as batteries being a major concern. The removal of the historic Biplane mine battery near Mt Hotham was of major significance in the early 1980s. These sites are now well secured by law. Less significant removal of artefacts like bottles, hut remain items, fences, yards and smaller mining items can still occur from time to time. The period following fires is one of particular concern due to the exposure of once hidden items.

Vandalism Wilful damage to sites and structures still occurs, however there is some optimism that it is diminishing. Some recent examples include spraying graffiti on historic huts. Three huts, Bivouac, Summit and Maddison’s were mysteriously lost on Mount Bogong in the 1970s when they were all destroyed, seemingly deliberately, by fire.

Ageing The nature of structural material used and remote location of many of the cultural artefacts means that aging is one of the key threats to integrity. Most structures are built of local timber utilising bush construction methods. Wallace’s Hut (1889) for example is 120 years old and is basically a timber building with no foundation and exposed to the extreme alpine environments that work away at the timber and structure. Ongoing careful restoration work will be crucial to maintaining the structure, however in time little of the original building will survive. Fences, yards, cemeteries and mining structures face a similar fate.

Wallace’s Hut, built in 1886. Photo: Parks Victoria

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Building Fire A common cause of loss of huts has been building fire. Older cattleman’s huts traditionally have a large open hearth for the fire with a timber framed chimney and mantle. The original builders and users were aware of the need to keep fire small and safe, however many a hut has been destroyed by unthinking visitors building a large fire, igniting the structure and destroying the hut. A more recent example was the destruction of Wilkinson’s Hut by fire as a result of a fuel stove fire incident.

King River hut, destroyed by building fire Photo: Parks Victoria

Weeds Weeds typically invade areas previously disturbed. The legacy of mining is a disturbed environment ripe for weed invasion. Mining sites are typically invaded by blackberries, the roots of which can break open cracks in building material and hasten the sites’ deterioration. Weeds also affect others’ enjoyment of these sites making them difficult to access. English Broom invasion of the Mount Wills and Glen Valley mining areas is significant and part of managing those areas in control of that infestation. The invasion of blackberries into the open pastoral landscape of the High Country such as that in the Wonnangatta Valley, was a problem prior to it becoming national park and blackberry control by park managers in that Valley has been since significant.

Wildfire Wildfire is an inherent element of the large forested Alps landscape. The 1939 fires destroyed some significant hostels and hotels but in more recent times the 2003 Alpine Fires and the 2006/07 Great Divide Fire burnt over 2 million hectares of public land. The 2003 fire destroyed 46 huts on public land, 29 of them in the Alpine National Park. The 2006/07 fire destroyed another 9 with 3 in the Park. While not all had high cultural value, many did. The fire also destroyed the original “Tatra Inn” on Mount Buffalo. Both fires burnt through historic areas; many timber features were destroyed, and the massive Maude and Yellow Girl mining sites were extensively damaged. Maude Battery, threatened by bushfire Photo: Parks Victoria

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Misuse and Insensitive management An essential part of managing historic sites is getting the right balance between living cultural heritage and maintaining the original value and integrity of the site. There have been examples where insensitive renovations and additions to huts or the placing of visitor facilities to cater for their enjoyment has impacted on the original character and integrity of the site and its use, and this must be carefully controlled.

Managing visitor use, Fitzgerald’s Hut Photo: G Anderson

No management Maintaining historic values, like any value, requires skill, knowledge, resources and active management. A primary threat to cultural heritage is no level of management or intervention into how the value is managed.

Stewardship The national parks and reserves in the Alps are in public ownership and the stewardship of this outstanding area rests with Parks Victoria.

Legislation and plans The historic values are governed through a range of statutory mechanisms and plans operating at different levels. The key ones include:

National Parks Act 1975 The primary State Government legislation that protects and conserves historic values in national parks.

Heritage Act 1995 The primary State Government legislation that protects and conserves historic values of places listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.

National heritage listing The Australian Alps national parks were listed in November 2008 on the register of National Heritage (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) for a range of values. Cultural heritage values listed include evidence of the establishment of transhumant grazing, recreation and settlement in the Alps.

Park management plans Park management plans provide the framework for identifying historic values and strategies for their protection. The Alpine National Park management plan 1992 and Mount Buffalo National Park management plan 1996, are key documents and are currently under routine review and update.

15 May 2009 35 Day Forum – Peter Jacobs

Surveys and inventories A comprehensive survey has been carried out on all huts in the Alps, commissioned by the Australian Alps national parks co-operative management program and completed after the 2003 fires for those not included in the first report. These reports include crucial information on hut design and a statement of values. Inventories have also been carried out on moveable cultural heritage items at places like the Mount Buffalo Chalet.

Heritage action plans and statements Heritage Statements and Heritage Action Plans are developed for significant cultural sites. These plans identify key values and provide guidance for approving works to sites, in particular huts and mining sites. Many huts in the Alps have current heritage action plans as do major sites such as the Maude and Yellow Girl mines and Mount Buffalo Chalet.

Cultural landscape plans Broader cultural landscape plans have also been developed for cultural landscapes. The Wonnangatta valley has such a plan to identify a range of connected values across a landscape.

Strategies Most sites require active management to restore and maintain cultural heritage values. Some examples of active management include;

Weed control Control of weeds around sites to prevent weeds degenerating sites and enhance visitor management.

Repair and restoration Sensitively carrying out repair to stabilise sites to protect from immediate risk of failure (e.g. Maude Battery following fire).

Sensitively carrying out restoration to improve site condition, integrity and protection from elements (e.g. Wallace’s, Fry’s and Dinner Plain Hut).

Rebuild Following extensive analysis and consultation, rebuild structures where the social cultural connection was unbroken when the structure was destroyed and the building has other values such as refuge. The aim is not to replicate huts, rather to rebuild in a manner in keeping and sensitive to the past structure. (e.g. Roper’s, McNamara’s, Bluff and Ritchie’s Huts)

Present and celebrate Involving the community in celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the Alps through presenting and celebrating. The centenary of Mount Buffalo National Park in 1998 included a series of community celebrations and recognitions then in 2009 a celebration of the centenary of the Victoria River hydro-electric scheme was a significant event. More recently celebration of hut rebuilds have been significant events at Bluff and Ropers huts.

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Celebrating centenary of Victoria River Hydro Scheme in 2009 Presenting Bluff Hut Photo: Parks Victoria Photo: Parks Victoria

Presenting Grant Historic Area Photo: Parks Victoria

Leave alone In some cases the best approach for sites in remote areas with no public access is to leave them unvisited and not promoted nor celebrated. Many mining sites and old settlements are managed thus (e.g. Louisville, Brocket)

Integrated landscape approach An integrated landscape approach to management takes into account all facets associated with the cultural heritage of the area.

The heritage landscape plan for the Wonnangatta Valley provides a framework for managing an integrated cultural landscape. The plan takes into account:

ƒ Site protection: the homestead and cemetery area ƒ Pastoral landscape: vegetation and weed control to maintain the open grasslands ƒ Living Cultural Heritage: providing facilities for visitors to continue to experience and live in the cultural landscape. ƒ Minimising visitor impacts: visitor facilities and education to manage impacts

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ƒ Presentation: sustainable access to experience cultural sites ƒ Interpretation: key information for visitors to understand, engage and be involved with cultural heritage ƒ Maximising benefits for the whole community: involving and engaging the community through active friends groups.

Staff and volunteer training Staff training is fundamental to good stewardship. Some examples of training include;

ƒ Huts skills workshops: These workshops focus on the traditional skills and techniques involved in maintaining the cultural heritage of huts. The workshops are aimed at staff and volunteers alike and include demonstrations by timber working experts in hand hewn fabrication of building components ƒ Landscape analysis and Heritage action plans. Training staff to recognise values in a cultural landscape and prepare Heritage Action Plans provides an efficient process in preparing plans.

Partnerships Community engagement The engagement of community is key to effective management of historic values. The community is by nature integrally connected socially to cultural sites, and park managers have an opportunity to facilitate that reconnection. The community can harness significant skills and resources for cultural heritage conservation. The restoration and rebuilding of huts is a successful way of allowing community to reconnect and there are many outstanding examples of community led cultural heritage projects.

This reconnection has been prominent following the Alpine and Great Divide fires of 2003 and 2006/07 when many huts were burnt. Out of the ashes a community led recovery occurred with the birth of the Victorian High Country Huts Association and the emergence of other groups such as the North East Freemasons, interested in rebuilding, where appropriate, some of the lost connections and presenting that social connection to the wider community. Outstanding examples include the rebuilding of Roper’s, Bluff, Ritchie's and McNamara’s Huts, with Weston’s Hut still to be completed.

Through wider community collaboration, strong partnerships in cultural heritage management have evolved. These include:

ƒ Victorian High Country Huts Association ƒ Heritage Victoria ƒ Community groups such as recreation clubs and Freemasons. ƒ Historic Societies ƒ Friends Groups ƒ Australian Alps National Parks Cultural Heritage Reference Group

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Roper’s Hut: family connections Photo: David Oldfield

Ritchie’s Hut, rebuilding team following fire Photo: Parks Victoria

Summary and conclusion ƒ The national parks and reserves of the Victorian Alps represent many cultural landscapes, themes and values. ƒ National Heritage listing of the Australian Alps national parks substantiates high values placed on historic cultural landscapes including transhumant grazing, early nature based tourism and pioneer settlement. ƒ Threats to historic cultural heritage can come from poor visitor management, natural agents such as fire and aging and insensitive management actions. ƒ Parks Victoria has a key stewardship role, principally involving managing threats to values. ƒ Presenting and interpreting cultural heritage as an integrated landscape facilitates community appreciation which leads to support for conservation and protection. ƒ Community involvement is active and strong in the Alps and provides support, skills and resources for historic cultural heritage protection.

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Alpine National Park Management Plan

James Hackel, Project Officer Alpine Planning, Parks Victoria Parks Victoria is undertaking a review of the Greater Alpine National Parks Management Plan. A new format for park management plans (the plan) as well as more timely community consultation and collaboration are being trialled for the first time. Both the new format for the plan and new communication methods aim to enable greater community engagement, collaboration and transparency in decision making. The consolidated plan will replace plans that are more than 15 years old and will provide strategic direction for the management of the parks over a 15 year timeframe.

