Mt Lofty Ranges Landscape Quality Project CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Mt Lofty Ranges comprise an The Mount Lofty Ranges is considered to extensive area of attractive landscapes extend from the bottom of Fleurieu located near Adelaide, a city of over one Peninsula at Cape Jervis north east into million people. In addition to being a the Mid North. Maps of the Mid North cite productive agricultural and horticultural the ranges as being the Mount Lofty region and attracting many residents who Ranges. However for the purposes of this commute to Adelaide, it is very popular study, the northern boundary is Sturt area for tourism and recreation and its Highway as it passes through Truro near businesses gain considerable returns by the Barossa Valley. Figure 1.1 shows the marketing its scenic attractiveness. boundary of the study area. Planning policies have sought to maintain, protect and enhance its landscape The study area encompasses the upland character and quality. A proposal is in areas from the Fleurieu Peninsula through preparation to nominate the region for the main ranges to the Barossa Ranges in listing under the World Heritage the north and the Palmer escarpment in Convention as a cultural landscape. the north-east. South of that escarpment the boundary extends along the eastern STUDY AREA ridge of the Bremer Valley and excludes the Monarto area. It then extends along the base of the eastern ranges to near Goolwa and Port Elliot. The study area extends to the western base of the Barossa Ranges (i.e. not including the Barossa Valley), then along the western base of the Hills Face Zone fronting the northern suburbs of Elizabeth and Salisbury, Adelaide, Morphett Vale and the Willunga Plain. The McLaren Vale area to the sea is also included. The project excludes the urban areas and towns and covers the non-urban areas, however the rural living areas such as the Longwood - Scott Creek area is included. The total study area comprises around 470,000 ha (4,700 sq km). Because the coast of Fleurieu Peninsula was covered in the Coastal Viewscapes assessment of the South Australian coast (2005), further assessment of coast is excluded from this study and the results Figure 1.1 Mount Lofty Ranges Study Area of that study incorporated into this study. Dr Andrew Lothian, Scenic Solutions Page 1 Mt Lofty Ranges Landscape Quality Project CHAPTER 2 HISTORY OF THE MOUNT LOFTY RANGES 2.1 ABORIGINAL HABITATION aborigines and is the basis of their religious beliefs and creation stories. The Three aboriginal groups or tribes inhabited Dreamtime, or alcheringa , was a “sacred, the Mt Lofty Ranges and its surrounds. heroic time long ago when man and The central ranges were inhabited by the nature came to be as they are” (Stanner, Peramangk, particularly in the Mt Barker 1979). vicinity, but their land stretched from the Barossa Valley and Mannum, south to Across Australia, Dreamtime stories Myponga. To the west, the Kaurna differed but they always had a strong bond occupied the Adelaide plains and coast with the land. Spiritual beings shaped the south to Cape Jervis and north through to land, created the first people, set them in Port Broughton. East of the Ranges the their territories, and established their laws Ngarrindjeri occupied the southern and rituals. At the end of the act of Fleurieu Peninsula, the Murray valley and creation, the mythical beings returned to Lakes and extended south along the the earth and the actual Dreamtime ended Coorong. and now survives only as the “Dreaming” among the aborigines. However, animals, plants, astronomical bodies and land features are associated with the Dreamtime and rituals are re-enacted at certain sacred sites in order to maintain the life of the land. “These mythologies provide dramatic accounts of the creation of topographical explanation of origin in turn imbued them with an even greater significance in the belief and oral tradition of the society.” (Ellis, 1976). Painting the landscape and the life within it had great symbolic significance and the artist was compelled to conform to traditional styles and designs that were relevant to his group. The aesthetic quality and the beauty of a painting related to how well the artist reflected the cultural style and his familiarity with design. Aboriginal rock art is the oldest recorded in the world and has the distinction of continuity with the present population. Source: Tindale, 1974, Map simplified Although the land was of critical Figure 2.1 Aboriginal tribes of the Mt Lofty importance to their survival, Aboriginal art Ranges as expressed in cave paintings and by more transient forms such as bark Aborigines developed strategies which paintings never depicted the landscape as enabled them to live, survive and thrive in it was seen but rather in symbolic form. an often-hostile environment. A key strategy was their creation of sophisticated In prehistoric times the central section of mythology