A larger planning area has been selected to ensure consistent management across the alpine and eastern highlands landscapes. The Greater Alpine National Parks Management Plan study area includes 860,000 hectares of alpine, sub-alpine and lower elevation landscapes and includes: the Alpine, Baw Baw, Errinundra, Mount Buffalo and Snowy River National Parks; the Avon Wilderness Park; the Grant, Howqua Hills, Mount Murphy, Mount Wills and Walhalla Historic Areas; (refer to Figure 1).

Figure 1: Greater Alpine National Parks Management Plan Study Area

40 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – James Hackel

Parks Victoria is reviewing the existing management plans to create a single Greater Alpine National Parks plan that addresses a changing environment and reflects contemporary community standards.

This area contains many significant cultural heritage values of the Victorian High Country and the National Heritage listed Australian Alps. Heritage in the High Country is faced with many challenges for future conservation and management. There have been a number of significant changes in the parks since the various plans were adopted including: climate change; wildfires; removal of grazing; increased recreation demand; and community expectations. In addition, there have been changes in legislation; general park management with the establishment of Parks Victoria; the development of new park management tools; and research and monitoring have increased the knowledge base on which decisions can be made. Parks Victoria has also established many strong relationships with stakeholders and caretaker groups. It is intended the revised plan will incorporate these changes at a strategic level and reflect the aspirations of the Indigenous community. It is also important to recognise that it is a legislative requirement that the plan be tabled in parliament.

The Alpine Planning Team undertaking the review includes Louise Rose (Project Manager), Ian Folletta (Project Officer), James Hackel (Project Officer) and Linda Greenwood (Project Officer). The review is overseen by a Project Control Group which has the responsibility for directing the project in accordance with Parks Victoria guidelines.

An Alpine Advisory Committee is being established under the National Parks Act and Conservation, Forests and Land Act for the life of the management planning period to assist Parks Victoria in preparing the plan and to better understand community and stakeholder views about the parks.

The project is also supported by specialised reference groups:

ƒ The Environment and Scientific Advisory Group has been established to provide independent environmental scientific advice. The group includes five scientists with expertise across areas including alpine ecology, fire ecology, hydrology, and responses to ecological change, including climate change. ƒ The Victorian Alpine Traditional Owner Reference Group has been established and provides advice regarding cultural knowledge and values, Indigenous community views and aspirations. ƒ A Planning Reference Group has been established to provide technical advice and assistance to the Project Team and Project Control Group. The group consists of Parks Victoria’s staff including Rangers, Planners and Technical Specialist with a wealth of knowledge and park management experience across the Alpine and eastern highlands landscapes.

Community engagement is an important part of the management planning process. Traditionally this engagement has largely occurred following the release of draft management plans for a 60 day period of public comment. Releasing a plan for 60 days is a legislative requirement and will occur with this planning process. However Parks Victoria recognises there is an eagerness by the community to engage earlier in the review process.

Parks Victoria is employing a number of ways to ensure the community has access to information and can collaborate on the draft plan. A significant new approach using web-based community engagement tools is being used via wePlan Alpine (www.weplan.parks.vic.gov.au) (refer to Figure 2). A blog, wiki, user contributed images and video, social networking and a points system based on the amount of content members contribute are some of the features. This allows the

15 May 2009 41 Day Forum – James Hackel

broader community to ask questions along the way, become friends or colleagues, and generate their own content through images, blog comments, tagging and rating. This creates a three-way conversation and allows Parks Victoria to be removed from a conversation that has traditionally been one-way.

Figure 2: wePlan Alpine Website

The plan will be drafted with the community using a wiki. Parks Victoria has loaded the table of contents and the community and other stakeholders are able to edit the plan before it is released as a draft. Sections of the table of contents are linked to discussion papers and supporting documents such as maps, reports, plans, strategies and internal documents. This facilitates an unprecedented freedom for the community to access, understand and discuss the basis for content within a plan.

This functionality is known as web 2.0 and is different from the way the internet has been used before (refer to figure 3). Web 2.0 allows for a rich user experience, user participation and dynamic content. Further characteristics, such as being open, transparent, social, visual, free and a collective intelligence, are also essential attributes. Because the user experience is enhanced, so too is that of the staff who manage this communication.

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Figure 3 – Web 2.0 Terminology

• Web 2.0 – "Web 2.0" refers to a second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.” (Wikipedia.org 26/06/09) • Blog – “A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video” (Wikipedia.org 26/06/09) • Collaboration – “recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals” (Wikipedia.org 26/06/09) • Wiki – “A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language” … “Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.” (Wikipedia.org 26/06/09)

If a member of the community creates an account on wePlan Alpine, they are able to use more of the functionality. If people don't want to use the social networking, edit the wiki, post comments or images, tag or rate they don’t need an account. If people are too busy to visit the site they can stay up to date using the RSS feed.

At the end of June over 300 members of the public are on-line. Most members are from Victoria but many people are from further afield including New South Wales, Tasmania, Turkey, Canada, and the United States of America. The members come from a diverse range of interests and backgrounds and include representation from peak bodies, stakeholder groups, the tourism sector, educational institutions, government departments and land management agencies from Victoria, interstate and overseas. Monash University, Parks Canada, NSW Parks & Wildlife Service, Falls Creek Resort Management Board, Australian Deer Association, and the Range Rover Club of Victoria are some examples.

The growth of internet usage is one reason this approach is being taken and the figures produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics illustrate the opportunity to engage with Australian households: “In 2007-08, 67% of Australian households had home internet access and 75% of households had access to a computer. In 2007-08, the number of households with a Broadband internet connection increased by 22% from the previous year, to an estimated 4.3 million households.” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2007-08 – Latest ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 18/12/2008, http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/mf/8146.0)

Community open houses are being scheduled for 2009 in key regional areas and Melbourne. The community are also encouraged to have face-to-face discussions with their local Parks Victoria rangers. Written submissions to the planning team from the community are also welcomed. Parks Victoria’s well established relationships with key stakeholders and peak bodies are an important part of engagement that will also provide direct input from the many interest groups.

15 May 2009 43 Day Forum – James Hackel

Parks Victoria recognises that web-based engagement may not suit all people. For this reason face-to-face engagement techniques are being undertaken in parallel to this new web-based approach. Management planning using a wiki and social networking is a first for Parks Victoria, indeed for any park management agency in the world. Ultimately the approach enables the community to participate at a pace, time and location that suits them.

Take a fresh approach to planning

Join us at www.weplan.parks.vic.gov.au, Email: [email protected]

Written submissions may also be directed to: Alpine Planning Team, Parks Victoria, Level 10, 535 Bourke Street Melbourne, 3000 13 19 63

Bogong High Plains, walking trail to Mt Cope Photo: John Hawker

44 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Philip Ingamells

Climate change and Victoria’s Alpine National Park

Philip Ingamells, Victorian National Parks Association Abstract Climate change will impact on the natural values of Victoria’s Alpine National Park in many ways. Decreased rain and snow, increased temperatures, more frequent and more intense fires and increased pest plant and animal invasions will all put stresses on already challenged ecosystems. Species and communities have limited capacity to migrate due to the geographical isolation of the Alps, and their low altitude. Well-resourced, well-informed management, and long-term monitoring of ecological systems are crucial. ______

Climate change will have considerable impact on the integrity of Victoria’s natural heritage, and the Alpine National Park is no exception. Indeed the Australian Alps have been listed by the International Panel on Climate Change as one of the three most vulnerable natural features in Australia – the others being the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics.

Most significantly, climatologists tell us that Victoria’s weather, particularly south of the Great Divide, is not influenced greatly by the El Nino/La Nina cycle of the Pacific Ocean currents. Its major influence is the rainfall systems in the Mid-latitude Westerlies, a cycle of fronts rotating around the South Pole. Climate change is contracting these fronts polewards, reducing the incidence of rain, particularly winter rains, across the State.i

Composite satellite photograph of mid-latitude westerlies. CSIRO

The combination of rising temperatures (2-3 degrees by 2030, and 6-7 degrees by 2070), and decreasing rain and snow, will impact on wetlands, rivers and groundwater systems, as well as terrestrial ecosystems, throughout Victoria. But the Alps are particularly vulnerable.

i Pittock AB (2009) Beyond the IPCC Reports: Emerging Findings. The Australian Collaboration (and pers com.) This paper also points out that climate change is happening faster than predicted, and impacts are moving rapidly to the upper level of expectations.

15 May 2009 45 Day Forum – Philip Ingamells

It can be useful to compare alpine systems around the world with ours. In every other continent the highest mountain is at least 4,800 metres above sea level (the Himalayas have more than 100 peaks above 7,000 metres), but our tallest mountain, Kosciuszko, reaches only 2,228 metres and Victoria’s Bogong High Plains sit well below the 2,000 metre mark.

As temperatures rise, species and whole vegetation communities would normally slowly migrate to higher ground, moving upwards as the “treeline’ rises, or gradually moving towards the poles, enabling them to stay within their “climatic envelope”. Indeed in the Canadian Rockies, for example, this is relatively easy for plants and animals to achieve; there is plenty of higher ground to occupy, and the alpine region stretches for thousands of kilometres. This is a simplistic model: migration patterns will depend on the capacity of individual species to adapt to climate changes in situ, their capacity to move via seed dispersal or other means, their capacity to cohabit with other species and the availability of suitable climatic envelopes, etc. Nevertheless, the general trend for Victorian species and communities will be upwards and/or or southwards.

But our highest peaks only just reach the treeless alpine zone, and many of our alpine areas are isolated, occupying a very small part of the continent. There is little capacity for alpine species to migrate vertically or horizontally.

Species and communities in the Canadian Rockies (above) have considerable capacity for altitudinal or horizontal migration. Photos: Philip Ingamells

The Mount Buffalo Plateau (left), and the Bogong High Plains (right), are isolated in the landscape, making migration of species difficult. Photos: Philip Ingamells and Google Earth

46 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Philip Ingamells

At Mount Buffalo, the southern Bogong High Plains and most other alpine or sub-alpine regions in Victoria, our treeless region is actually below the “treeline”. It survives there in frost hollows between treed hills, where pockets of heavier frost reduce the capacity for trees to grow. These areas of alpine grassland and herbfield are already shrinking as frost levels decrease.

A frost-hollow on Hospice Plain, Mount Buffalo National Park. Photo: Philip Ingamells

Some already threatened species, such as the Mountain Pygmy Possum or Burramys, will be threatened by a number of factors. Earlier snow melt will bring the possums out of torpor before one of their prime food sources, the Bogong Moths, arrive. Fire already threatens another major food source, the slow-growing Mountain Plum Pine, and the potential for new pest predators to be active at higher altitudes is considerable.

What are we trying to protect? The Victorian National Parks Act (1975) is unequivocal in stating that the prime purpose of a National Park is “for the preservation and protection of the natural environment” and, more explicitly, “for the protection and preservation of indigenous flora and fauna”. An eighteenth century French naturalist, the Comte de Buffon, put it more poetically:

Natural history, taken in all its extent, is an immense history, it embraces all the objects with which it presents us. This prodigious multitude of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, plants, minerals etc., offers to the curiosity of the human spirit a vast spectacle in which the whole is sop large, as it seems, and as it is, so as to be inexhaustible in its details.ii

But we have to go to the more recent Canada Parks Act (2000) for a more sophisticated statement. It seeks to protect the ecological integrity of a park, defining it as:

A condition that is determined to be characteristic of its natural region and likely to persist, including abiotic components and the composition and abundance of native species and biological communities, rates of changes and supporting processes.

ii Huxley, Robert (Ed) The Great Naturalists Thames and Hudson 2007

15 May 2009 47 Day Forum – Philip Ingamells

Relative numbers of native species in Victoria (above). Illustration: Rhyll Plant

There are something like 100,000 native species in Victoria, and most of these are either invertebrates or fungi. These largely unstudied and unclassified species are nevertheless important: they are the very building blocks of ecological systems. iii

Silky Snow Daisy. Photo: Philip Ingamells

iii Traill, Barry & Porter, Christine Nature Conservation Review, Victoria 2001. Victorian National Parks Association.

48 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Philip Ingamells

The rare Silky Snow Daisy, Celmisia sericophylla, is an example, found tucked in beside the coldest alpine streams, or under patches of late snow-melt. A large number of alpine species are listed as vulnerable or endangered, but they are only the species we already know about – we stand to lose a great number of other species before we know what they are.

Invasives Invasive species are already having a significant impact on alpine ecosystems. Well-established threats include feral horses, which probably do more damage now than licensed cattle grazing once did, and English Broom, which has increased considerably since the 2003 fires and is proving very difficult and costly to control. A failure to deal with these pests has the effect of decreasing any resilience native species might have to climate impacts.

Another example is the recent (post 2003) invasion of tens of thousands of Grey Sallow Willow seedlings in peat beds and wetlands throughout the Bogong High Plains, which bodes ill for the future. As the alpine climate warms and dries, and fires increase, we can expect a series of opportunistic invasions of both exotic and new native species into the High Country.

Fire Climate change predictions for the increased frequency and severity of fire in Victoria are already proving true. Indeed the Alpine National Park has seen significant wildfire in 1998, 2003 and 2006, and Mount Buffalo has experienced even more frequent fire. While alpine plants and animals have, for the most part, developed strategies to survive occasional fire, there is no known alpine plant or animal that actually requires fire for its long-term survival.

Ecologists say that the flora and fauna of alpine Australia are actually fairly resilient to infrequent, large, intense fires. iv Frequent fire, however, is another matter, and is likely to significantly impact on ecological systems in the High Country. Alpine plants take quite some time to recover from fire, largely due to the short growing season, and the relatively slow growth rates of plants at high altitude

Vegetation recovery at Rocky Valley Dam, Alpine National Park, c. 5 years after the 2003 fires. There would be few bare patches in alpine areas under “normal” fire-free conditions. Photo: Philip Ingamells iv Williams, Richard J et al (2008) Large Fires in Australian Alpine Landscapes: their part in the historical fire regime and their impacts on alpine biodiversity. International Journal of Wildland Fire 2008, 17, 793–808. CSIRO Publishing

15 May 2009 49 Day Forum – Philip Ingamells

Conclusion In 2008 the Australian Alps National Parks were given National Heritage listing for their natural and cultural values. Significantly, in that listing, the scientific heritage of the Alps was recognized as being of “outstanding heritage value”. That is not surprising. Since the early 1850s, when a young Ferdinand Mueller (later the baron) made several journeys to the Alps in an attempt to secure his reputation as a botanist, the Alps have been widely studied by scientists. Indeed, perhaps apart from the Great Barrier Reef, there is possibly no natural area in Australia that has been so widely studied.

This accumulation of scientific knowledge, over 150 years, is of immense value and, if heeded, can take management of the area’s natural systems away from hearsay, prejudice and imagining. But as climate impacts increase, and management problems grow, we will need to significantly increase our expertise. Managers in the future will need the results of carefully planned, long-term monitoring programs, and those programs should start now.

In the meantime, we must do what we can to allow our ancient natural heritage maximum resilience to climate impacts.

50 Heritage of the High Country Forum P POSTER PRESENTATIONS

Huts in the High Country – heritage under threat Chris Smith, Heritage Planner, Parks Victoria & O Anne Sedgley, former Information Officer, Heritage Victoria Huts in the High Country were built by cattlemen, miners, timber workers, power industry workers, recreation groups and sometimes as subsistence-level dwellings. Huts have heritage significance as rare vernacular structures, as evidence of various industries (grazing, mining, hydroelectric, etc.), and as part of the cultural landscape. When the fabric of a hut is destroyed by fire, its social and other heritage values may lead to its being rebuilt. S In the 2003 and 2006-07 fires, 54 huts were burnt down on public land (National Parks and State Forests). This was confirmed after an extensive survey of surviving alpine huts was undertaken by Graeme Butler and Associates in 2004. The great loss of alpine heritage in the 2003 fires also led to the formation of the Victorian High Country Huts Association, a volunteer group aiming to rebuild selected huts, and to help Parks Victoria and DSE maintain surviving huts.

Various methods used to protect mountain huts are illustrated, including water-bombing, use of fireT retardant, using bushfire-fighting foam, and wrapping huts in foil sisalation. If firefighters know which huts are significant as heritage, they have more chance of saving them, as they did with Wallace’s Hut, the oldest hut on the High Plains, in January 2003.

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Photo: John Hawker

15 May 2009 51 Day Forum – Poster presentations

In search of golden footprints

Discovering the gold mining heritage of the High Country Andrew Swift, Historian Hidden in the Australian Alps is a forgotten landscape of ancient ruins and the untold stories of the people who ventured into this wilderness in search of gold.

Although the golden era has played an important role in the history of the High Country, and has left its footprints scattered throughout the region, it is a heritage that is often overlooked. Today these footprints can offer us many different experiences.

Hydraulic sluicing pits, quartz reef tunnels, mullock dumps, tramways, tracks, roads and water races are some of the more apparent marks left by the mining era. Often situated in a spectacular natural setting, these places can provide a powerful visual experience.

Other impressive footprints include the industrial wonders, aerial and incline tramways, steam engines, roasting kilns, steam boilers, waterwheels, stamp batteries and other unusual apparatus. These technologically important places can tell the stories of great feats and untold wealth.

Other pathways may lead to mining camps, shanty and township sites. These places can offer us a sense of commerce and community in locations that are now apparently natural forest or fern-filled gullies. An important sense of time can also be felt by a site’s reclamation by nature.

Historical photographs and descriptions, reconstruction sketches, and so on, can enhance the experience of visiting any of these ruins. These places don’t even have to be physically visited, but can be experienced more readily through history books and documentaries.

However the subtlest of footprints can often be the most engaging places. A crumbling fireplace, a carved initial in tunnel wall, hob-nailed boot prints along tunnel a floor, or an overgrown gravesite. The places where the people or their stories are reflected in the fabric can be the most powerful. Engaging us directly with those who once occupied these remote mountain places. Where a strong sense of their isolation or adventurousness can be felt, and a breath of life is momentarily brought back into these ruins.

Although the gold is long gone there is still a richness waiting to be discovered amongst these ruins and in the stories of those individuals who once occupied them.

Web site – www.heritagerat.com.au

52 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Poster presentations

National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Landscape conservation Presented by Bryn Davies – author Juliet Bird The National Trust is the only state wide NGO in Victoria working to protect cultural landscapes through education, advocacy, identification and classification.

The National Trust classifies significant landscapes for their high cultural values, including historic, scientific and aesthetic aspects.

Classification by the Trust does not bring any statutory protection, but encourages recognition of landscape values, and management of landscape change to ensure that, where possible, these values are maintained.

NT Classification File No: Bogong High Plains and Environs

ƒ The NT has classified the Bogong High Plains and Environs as of cultural significance at the National level ƒ Significance includes scientific, historic, social, spiritual and aesthetic aspects

Alpine view near Falls Creek Photo: Juliet Bird

Scientific significance

ƒ Varied geology and geomorphology, in particular features associated with Pleistocene glaciation ƒ Meteorology of snow formation ƒ Alpine and sub-alpine ecosystems, in particular the impact of, and recovery from, bushfire ƒ Rare fauna and flora

Snow gums recovering after fire Photo: Juliet Bird

15 May 2009 53 Day Forum – Poster presentations

Historic and social significance ƒ Association with aboriginal peoples ƒ Early European agricultural practices, including seasonal cattle grazing ƒ Alpine huts ƒ Development of hydroelectric power ƒ Gold mining ƒ History of tourism and recreation

Mixed vegetation communities Photo: Juliet Bird

Spiritual significance ƒ Aboriginal meeting place and site of ritual activities ƒ Numerous archaeological sites

Cloudscape, Falls Creek Photo: Juliet Bird

54 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Poster presentations

Aesthetic significance

Varied Alpine topography Photo: Juliet Bird

ƒ Extensive views with contrasting plateau and deep valley features ƒ Diverse and richly scented alpine flora ƒ Spectacular colour and form of the snowgums

How you can help to protect landscapes ƒ Anyone is welcome to nominate landscapes to the Landscape Committee for consideration for classification, though our resources are limited and we usually cannot act quickly Or, better: ƒ Join your local branch of the National Trust and help to protect significant landscapes within your region through helping to prepare the classification documents yourself

15 May 2009 55 Day Forum – Poster presentations

Other examples of landscapes classified by the National Trust

Bay of Islands, Port Campbell

Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula

Stony Rises, Colac,

Mount Leura maar, Camperdown

Photos: Juliet Bird

56 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Poster presentations

Strategic Directions for the Australian Alps national parks

Rod Atkins Manager Australian Alps national parks Co-operative Management Program

Background The co-ordinated management, protection and conservation of the Australian Alps national parks for all Australians, present and future, is the subject of an agreement (a Memorandum of Understanding) between the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Victorian Governments.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in relation to the Co-operative Management Program was originally signed by parties in 1986 and revised in 1989, 1996, 1998 and 2003. See full text of the MOU at http://www.australianalps.environment.gov.au/publications/mou/index.html

The Australian Alps, a mountainous biogeographical region in a predominantly dry and flat continent, contain Australia’s highest peaks and unique alpine and subalpine ecosystems; they stretch southwards from Canberra through the Brindabella Range in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales (NSW) and along the Great Dividing Range through Victoria. The Australian Alps contain plants and animals found nowhere else in the world, and contain significant landscapes, and Aboriginal and historic places. They are a highly-valued recreational resource for many Australians, and are the headwaters of some of Australia’s most important rivers and streams, supplying snowmelt waters for the maintenance of ecological processes and communities, domestic use, industry, irrigation and hydro-electric production in NSW, Victoria, ACT and South Australia.