and symbolism in the the Ranges did not attract occupation by Dreamtime through which they viewed and the aboriginal people due to the steep, interacted with the surrounding landscape. heavily wooded hills and the cold wet The Dreamtime is the mystical past of the Dr Andrew Lothian, Scenic Solutions Page 2 Mt Lofty Ranges Landscape Quality Project winters. Tindale (1974) recorded that the prehistoric times, these streams were aborigines from the Adelaide plains permanent except in dry years. The hunted possums in the wet sclerophyll hunter-gatherers obtained fish from the scrub of the Ranges. Food and water deeper pools during their journeys to and supplies were abundant and the climate from the hills. more congenial in the nearby Murray Valley and Adelaide Plains. Ellis (1976) noted that the Mount Lofty Ranges provided “an important social and cultural barrier” between the aborigines of the Murray valley and the Adelaide plains” although parts were occupied by the Peramangk people. Source: Desert Dreams photo gallery Figure 2.3 S.T. Gill Aboriginal returning Figure 2.2 Peramangk cave painting from the hunt According to the Torrens Valley Historical Camping sites were usually on the high Journal (#32), "The Peramangk occupied banks of the streams or near springs and an area which was well endowed with permanent water-holes. These include the resources, food, water, firewood, and raw Sturt and Onkaparinga Rivers, Yankalilla, materials such as stone; timber and resins Bungala and other small creeks on the for tool manufacture; bark for huts, shields Fleurieu Peninsula as well as the and canoes; pigments for painting; furred Currency, Finniss, Angas and Bremer animals for warm rugs, etc. During winter, creeks that flow east to the River Murray. they constructed warm, dry huts of branches, bark grass and leaves, often Aborigines used fire to promote regrowth built around the hollow side of old red and attract wildlife during the drier summer gums.” months, causing consternation by the early settlers. Matthew Flinders reported Hunting expeditions were made in the seeing fires in the area and a colonist on remoter hills during the summer and this board a ship was startled at night to see encouraged game to re-occupy the nearer “the grand and fearful sight” of a bushfire and more permanent hunting grounds. across the face of the Mount Lofty Ranges Existing roads along the river valleys and (Whitelock, 1985). The eastern half of the over the steep escarpments are known to Ranges have scattered trees and this follow old aboriginal foot tracks. Pioneer formation is often the result of fire but in settlers followed these easy lines of the Ranges is more likely due to the access, first on horse and later with declining rainfall from west to east of the vehicles. Ranges. Aboriginal life centred on the many rivers and creeks draining from the Ranges. In Dr Andrew Lothian, Scenic Solutions Page 3 Mt Lofty Ranges Landscape Quality Project 2.2 EUROPEAN EXPLORATION describe the low ranges of the mid north which are distant from the coast as “high Matthew Flinders was the first European mountains”. to sight the Mount Lofty Ranges in 1802 and he named many features including In 1830, from his vantage point along the Encounter Bay, Cape Jervis, Rapid Bay River Murray, Charles Sturt commented and Mount Lofty. He described the coast favourably about the agricultural potential as “high, rocky and much cut by gullies or of the hills to the west. ravines; a short, scrubby brush wood covers the seaward side, and the stone Colonel William Light, the surveyor of appears to be slaty.” Adelaide, explored the region prior to settling on the site for the capital. Arriving by ship on 8 September, 1836 at Rapid Bay he commented that they “came to anchor in ten fathoms, a beautiful little valley in view. At two, I went on shore, and was enchanted with the appearance of the whole. A fine stream of fresh water ran through the middle of the valley into the sea, and the soil was rich beyond my expectations.” Later in September he visited the site of the present Yankalilla and wrote: “walked up the valley; running in a south-easterly direction, between very Figure 2.4 Rock at Penneshaw carved by high hills, I was enchanted with this spot, it Baudin’s expedition: "Expedition of put me in mind of some of the orchards in discovery by Captain Baudin in the Devonshire, and I found it plentifully Géographe , 1803" supplied with freshwater.” Two weeks later, Nicholas Baudin viewed In December he walked over the Adelaide the area and named Fleurieu Peninsula plains and after traversing: “nearly six and gave French names to other features. miles of a beautiful flat, I arrived at the The area north of Cape Jervis he river, and saw from this a continuation of described as having: “very few trees, but the same plain for at least six miles more offered several rather picturesque views, to the foot of the hills under Mount Lofty, non the less.