The Australian Alps Liaison Committee (AALC) co-ordinates projects that encourage the consistent and co-operative management of the Australian Alps national parks. The Program enhances the ability of member agencies to meet their roles and responsibilities in managing the parks and reserves in alpine and sub-alpine regions of mainland Australia.

A fresh approach The Alps 2008-11 strategic plan is based on priority issues, which give rise to a number of Key Result Areas (KRAs). The outcomes and strategies for the KRAs provide the framework for a program that will contribute to agency goals in relation to the co-operative management of the Australian Alps national parks and their individual elements. The agencies have developed this Strategic Plan together, and have agreed to implement it, co-ordinated by the Australian Alps Liaison Committee, as individual agency resources and priorities permit.

Since the last Strategic Plan, there have been a number of changes affecting the Alps and the management of the Program, and the 2008-11 plan responds strategically to those changes.

Key result area objectives and outcomes The following objectives and outcomes have been developed for the key result areas. The Annual Works Program for each KRA will be closely tied to its outcomes.

KRA 1 Climate Change and Adaptation Objective: Implementation of contemporary approaches to planning, responding and adapting to climate change in the mountain protected areas and determining needs and mechanisms for further research, particularly related to the impact of climate change on natural heritage conservation.

15 May 2009 57 Day Forum – Poster presentations

Outcome: The level of knowledge amongst agency staff and other stakeholders is increased regarding climate change impacts on the natural values of the Alps and the measures required to address them, with a number of activities implemented that are designed to adapt management to those changes.

KRA 2 Water and Catchments Objective: Implementation of contemporary approaches to management and restoration of catchments in mountain protected areas, through supporting good practice philosophy and principles for sustainable use and minimal catchment impact, to yield sustained supplies of high quality water for uses external to the protected areas such as irrigation and domestic consumption, and flow regimes to sustain ecosystems dependent on the natural water regime both within the Alps and downstream. Outcome: Management and rehabilitation activities are implemented according to best practice guidelines with demonstrated improved water quality and water retention reflecting a natural state.

KRA 3 Invasive Species Management Objective: Implementation of contemporary approaches to management of pest plant and animal species in mountain protected areas, through supporting best practice principles for research, identification and control and, where possible, eradication, of new outbreaks and species, and appropriate responses to pest species problems exacerbated by climate change. Outcome: Support co-operation and collaboration on identifying and managing emerging and known invasive species to reduce their impact on the natural and cultural values of the Alps.

KRA 4 Fire Management Objective: Implementation of contemporary approaches to management of fire compatible with the conservation of mountain protected areas, through supporting best-practice principles for research, planning and control, and appropriate responses to fire problems exacerbated by climate change. Outcome: Increased co-operation in research, planning and control of fire in the Alps.

KRA 5 Visitor Experiences and Marketing Objective: Presentation of the superlative and unique Australian Alps visitor experiences identified through the Brand Australia National Landscapes Initiative, and implementation of contemporary approaches to sustainable visitor management in mountain protected areas. Outcome: The National Landscapes Australian Alps Brand is implemented and supported by stakeholders and progress is made towards sustainability of use by visitors.

KRA 6 Stakeholder Engagement and Communication Objective: Stakeholders from all relevant groups and interests are aware of, and have access to, information about, the unique mountain landscapes and catchments, and natural and cultural values of the Australian Alps national parks, the actions and behaviour needed to protect these values, and the objectives and achievements of the co-operative management program, and are appropriately involved in achieving the objectives of the program.

58 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Poster presentations

Outcome: Stakeholders are more actively engaged in, and are aware of, Alps programs and activities.

KRA 7 Indigenous People’s Engagement Objective: Identification and promotion of opportunities for the involvement of Indigenous people in the management of the Australian Alps national parks. Outcome: The Australian Alps Indigenous Reference Group is established, meets regularly, and contributes effectively to a range of Alps projects and initiatives.

KRA 8 Cultural Heritage Objective: Improved understanding of and respect for the Aboriginal and historic cultural heritage values of the Australian Alps national parks, including sites, places and landscapes, and incorporation of these values into effective conservation and management programs. Outcome: The cultural heritage of the Alps is better understood, valued and protected by the community. www.australianalps.environment.gov.au

Rocky Valley Dam and Maisie Fawcett plots in foreground Photo: John Hawker

15 May 2009 59 Day Forum – Poster presentations

Victorian High Country Huts Association

Anne Sedgley, former Information Officer, Heritage Victoria The Victorian High Country Huts Association was formed after the bushfires that began on 8th of January 2003, and swept through the High Country region. Numerous historical huts were destroyed by these and later fires. The Association is made up of people who place a high value on high country huts. It aims to ensure that the safe havens that are scattered throughout the high country region are retained, repaired, protected, preserved and where necessary, rebuilt.

The VHCHA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Parks Victoria setting out the roles of each with regard to the monitoring, maintenance and repair of huts in parks. The VHCHA has designated 12 Areas, each with a Huts Maintenance Officer to care for the huts in that area, and to train and supervise volunteers working on maintenance or rebuilding.

Their achievements so far include building a replica of Horsehair hut near the Mt Hotham Airport in April 2003, rebuilding McNamara’s hut on Buckety Plain, Ropers hut on the Bogong High Plains, a major renovation to Frys hut on the Howqua River, helping to rebuild Bluff hut and Craigs hut, and most recently, rebuilding Ritchies hut on the Howqua River. www.hutsvictoria.org.au

Rebuilt Ritchies Hut, burnt down in the 2006 fires Photo: VHCHA

60 Heritage of the High Country Forum D AFTER DINNER SPEAKER

Gold & landscapes – a ramble

Rob Kaufman, LRGM – Services I Prior to the Victorian gold rushes of the 1850s, only the thinnest European settlement had occurred, in areas peripheral to the Victorian Alps. When word of gold broke, the quiet world of the squatter was shattered as people rushed into areas within and adjacent to the Alps, forming camps, settlements and townships. While gold was won by the hard-working or lucky over several decades, and indeed fortunes were made and lost occasionally, the impact of gold on the Alps was dramatic and lasting, entrenching populations and stimulating a diverse range of industries Nand activities.

What is it about gold that could create such a change, not only here but across the globe? Gold is a metal which occurs naturally in its native form. Relatively rare and valued by nearly all emerging civilisations, the allure of gold has been woven into culture. We have waged wars for it, killed for it, died for it, and paid a high environmental price for it. But what is it useful for? Very little in a practical sense. Lustrous and desirable, the metal of kings and gods, we endowed it with a highN commercial value, and with the enormous global production from the mid 1800s the world was able to move to a Gold Standard to underpin currencies. Its real value has always been cultural rather than utilitarian, and even today, by far the largest use for gold is in jewellery, with smaller amounts in electronics, coins and medals, and dentistry.

With this history, it was little wonder that the discovery of distant lands “paved with gold” from the mid-1800s led to global rushes with a dimension far beyond the simply economic. No distance wasE too great nor environment too harsh to deter the mad scramble for riches, as the liberating power of golden wealth for the ordinary working man was revealed to the world. And the world came to the Victorian bush in the early 1850s, as field after field yielded its treasure. Movement into the Alps was inevitable and inexorable, first in the valleys surrounding the Alps and then to gold deposits high in the Alps themselves. A subtle cultural landscape whose features had been imbued with symbolism and significance over the thousands of years of occupation by indigenous people was changed in a generation, criss-crossed with a set of deeply-incised pathways, and everywhereR the evidence of modern human activity in the diggings, camps and settlements. And that was overlain with evidence what followed, the logging, increased grazing, power schemes and recreation/tourism.

My own forbears followed the gold trail into the Victorian Alps. Men and women of my family lived and worked in the Alps, but when I stand atop a high peak and cast my eyes across the landscape,T can I see or sense their presence? The honest answer is probably ‘no’. I am bound in a way by an ethic or system that requires rigorous analysis, that requires physical evidence. In essence, I look for and see my forbears in the sites, not in the landscape. This is poles apart from the indigenous experience, where connection to country allows people an holistic view of the cultural landscape. Can I aspire to this view? Of course!

In being over-analytical of physical structure and sites of the Alpine cultural landscapes we mayA run the risk of crossing the line into a place where the Alps become simply a theatre for human activity, the backdrop. When we look at (European) cultural landscapes we tend to look at the cause and effect of human activity imprinted in the Alps, but there are other dimensions of cultural attachments to landscapes. We only have to look at our own personal experiences to verify that. L 15 May 2009 K61 Day Forum – Rob Kaufman

As this is the last presentation of the forum, I would ask everyone to examine their own personal experience of the Alps cultural landscapes. What do you get out of a trip into the Alps?

Adventure? A trip into the mountains, away from the cities and towns… Wonder? At the spectacular natural setting… Discovery? ‘Stumbling’ onto secret places, cloaked by forest… Reward? A cultural and natural experience that rewards the effort and time put in… Empathy? The mountains provide context, giving a personal insight into the lives of people who contributed to the cultural landscape. Perhaps an understanding of the remoteness & isolation in European terms, and the often harsh conditions under which mining and other activities took place… Mystery? What were the special layers of significance bestowed on the landscape by the indigenous people? How did they view the same landscape we look at today? Maybe questions like how on earth did the miners and prospectors get here, what did they do and where did they go?

But ultimately there are somewhat more abstract concepts – inspiration, peace, solitude – which broaden our cultural connection to the Alps.

Ground sluicing works, Gibbo River, Alpine National Park, Victoria Photo: Rob Kaufman

62 Heritage of the High Country Forum W WORKSHOPS

Summary Peter Hiscock, Member of the Landscape Advisory Committee, Heritage Council of Victoria The forum participants were invited to choose discussion groups which would address the sameO three questions. The groups were formed around five perspectives: Parks Victoria’s Management Plan Review, Tourism & Recreation, Cultural Heritage, Education & Interpretation, Natural Heritage & Landscape.

They were asked to address:

ƒ What are the most important CHARACTERISTICS of the Cultural Landscape of the HighR Country. ƒ What are the 3 most important ISSUES for managing these characteristics. ƒ What are the promising SOLUTIONS.

There were some common threads in the responses. These were:

Characteristics K ƒ Remoteness, solitude; geological character, botany, resilience/fragility, seasonality; eco systems peculiar to alpine altitudes; vistas.

Key issues ƒ Maintaining community input; the need for well researched management actions. ƒ How to tell the stories inherent in the area including Indigenous stories; On-going need forS interpretation in various media and forms including the use of electronic media. (note: all participants were later given a CD courtesy Parks Victoria – Alpine Discovery Drive as an example of this and most listened on the Tour) ƒ How do we balance accessibility with wilderness preservation & isolation. ƒ Managing the visual and aesthetic qualities of the landscape. ƒ The Cattlemens’ Social History and contribution to the heritage values needs to be understoodH and covered in interpretation.

Solutions & actions ƒ Containing ski industry visual intrusions on the landscape. ƒ Protection of significant sites and structures with repairs or re-building employing traditional materials. O ƒ Fire management plans to be re-considered with high degree of community and expert consultation; need for Fire Fighting plans which recognise high value of natural landscape – not just asset protection. ƒ Developing partnerships for management of cultural heritage & leadership. ƒ A commitment to adequately funding agreed management plans P The answers specific to each group not covered by the above were:

Natural heritage: Characteristics: Scientific value, geological character, geomorphology, alpine flora and fauna S

15 May 2009 63 Day Forum – Workshops

Cultural heritage Characteristics: Diversity of occupation: mining, Indigenous passage & seasonal meetings, cairns, lone grave sites, mountain huts including cattlemens huts,

Issues: Fuel loads, water availabilty, logging and post-fire clearances/restoration

Education & interpretation Characteristics: Diversity of educational opportunities, interpretation can be broad-based, Tourism not restricted to snow season.

Issues: need to be pro-active in protecting huts, sensitivity in handling walking tracks, need for more research programs, data collection, oral and written histories.

Tourism & recreation Characteristics: Marketable “High Country” images; evidence of prior uses – ski touring, water collection, mining, cattlemen

Issues: Enriching place that people want to visit – making that possible whilst preserving natural landscape qualities.

Solutions: Constructing the RIGHT infrastructure; need for hut rules; guidelines for walking (free or guided) and camp spots.

Management Plan ƒ Need to prioritize; focus on key themes; a rolling program to tackle key issues set out in the plan. ƒ Need for better integration of cultural values and natural values in the management plan. ƒ Take a STRATEGIC VIEW: 15 year time frame. ƒ Seek to integrate Park management with management of surrounding State forests other tenures and across borders. ƒ Take time to prepare a good Vision Statement for the future of the park. ƒ Clearly affirm the value and importance of Cultural Heritage to Parks Victoria. ƒ Share expertise to assist other tenures to protect their cultural values. ƒ The provision of adequate resources must be addressed at the highest level strategically. ƒ Investigate the potential for “user pays” as a means of providing resources for heritage conservation and management of the Park. ƒ Support links with local communities and special/local interest groups eg Omeo Historical Soc.

64 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Workshops

1. Greater Alpine Parks Management Plan Review - a chance to have your say Chaired by James Hackel, Chris Smith & Catherine Bessant The Management Plan in Draft Form is available on the Web and speakers during the forum spoke to it. The following is a summary of key points arising from the discussion at Omeo.

ƒ A rolling program to tackle key issues set out in the plan ƒ Take a Strategic View with a 15 year time frame. ƒ Need to focus on key issues and to prioritize. ƒ Need for better integration of the natural values and the cultural values in the Management Plan. ƒ Seek to integrate Park Management with other tenures, State Forests and across borders. ƒ Share expertise to assist other tenures to protect their cultural values. ƒ Investigate potential for “User Pays” as a means of providing resources. ƒ Develop partnerships with local communities, Historical Societies and Special interest groups. ƒ The provision of adequate resources to be addressed at the highest level strategically within Government ƒ Clearly affirm the value of Cultural Heritage to Parks Victoria management.

2. Tourism and recreation Chaired by Kate Nelson ƒ Visitors B.Y.O. everything and don’t spend money in the town. ƒ Communities need to develop businesses to capture the tourist $$$ ƒ Towns have to be a destination in themselves or part of a touring route or trail. ƒ Accessible 2WD routes to create trails ƒ Seal Dargo High Plains Road ƒ Museum of 4WD-ing at Dargo (combine with heritage displays / interpretation) ƒ Events – Concerts (country music / opera, etc.) - Cricket matches (Walhalla) ƒ Tourism operators’ service audit – Who, What, Where, When - Capacity to capture market ƒ Don’t use the word “Gateway” ƒ Better integration and coordination between tourism industry, land managers, and heritage agencies. ƒ “What’s On In Baw Baw” type publication. ƒ Link to Genealogy research ƒ People researching ancestors/ miners ƒ Long length car-parking spaces combined with water supply and toilet dump for grey nomads etc. ƒ Tourist info available in towns themselves in a highly visible location ƒ Appeal of lack of tourists – remoteness, wilderness ƒ Strengthening of local community leadership

15 May 2009 65 Day Forum – Workshops

3. Cultural Heritage: The tangible contributions to our alpine heritage of recreational use (walking, skiing), grazing, mining and hydro power Chaired by Neville Wale, John Hawker and Helen Page 1. Important characteristics ƒ Aesthetic and Spiritual experience of the High Country ƒ Recreation opportunities in “wilderness” ƒ Seasonality of the High Country ƒ Layers of Heritage & different cultures ƒ Isolation, serenity, snow and extreme weather ƒ Snow pole lines, walking tracks, skier/climbers memorial cairns ƒ Summit cairns, trig points, and aqueducts system ƒ hydro & botanical experimental sites ƒ Cattlemen huts, yards, fences ƒ Surviving buildings, foundations races & plant from mining.

2. Issues The single biggest threat is fire, then a failure to manage increasing visitor numbers Loss of grazing will lead to increased fuel loads, and extreme wildfires Since 2003 fires, there is a 6x increase in fuel regrowth Decreasing rain and snow over past 15 years, affects hydro schemes, impacts on vegetation and concentrates skiing to small areas Initiatives to spread recreational use over winter and summer, – tourist campaigns to promote summer tourism in the Alps Loss of wilderness and isolation; ƒ New roads ƒ Over use and over development of the Alps ƒ Designated picnic grounds and car parks Loss of grazing and cattlemen, a “Cattlemans Hall of Fame” required to record the stories and history of alpine grazing

Logging a major issue; ƒ 1939 fires destroyed many small mills; -mills (Swifts Creek) are now large, and roads and equipment is large, and impact on the landscape ƒ Significant user of water ƒ Timber used for pallets and chips, low value Need authorities to take on the responsibility of caring and protecting all heritage assets

Old huts are pleasing to the eye, vernacular and inherent beauty and are highly valued by the community. Materials are sympathetic with the landscape. Important to retain this style when rebuilding. The Dinner Plain development references this style, but over uses gable details. In comparison Mt Hotham has “Swiss alpine buildings”, but the high rise has a high visual impact, and is not well integrated with the landscape. The ski resorts include a lot of infrastructure, – ski tows, bridge, and roadways.

66 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Workshops

Many walking tracks in poor condition, and eroded and washed out. Increasing tourist numbers impact on tracks. Requires increasing the use of metal grill walkways (as at Mt Kosciusko).

Following the 2003 fires; ƒ Increased erosion, caused by massive rain events and thunderstorms ƒ Less water going into catchments and rivers ƒ Increase in weeds ƒ Increase in rabbits, and vermin, foxes, dogs, deer and pigs ƒ Fewer walkers and greater fear from fire ƒ Not as pretty, loss of an aesthetic landscape, and trees ƒ Some visitors enjoy the landscape after fires, new landscape patterns and views, increased flowering of alpine flora ƒ Impact from pilfering and loss of evidence (stealing artefacts, especially mining heritage after the fires)

Three most important issues for conservation and management of these characteristics of cultural heritage

ƒ Education and interpretation ƒ Funding ƒ Visitation: access, people management

3. Solutions Key priorities for action ƒ Research and Education to explain why management actions are necessary and to monitor outcomes in the face of change. ƒ Utilise cross cultural opportunities; – Aboriginal, Chinese, European etc, to tell and record stories that would otherwise be lost. ƒ Develop programs of partnership; – for management of cultural heritage across both public and private land, irrespective of boundaries.

Need to increase money for research, control of feral animals (exotic diseases, foot and mouth would be a major problem) Control fire events, need to increase fuel reduction burns and management of regrowth required. More leadership is required Develop stewardship programs (eg Huts Association) Get young people involved Education through schools, – all aspects of heritage, cultural, aboriginal and natural Place a value on heritage and why it should be left insitu and protected Need local identities to be involved Need more integration of Government and local people, important to use local knowledge Mountain cattleman and their place in history of the Alps should not be ignored The Tourism industry is a major user of the High Country. Important to manage users and visitors to protect the Alps. Increase the understanding and appreciation of all values; – cultural, aboriginal and natural Explore other tourism programs, podcasts, websites etc to better manage and inform visitors

15 May 2009 67 Day Forum – Workshops

In future (say 50years) there is likely to be a large disconnection between city and country. Use of government funding will be an issue. Visits to the country and “wilderness’ will decrease because urban people will feel unsafe and the environment is foreign. Outdoor education, tour guides for all cultures, and all ages, will provide a solution for future use of the High Country.

Promising solutions ƒ Friends groups ƒ Education ƒ Local community involvement ƒ Environmental interpretation ƒ Regulated/seasonal access ƒ ‘All Alps’ pass ƒ Funding ƒ Keep interpretation simple and non-jargon – avoid bureaucratic jargon e.g. curtilage, clusters, heads up ƒ No bollocks/advertising speak e.g. Winter Wonderland

Most promising solutions ƒ Resorts – green as well as white season ƒ Maintaining cool burns because fire is our greatest threat and proactive fire management ƒ Collection of data from locals and written sources highlighting e.g. graves, aborigines, trees ƒ Good consultation with locals

68 Heritage of the High Country Forum Day Forum – Workshops

4. Education and interpretation Chaired by Anne Sedgley 1. What are the most important characteristics … of the cultural landscapes of the High Country? ƒ People ƒ Uses of the land ƒ Changes in vegetation due to fire and land use

Other characteristics: ƒ Toughness ƒ Vulnerability ƒ Ruggedness ƒ Isolation ƒ Seasonality ƒ Remoteness

2. What are the three most important issues for the conservation and management of the above? ƒ Climate change ƒ Local community involvement, as well as state. Local people will have different values. ƒ Correct and relevant education and interpretation ƒ Agencies putting up boards should keep advertising to a minimum – no logos or very small ƒ Agencies should not promote themselves on their interpretation boards ƒ Make places – eg huts – accessible whilst not making them vulnerable to vandalism, e.g. re huts, be proactive about actively protecting them ƒ Educational boards develop responsibility & sense of ownership and may help prevent damage

3. Protecting significant sites, structures and landscapes – as above

4. And setting up infrastructure, eg toilets, walking tracks

5. Good interpretation ƒ Collaborative ƒ Huts Code should be put in every hut ƒ Put interpretation boards further away from the huts – they spoil the ambience of the huts and their setting. ƒ Meaningful and easy to find ƒ Consult widely ƒ Use a variety of formats: podcasts, museum (?), brochures, laminated sheets, DVDs ƒ Not too much signage ƒ Get the community involved and put museums in easily located places ƒ Get cattlemen involved in writing up boards for cattlemen’s huts

15 May 2009 69 Day Forum – Workshops

5. Natural heritage and landscape Chaired by Helen Martin

What are the most important CHARACTERISTICS of the Cultural Landscape of the High Country? The group considered that the most important characteristics were the geological and geomorphological character of the High Country and the distinctive alpine flora and fauna, including Snow gums and Sphagnum bogs.

The workshop discussed the meaning of landscape to different cultures and different generations. The natural areas of the High Country are culturally significant to both Indigenous and non-indigenous people. They provide experiences of remoteness and solitude, but also a sense of timelessness – of an environment continuing to evolve without overt human influence. For creative people, the High Country is particularly valued for its beauty and the artistic inspiration it offers.

The group as a whole did not consider that intrinsic natural values could be regarded as ‘cultural’ heritage. Places of scientific or natural value had to have some human connection to fit under this definition (e.g. very old and undamaged stands of Snow gums are valuable and should be protected, but not under the banner of cultural heritage).

What are the 3 most important ISSUES for managing these characteristics? ƒ Balancing accessibility for recreation and tourism with retaining the feeling of remoteness and isolation; minimising the impact of buildings, roads and other structures on the aesthetic quality of landscapes. ƒ How to increase public understanding of the heritage of the High Country. ƒ The likely impacts of climate change on alpine flora and fauna and associated heritage landscapes. Increased average temperatures have the potential to change significantly the landscape of the High Country. Some characteristic plants and animal habitats may no longer be viable. Increased bushfire risk may also affect many species, as well as components of the built heritage of the High Country.

What are the promising SOLUTIONS? ƒ Planning controls to protect important vistas and the settings of significant buildings; containing ski industry development; encouraging walking and skiing, rather than extending road access; reducing clutter and visual intrusions into the landscape; repairing or rebuilding heritage places using traditional materials and techniques. ƒ There is a need to develop new ways of telling stories, beyond the use of interpretive signage – potential for using new electronic media. Art can also be used as an education medium, to increase appreciation of landscape and natural areas. ƒ Use of ecological burning techniques to match the frequency and intensity of fires with the needs of particular species has the potential to reduce fuel loads without adverse impacts on the environment or the landscape. This should reduce the spread of major destructive wildfires.

70 Heritage of the High Country Forum O Omeo – a distinctive heritage Helen Martin, Planner & member of Heritage Council The town of Omeo is situated on Livingstone Creek, a tributary of the Mitta Mitta River, at an elevation of 650 metres in the Great Dividing Range. The explorer Lhotsky penetrated the area about 1834 and used the name Omeo, an Aboriginal word commonly accepted as meaning mountains. Several pastoralists were attracted to the area by the explorer’s reports and a droughtM in 1837 in the Monaro district, in southern NSW, brought more graziers to the remote plains. In 1841, a route was discovered south to the coast and squatters brought herds from the Monaro down to the Gippsland plains via the Omeo area.

Gold was discovered in the Omeo district in 1851. Isolation hampered development but by 1854 a rush was in progress. A township soon developed along Livingstone Creek, with a hotel and two stores by 1856 and a post office in 1858. By 1860, there were 600 miners at Omeo, mostly livingE in tents. There were many Chinese miners who eventually established a community on the western side of the township, with their own stores and joss house. The goldfield was rough and lawless, prompting the appointment of a resident warden and police magistrate in 1866. Omeo Shire was proclaimed in 1872, with Omeo as the administrative centre.

In the 1870s, the pastoral runs were opened for selection and the new settlers arrived. Yields from alluvial gold were declining but by 1880 reef mines were opened in the district and Omeo enteredO a long period of prosperity. Many substantial brick buildings were erected in the 1890s, including a courthouse, post office, shire hall, bank, hospital and a new three-storey Golden Age Hotel.

Around 1900, several dredges commenced operations on local creeks. By 1918, the reef mines were exhausted and three quarters of the population had deserted Omeo. Houses were abandoned and over half the shops closed. Farmers also experienced difficulties, oppressed by economic depression and rabbit plagues. The abandonment of plans for a railway further depressed the district. The 1939 fires devastated much of the countryside and destroyed part of the town, including the Golden Age Hotel, with the result that the built heritage of Omeo now includes many inter-war buildings, as well as the legacies of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

By the late 1940s, prices for wool and livestock improved and grazing became the mainstay of the town. A timber industry also developed. Omeo’s isolation was gradually lessened by the improvement of the road to Bairnsdale. This road, which continues on from Omeo to Mitta Mitta, was named the Omeo Highway in 1925. It was Victoria’s first road to be designated a State Highway.

By the mid 1960s, electricity was extended to the town. Tourism also contributed to Omeo’s economy. A camping ground was established in 1952 and there are two hotels and a motel. With a fine disregard for history, the southern portion of the Omeo Highway has now been renamed the Great Alpine Road, becoming part of a route which runs over Mt Hotham to Wangaratta. Fishing, hunting, skiing and bushwalking bring visitors year round.

Fires again threatened Omeo in 2003 and destroyed several houses on the edges of the town. Further major fires occurred in the surrounding area in 2006-07.

[Principal source: Context Pty Ltd (2005) East Gippsland Heritage Gaps Study, Volume 3 – Thematic Environmental History. Prepared by Meredith Fletcher and Linda Kennet, Centre for Gippsland Studies, Monash University.]

The following notes and photographs describe some of the main heritage buildings in Omeo, working from the bottom of Day Avenue – at the corner of Tongio Road – to the Catholic Church on the Omeo Highway

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Omeo Justice Precinct

Helen Martin The Omeo Justice Precinct is listed in the The ‘old’ Court House (1859-61) (below) is Victorian Heritage Register (H1536). It historically significant as a rare and intact consists of a log lockup and stockade example of a small country goldfields court of fencing, early Court House, a police the 1850s. It was a symbol of the extension of residence, police stables and police cook the power of the State government to impose house, as well as the 1893 Court House justice on a small and remote goldfields designed by the outstanding government community and demonstrates in its fabric part of architect the story of Victoria. Its strong association with A. J. Macdonald. Arthur Currie Wills and Alfred Howitt is clearly documented in Howitt's papers, which describe It is the most intact example of a 19th Century the way he worked in the two small back rooms. police and court complex known to survive in This gives it added historical significance. [Local Victoria. It is significant because of the tradition says that, after the new Court House presence of a number of elements which are was opened, the old one – below – was used for architecturally and historically significant to years as a calf pen. In 1975, the Shire of Omeo the State. These are the log lockup/gaol received a grant to restore the building and (1858), the Court House (1859-61), the convert it to a folk museum, run by the Omeo police cookhouse (1882-83), the police Historical Society.] residence (1882-83), the police stables (1882-83) and the ‘new’ Court House (1893).

The lockup is architecturally and historically significant as a rare example of primitive log construction in Victoria. It is unusual in retaining its internal log walling between cells and internal doors so that its original function can be clearly seen. Although not the earliest, it is the most intact lockup in the State and is of State significance as a rare The police cookhouse (1882-83) is historically example of a particular type of vernacular significant as a rare example of a police building building construction seldom used in Victoria. which demonstrates 19th Century policing It gains added significance in its context in a practices. remarkably intact example of a 19th Century justice precinct.

72 Heritage of the High Country forum

The police residence (1882-83) is historically The 1893 Court House is architecturally significant as a representative and intact significant as a fine and rare example of the example of a 19th Century police house and work of A. J. Macdonald, whose small but station, demonstrating the importance of the remarkable output for the Public Works police presence in a remote mining town. Department during his brief architectural career was influenced by H.H. Richardson of Chicago and many other styles, such as the Arts and Crafts Movement. The 1893 Omeo Court House is particularly significant as a rare example of a court house in the Federation Romanesque style in Victoria. The Court House is also historically significant as an element within the

justice precinct which is a rare and intact The police stables (1882-83) is historically example of a complex of nineteenth century important as a representative and intact court and police buildings. example of a timber stable, which demonstrates the way of life of nineteenth century police officers and their reliance on horses for transport.

Restoration works on the old and new Court Houses, funded by the Public Heritage Program, took place between 1998 and 2004. They included repair and replacement of roof drainage, repainting, repair of external and internal timber elements, and repair of brickwork on the old Court House.

Principal Source: Victorian Heritage Database (and information from Omeo Historical Society).

15 May 2009 73

Walk up Day Avenue Helen Martin, Planner & member of the Heritage Council

NORTH/WEST SIDE OF STREET Methodist Parsonage (former) This house dates from c.1873 when a Methodist Church (since demolished) was built next door. It was notorious for the Griggs case of 1927-28, when the resident parson was charged with the poisoning death of his wife.

Masonic Lodge The Lodge has been on this site since 1888. The right hand side (front door to end) is original with the left portion added some years later and the whole front given a new façade.

Petersen’s Gallery, Day Avenue Timber residence built c.1890 by the Taylor brothers, who operated the flour mill (demolished by 1930s) on the downhill side of the house. A succession of doctors lived here to 1968 and used it as their surgery. From 1988 to 2002 it was a residence and gallery and is now an artist’s studio.

Commercial Bank of Australasia (former) The C.B.A. opened its branch in Omeo in February 1890 with W. A. Johnson as Manager. Shortly afterwards, it moved into this building. The building was later used as the Bank of Melbourne. The living quarters are now used for serviced accommodation.

CWA Hall (former Catholic Church) The rear section – a brick chapel – was the first Roman Catholic church in Omeo, from 1873 to 1903. It became a school when the Josephite order arrived in 1909, and the front rooms were added. The CWA now owns the building, and it is used as a pre-school centre for the Omeo community.

Old Standard Building (former Temperance Hall) Built in 1874, this building is a significant part of the Day Avenue streetscape. There is a rounded entrance in centre of building with arched windows of different dimensions either side. These windows are recessed to the main façade. Side profile shows evidence of additions with larger gabled hall added to the rear of the property at similar time to original construction. The longest period of use was as the town’s newspaper office.

Holston Buildings (formerly occupied by Perry’s Chemist) Built 1931, with a concrete rendered façade that was the only part of the building to survive the 1939 fires. The rest of the shops were reconstructed behind it.

74 Heritage of the High Country forum

SOUTH/EAST SIDE OF STREET Immaculate Conception Catholic Church The foundation stone reads: ‘February 1903, McCrae Toole Architects, J. Richards Builder". This building replaced the first Catholic Church (built in 1874), which is now the CWA Hall.

Hilltop Hotel (site of former Cricketers’ Arms Hotel) This building, which replaced one destroyed in a structural fire in 1938, was under construction during the 1939 bushfires. Hospital patients were evacuated to this site but could not stay, as the roof was not on.

Former Presbyterian Manse (now residence) The house was built c 1878, and was later a convent for the Josephite sisters from 1909-22. It became the Presbyterian Manse from 1925-52. During the 1939 bushfires, the Hospital was destroyed and one of the five patients was taken to the Manse. It was a B&B from 1990s to 2005, when it became a private residence. Omeo Post Office (VHR H650) The PO was built in 1890. The building is a fine example of Scottish baronial revival architecture as developed by A J MacDonald in the Public Works Dept in the late 19th Century. Other buildings by this celebrated architect include the former South Yarra PO and the Bairnsdale and Yarram Court houses.

Lands Office (former) This building was the Lands Office in the late 19th Century. One of its residents – from 1875 to 1887 – was James Stirling, surveyor and geologist. He was fascinated by the flora of the High Country and wrote many articles on his observations.

Colonial Bank (former) The Colonial Bank was built in 1889, before the bank crashes of the 1890s depression. From 1945-65 The Standard newspaper occupied the site. Several businesses have been conducted here since including hair salon, bookshop and tourist information centre. It is now a stock and station agent.

Omeo State School (No. 831) The 3-room school was built c.1875. Its galleries were removed c.1900 and it was remodelled again in 1925. A timber building with a further 3 classrooms was added in 1956 and from then until 1984 it served as a secondary school. The cairn (erected 1927) commemorates explorer Angus McMillan.

Omeo Justice Precinct See separate sheet. Omeo Shire Offices & Memorial Hall The hall is part of the original Omeo Shire office complex, built in the 1890s. The offices have been extended and refurbished several times. Parks Victoria now occupies the former Council Chamber. Mechanics Institute Library (former) The W part of the site was originally reserved for a Mechanics Institute and

Library. The building is now used by East Gippsland Water. Golden Age Motel (/Hotel) The magnificent 3-storey Victorian Golden Age Hotel (the 4th on the site) was destroyed in the 1939 bushfires. This Modern-style one was built in 1940, by Pollard Bros of Malvern to plans by architect D. F. Cowell Ham, of Melbourne.

15 May 2009 75 T SELF-DRIVE TOUR

Heritage of the Bogong High Plains, Saturday 16 May 2009

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Top left: Cope Hut (Photo: Helen Martin) Above: Wallace’s Hut (Photo: Anne Sedgley) Left: Aqueduct, Falls Creek, winter 07 (Photo: Anne Sedgley)

We recognize the traditional owners of this land, and acknowledge present-day aboriginal people with strong links to the High Country.

This driving tour of the Bogong High Plains shows some of the area’s rich historic cultural inheritance. Places on the tour have been chosen to illustrate the High Country’s main cultural heritage themes: we will visit as many of them as we can in the time.

1. Oriental Claims Sluicing Site Gold Mining 2. Blue Duck Inn Gold Mining, Recreation, Tourism 3. Bogong High Plains Road Road Transport, Tourism 4. Langford West Aqueduct Water Supply, Hydroelectric Power 5. Cope Hut Recreation 6. Wallace’s Hut Cattle grazing 7. Maisie Fawcett's exclusion plots Scientific Research 8. Bogong Village Hydroelectric Power 9. Clover Dam and Arboretum Hydroelectric Power, Accommodation

We will be driving over 90 kms on the tour and visiting up to nine sites with experts to tell us about each place’s heritage values. There will be no time to waste! We ask you to move as quickly as possible from your car to the site and back, and not to linger in pleasant chat with others. Keep this for morning tea at the Blue Duck Inn, and lunch at Wallace’s Hut.

76 Heritage of the High Country forum Self-drive tour

1. Oriental claims hydraulic sluicing site The Oriental Claims Hydraulic Gold Sluicing Site (Heritage Register H 1225) consists of a vast network of sluicing faces, pebble dumps, tail races and water races. It illustrates what happens when a jet of water, delivered to the site by high pressure pipelines, is directed at cliffs and soil thought to be gold-bearing. Water was used in many methods of gold extraction; of these, hydraulic sluicing was the most destructive to the environment. It was introduced into Victoria in about 1855, and produced massive erosion in its efforts to separate the gold deposits from the sediments. Hydraulic sluicing of alluvial gold deposits was an important gold mining technology in countries where water was plentiful and perennial, e.g. parts of the western USA.

The Oriental Claims Historic Area is named after a sluicing company which worked the area from 1876-1904. It also acknowledges the major contribution of Chinese miners to the area's history. The Oriental Claims Hydraulic Gold Sluicing Site is on the Victorian Heritage Register for its historical, archaeological and scientific values.

2. Blue Duck Inn, Angler’s Rest The Omeo Highway was the first declared State Highway (1925) in Victoria. It was constructed in 1909 by the Public Works Department to serve the Glen Wills gold and tin mines. The Blue Duck Inn was built on the Omeo Highway as a resting place for travellers to the Glen Wills mine. It is not on the Heritage Register, but the Cobungra River Bridge immediately beside it is (Heritage Register H1854). When the Glen Wills mines shut down, the Blue Duck Inn and the Cobungra River Bridge became a haven for anglers and hikers, hence its name, Angler's Rest.

The bridge was probably built during the early years of the Second World War when this section of the Omeo Highway was up-graded for proposed military use. This style of bridge was the first standard timber bridge designed specifically for motor transport. It replaced the traditional transversely planked timber deck with a longitudinally planked deck on timber crossbeams. The juxtaposition of a vernacular timber bridge with an adjacent travellers’ resting place is now extremely rare in Victoria. The Blue Duck Inn was severely threatened by the bushfires of 2006. The owner may tell us more about this – both the threat and how it was averted.

3. Shannonvale The property Shannonvale is part of the social history of the High Plains. First taken up by the Fitzgeralds in 1861, G.S. “Dad” Fitzgerald was one of the early graziers. The track from Shannonvale ascending onto the High Plains in the vicinity of Cope Hut was used by cattlemen, walkers and cross country skiers for years. For over 25 years his son Brendon, leading 2 or 3 pack horses, accompanied winter parties of Rover Scouts to their hut. Another son, Tom, took part in the rescue of Mick Hull & Cleve Cole on Mt. Bogong.

The complex of gable-roofed timber buildings at the homestead included workshops, blacksmith and an operating Post Office. Fitzgerald’s Hut was built by G.S. in 1903 in an idyllic stand of snow gums on the south eastern side of Mt Nelse. Sadly, this hut was accidentally burnt down by a school group 20 years ago. Ian Stapleton marshalled a team together from Wollangarra and quickly rebuilt it in the vernacular style. Shannonvale’s pastures can be viewed from several points along the aqueduct which collects water from the eastern slopes of the High Plains.

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4. Water and hydro-electric power – Langford West aqueduct Much of the Australian Alps National Park is covered in snow from late May to November. When the winter snows melt, they flow as fresh water into Australia's rivers. The alpine grasslands and boggy areas can hold vast amounts of water, which may be captured in aqueducts and storages.

The Australian Alps provide most of the water for agricultural purposes in south-eastern Australia. The massive water storages and hydro-electric schemes in the Snowy Mountains and the Victorian Kiewa scheme, constructed after World War 2, were influenced by European and American models, but the scale of operations supplying regulated water half way across the continent is unparalleled. (Adapted from The International Significance of the Cultural Values of the Australian Alps: report to the AALC, Jane Lennon and Associates, May 1999.)

The first proposal to harvest Alps water for generating electricity was in 1911 when the Victorian Hydro-Electric Company proposed to harness energy from water draining off the Bogong High Plains. Development of the Yallourn brown coal power station took precedence, and it was not until 1938 that the State Electricity Commission of Victoria began work on the Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme. Mt Beauty was established to support the scheme, and the Kiewa Highway was developed to help with transport from the railhead at Wodonga. Due to lack of funding, it was 1961 before a scaled-down version of the original Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme was completed.

5. Bogong High Plains road The Bogong High Plains Road is comparatively recent, being constructed as a gravel road in 1960. In 2009 it was sealed, somewhat controversially, to allow, access by a much greater number of vehicles and people. It has long been an aim of Tourism Victoria and the Alpine Resorts Management Board to allow tourist coaches to drive a round tour from Dinner Plain via Hotham, Mount Beauty, Falls Creek, and the Bogong High Plains to the Omeo Highway and back to Dinner Plain. A wide sealed road was essential for this. It remains to be seen whether increasing the number and type of vehicles on the Bogong High Plains will destroy the very remoteness which characterises them and their cultural heritage.

6. Cope Hut Cope Hut was built by the Ski Club of Victoria in 1929 after the state experienced a surge of interest in skiing in the 1920s. It is not on the Heritage Register, but was classified by the National Trust in 1988. Cope Hut was funded by the State Tourist Commission and built by Bill Spargo in 1929. Many locations for Victorian alpine huts and clubhouses of the 1920s and 1930s were chosen by Spargo for their proximity to natural springs. Cope Hut is associated with the earliest days of ski touring in Victoria. Timber-framed and clad in corrugated iron, it is exceptional as a design adapted for a specific purpose. Initially the entrance was on the uphill side, but was subsequently relocated to the downhill side.

In his book From Drovers to Daisypickers, Ian Stapleton tells how Mount Cope was originally Mt Jack. In the early days of white occupation of the High Country, an aboriginal guide called Larnie showed two stockmen, Jim Brown and Jack Wells, around the Bogong High Plains. They spent a day naming all the features they saw, including two peaks they named Mount Jim and Mount Jack. Decades later, a judge in Melbourne named Cope wanted Mt Jack’s name changed. It is too late to change back now, given Cope Hut’s existence. Ian speaks of other names: Mt. Nelse is named after a gold prospector, Nelson; “it would have taken him five minutes to work out that there was no gold there!” Mt. MacKay, “named after someone who was there for a few moments and is now forgotten by everyone.” From Drovers to Daisy-pickers: colourful characters of the Bogongs, by Ian Stapleton. Harrietville, The author, 2006.

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7. Wallace’s Hut Wallace’s' Hut (Heritage Register H1616) was built in 1889 and is probably the oldest surviving hut on the Victorian High Plains. It was built in six weeks by Irish immigrant brothers Arthur, William and Stewart Wallace among old snow gums on a grassy plain above the snowline. The brothers held grazing leases on the High Plains, and the hut was to provide shelter for the cattlemen working there. The timber was cut from the forest c.400 metres east of the hut, and the hearth stone was dragged in from Pretty Valley. The chimney had a base of rubble below iron sheeting on a timber frame. The slab walls were lined with hessian and later, tar-paper (Malthoid). Inside there was a bush table, sleeping platform and a rustic fire-side settle.

Many similar huts were built in mountain areas but they were flimsy and at great risk from bush fires – no others have survived from the 19th C. The State Electricity Commission used the hut from the late 1920s until the early 1940s to collect data on precipitation for possible hydroelectric works. SEC employee Joe Holsten covered the roof and later the walls with corrugated iron, renewed the chimney and added a skillion for storing firewood and horse feed. In the 1940s the Rover Scouts took over the hut and it became an important destination for walkers and skiers.

Wallace's Hut is the oldest and best known hut on the Victorian High Plains. It is significant for its links with the cattlemen, and later with early SEC meteorological data recording and the history of hydroelectricity. Architecturally it is significant as one of the few 19th C. vernacular slab buildings surviving in Victoria. It was severely threatened in the 2006 fires, but was saved by intense aerial bombing. Wallace’s Hut is relatively intact and, to quote the National Trust, “highly evocative of both the primitiveness and the romance of the early mountain cattlemen's lives”.

8. Maisie Fawcett’s exclusion plots “The Australian Alps are significantly different from other alpine areas throughout the world – they are ‘soil mountains’ in contrast to the rock of Switzerland and New Zealand and the peat and oceanic mountains of Europe. Unlike rocky mountains they have complex and interesting vegetation patterns.…The Australian research is of international significance and the scientific sites are of outstanding cultural significance. Places of outstanding universal value associated with this research include Maisie Fawcett’s exclosure plots at Rocky and Pretty Valleys...” The International Significance of the Cultural Values of the Australian Alps: report to the AALC, Jane Lennon and Associates, May 1999, p. 54.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, heavy grazing by large numbers of sheep, cattle and horses was causing substantial damage to the alpine environment. In some places the soil mantle was stripped entirely, and stony erosion pavements resulted. By the 1940s the degraded condition of the Bogong High Plains was causing concern. Maisie Fawcett, an ecologist, was appointed by the newly formed Soil Conservation Board in 1941 to assess the effects of cattle grazing on vegetation of the Bogong High Plains. She and Professor John Turner from Melbourne University established a series of reference plots in the mid-1940s, and these are still yielding long-term data on grazing impacts.

What matters, of course, is not what you see but how you interpret what you see. For a completely different view of the significance of the Maisie Fawcett Exclusion Plots, look at the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria’s webpage on the Alpine Grazing Heritage Trail, Bogong High Plains. www.mcav.com.au/Alpine%20Grazing%20Heritage%20Trail.pdf

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9. Clover Arboretum (From notes provided by the Friends of the Clover Arboretum) In 1941/42 Clover Village was built to house men working on the Clover Dam and Power Station, as part of the Kiewa Hydro Electric Scheme. 17 houses were built from local materials; over the years the village has housed French, German, English, Yugoslav and Australian families. All the trees standing are exotic, coming from the workers’ countries of origin, except for the occasional gum. The workers constructed the rock walls and steps, and planted most of the trees. They turned a workers’ camp into a thriving Alpine community.

The village was initially called Clover Flat (after nearby clover pastures found by early cattlemen), then Clover Village, Lower Bogong and now Clover Arboretum. In the 1950s due to dampness, cold and minimal sunlight, the village was condemned as a health risk. The houses were auctioned off and removed. The State Electricity Commission (SEC) maintained the site as a park, and it was proclaimed an Arboretum in 1973. Parks Victoria then maintained it until 1988 when the Arboretum was closed. In 1998 the Friends of the Arboretum began its restoration.

The January 2003 bushfires burnt many plants: 57 trees and 29 rhododendrons were lost and the Arboretum was closed for 18 months while destroyed trees were removed. The Friends of Clover Arboretum had to restore it again from scratch. Luckily the 2006 fires only skirted its perimeter. The Friends will plant more trees, but have an ongoing battle with feral deer. The Arboretum is maintained jointly by the Friends and Parks Victoria, and is 15 minutes (13km) from Mount Beauty on the Bogong High Plains Road.

For further information on Friends of the Clover Arboretum, contact Penny Cummings – President Ph: 03-57541332, or Helen Hansen – Secretary Ph: 03-57541165.

For further information on cultural heritage in the High Country and elsewhere, see the Heritage Council’s website: www.heritage.vic.gov.au or phone Heritage Victoria on 03 8644 8800.

Clover Aboretum Photo: John Hawker

80 Heritage of the High Country Forum Self-drive tour

Report on the driving tour of the heritage of the High Country

Anne Sedgley, member of the Landscape Advisory Committee, Heritage Council of Victoria Forty-thee people in 10 or 12 cars and one mini-bus set out to drive to some of the cultural heritage sites of the Bogong High Plains. Neville, Peter and Anne had done the tour in reverse ten days earlier in an icy wind, whose chill factor brought the temperature well below freezing. Hypothermia was only avoided by leaping repeatedly into a warm car. But by Saturday the weather had had a change of heart. After early fog, we were treated to a crisp but bright day – perfect winter weather for exploring the High Country.

We left Omeo at 8.30 for the Oriental Claims Hydraulic Sluicing Site. This is a landscape much altered by gold-mining practices, which were explained to us by Rob Kaufman. This little valley was very beautiful in the early morning sunlight, despite the destructive bashing of the cliffs with high- pressure water over 100 years ago, which had yielded a surprisingly high amount of gold for the Oriental Claims Co.

The drive to the Blue Duck Inn at Angler’s Rest also took us by surprise. This was a landscape hugely altered by severe fires six years ago. The trees were only just beginning to grow back – coppice growth from the base of stark white eucalyptus trunks – but what struck us most was the absence of soil, as the road wound around the steep mountain-sides. Only weeks after the 2003 fires, torrential rains had washed away the fragile covering of soil on these slopes, and the rocks and stones just below the surface were now revealed, as if the bones of the mountains were exposed.

At Angler’s Rest, Brett Lee, former president of the Omeo Historical Society, told us a brief history of the Blue Duck Inn, which had survived the fires by a whisker in 2003. The hotel has recently changed hands, and the new owners were as hospitable as their predecessors. A “blue duck” is something useless – a tale hangs thereby, of course – but with old photos on timber-lined walls, a big fire, and morning tea with delicious cake, we found it anything but useless.

Next stop was a little way up the newly-sealed Bogong High Plains Road, looking down at Shannonvale homestead while Peter Hiscock spoke of its importance in earlier days. We drove on up to the Langford West Aqueduct and camping ground, where Ruth Lawrence spoke eloquently about water supply, the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme and the planned expansion of Rocky Valley dam, which didn’t eventuate due to lack of funds. ` A little further on, Peter Hiscock called for volunteers to walk up Mt Cope. Surprisingly, this was just about everyone. The students bounded up to the top in no time, and everyone else followed; triumphant photos were taken of the summiteers. Mt. Cope is an excellent vantage point from which to see the plateau-landscape of the High Plains, still dotted with banks and drifts of snow. On the way down there were some highly-coloured, remarkable snowgum trunks striped in pink, purple, green, grey and yellow.

Time was running short, so the visit to Cope Hut was bypassed in favour of packed lunches at Wallace’s Hut. Chris Commins, vice-president of the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria, spoke to us at Wallace’s about his grandfather and family, one of the first families to drive cattle up to the High Country for the summer grazing. He spoke, too, about his own youth growing up around horses and cattle. His love of the High Country and the cattlemen’s heritage there was unmistakable.

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From Wallace’s we walked across the road and halfway down to the reservoir, to Maisie Fawcett’s Exclusion Plots. Here Elaine Thomas, a Parks Vic. ranger, spoke about the damage that overstocking had caused to the native grasses. Maisie’s project, begun in 1937, is now the longest continual grasses-and-pasture monitoring project in the world.

Well-primed by now on the function of the aqueducts and reservoir, we drove across the dam wall, through Falls Creek, and down to the Clover Arboretum. Time was short so the visit to Clover Power Station was cancelled in favour of the Arboretum, where John Hawker spoke, saying we had left “the most important heritage site to the last”. Our notes provided by Friends of the Arboretum did nothing to prepare us for the blaze of autumn colour – the gingko, horse chestnut, ash and elm were all a strong glowing yellow, the liquidamber was multi-coloured, the eucalypts majestic and green. The Arboretum had been planted out by the families of men working on the Power Station, and all the levelling and terracing we saw was designed around their homes.

The tour introduced us to gold-mining heritage and how it has changed the landscape; to the use of melting alpine snows for water supply and hydroelectric power generation, to the cattle industry, cattlemen’s huts and the effects of summer grazing; to long-term scientific monitoring of pastures; to the impact of the ski industry on the slopes and the horizons; and to the early hydroelectric workers’ use of gardens and exotic, deciduous trees to beautify their homes. The tour ended here, and we were in Mt Beauty by 4.30.

Gold-mining, hydroelectricity, water supply, cattle-grazing, scientific experiments on the landscape, recreational activities, especially the ski industry, and the planting of exotic trees by workers in the power industry – together, these gave a broad spectrum perspective of the main cultural influences and heritage found in Victoria’s High Country.

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