Location, location

A short film by Matthew Bird has captured a number local iconic locations around the Wimmera and Mallee.
'Parallaxis' is an abstract 16-minute psychological sci-fi film, with 2 'future characters' (played by Ashleigh McLellan and Lilian Steiner) who move across the landscape pushing & controlling large cylindrical instruments that survey & map the terrain.

Bosisto's Eucalyptus Distillery ruins

The terrain in question is recognisable as the site of Bosisto's eucalyptus distillery at Antwerp, the wind farm at Murra Warra, the Stick Shed at Murtoa, and Lake Tyrrell at Sea Lake.

Passageway, Stick Shed

The film follows two augmented humans as they "investigate their possible archaic genealogy in a Wimmera past. Arriving temporarily and somewhat unexpectedly in the now, the inquisitive duo put their surveillance face-halos to work: observing, recording, archiving ephemeral moments and navigational discoveries as they speed through the landscape. Their biomechanically engineered apparatus are cross-fed into the telemetry of the full-body gyrocompass each visitor operates. Systems in systems, wheels within wheels, spin-axis atop spin-axis, each revolution another attempt to locate and momentarily fix a collective bearing in space and time".

Tarrying at Tarranyurk

Prompted to share a couple of bridges in flood.
The previous photos of the old Tarranyurk Bridge on the "Bridges in floods" post were taken in March 2008 and April 2011.

The Wimmera River swirling into the Old Tarranyurk Bridge (Dimboola Courier)

These are from the Dimboola Courier and were taken on Tuesday 20th September 2016, as the flood peak moves towards Jeparit.
Hang in there Tarranyurk! 

The partially collapsed deck of the bridge, the current bridge is to the left (Dimboola Courier)

Began this post on 22nd September, but now updated, so it was possible to add a few more flooded old bridges taken on 24th.

Firstly - Antwerp, the flood peak had moved on from around Antwerp, but evidence of the higher level was apparent with debris still piled up against the old bridge deck, which as shown is only just above the water level. 

<< The new & old Antwerp bridges

Below the old bridge with its missing span, from the previous flood in 2011.

Both Tarranyurk bridges

Arriving at Tarranyurk, the flow of the river was evident, with little whirlpools and frothy spume whipped up around the piles.

  The bridge deck at Tarranyurk  >>


Moving on to Jeparit - the peak had again been and gone, onto Lake Hindmarsh. 
The waters had only reached part-way up the cross-members of the trestles.

Above & below - Jeparit

The flow of time

As the rains come tumbling down, people's thoughts turn to the river.
This piece is from the Dimboola Courier: 

The first natural flow in the Wimmera River since 2012 flowed past Antwerp earlier this week and had progressed northwards to a point beyond the Tarranyurk bridge by Friday evening 12th August.

Wimmera Catchment Management Authority said the natural flow peaked at 468 megalitres a day at Lochiel.
Prior to this event the river had dried up to the point where it was just a series of stagnant waterholes linked by stretches of dry riverbed with only the weir pools at Dimboola and Jeparit holding any significant quantities of water in the lower reaches of the river.

The old Antwerp Weir in April 2016 (Dimboola Courier)

The weir, August 2016 (Dimboola Courier)

The only man made structure on the river between the Antwerp and Tarranyurk road bridges is the old Antwerp weir (pictured above) which was constructed of timber and stone in 1903 to create a more permanent body of water for the local community. The weir pool became the venue for the annual Antwerp rowing regattas in the following years.
It is unclear when it was no longer required and fell into disrepair, but a significant amount of the structure still remains.
Proposals were put forward in the early years of last century to construct a similar structure near Tarranyurk to provide a water supply for that area but this never built.
This series of photographs were taken in the vicinity of the Antwerp weir both this week and back in April and they highlight this structure in the dry and with the water flowing. 

The weir in 1903 (SLV)

The historical photograph, taken in 1903, compares with the one below, taken recently from a similar location to show the changes over the last century. The most obvious being the regrowth of trees around the weir itself.

The Antwerp weir in August 2016 (Dimboola Courier)

The water arrived at Jeparit a day later, and will now flow into Lake Hindmarsh. The last inflow into the lake was as a result of the 2011 floods.

The Jeparit Weir, August 2016 (Dimboola Courier)

The last time that the lake itself flooded was in August 1956. At Jeparit, the Wimmera River rose and forced Lake Hindmarsh to burst its bank near Four Mile, when the inflow overwhelmed the ability of Outlet Creek to cope with the huge volume, and was further  compounded by the wind and waves forcing the water towards the south. Hundreds of acres of wheat crops were affected, several roads were cut, two families were forced from their homes and 30 others were threatened.

The old Jeparit road bridge in 1956, from the north bank (L. Hounsel)

The historic photograph shows the water up to the corbels of the old road bridge over the Wimmera River.The photo below shows the struts and pilings visible below the corbels.

The old Jeparit road bridge in November 2007, from the south bank

Honour inductee

New hot off the presses, or straight from the website of the Department of the Premier & Cabinet.
Local Wotjobaluk Elder Aunty Nancy Harrison has been inducted to the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll. Aunty Nancy joins other Wimmera inductees - Lester Marks, Johnny Mullagh and Kevin Coombs.Her great-great-grandfather was King Richard who helped track the lost Duff children.

Aunty Nancy at the launch of the Honour Roll at Horsham, 2015

Aunty Nancy was born in Horsham in 1941 and grew up with her 7 brothers and sisters on the Reserve at Antwerp . The children attended the Antwerp State School, till the family moved to Burrumbeet near Ballarat, when Nancy then attended the Ballarat West High School. She worked in the Ballarat offices of the Royal Insurance Company, then the SEC (State Electricity Commission) in accounting & secretarial roles. In the 1950s joined the Department of Defence with the RAAF then the Army tilll she retired.

In 2003 Nancy returned to her traditional home at Dimboola and became involved in the Native Title negotiations for parts of the Little Desert & Wyperfeld lands, culminating with its recognition in 2005.
In the community Nancy has volunteered her time and talents to school children talking on cultural language, history and heritage. She has been involved in archaeological digs at Ebenezer. Nancy was an Ambassador for the Library during the International Year of Reading in 2012. She also worked on the Possum Skin Cloak Project (the cloak represented stories of the traditional owners, past & present).
 So congratulations Aunty Nancy Harrrison - Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll inductee for 2015. 

<< Aunty Nancy in the possum cloak delivering the Welcome to Country speech at the Library's 'Footprints' display in Dimboola 

Railways - Yaapeet line

The Dimboola yards in 1964 (from "C.R.S.V.)

The Yaapeet line is a grain-only branch line from the west side of Dimboola, it was converted from board to standard gauge at the same time as the Melbourne to Adelaide line. The Yaapeet line re-opened (66kms to Rainbow) for grain only transportation in February 2012, though trains bypass the disconnected Arkona, Tarranyurk, Ellam and Pullut sidings. This is following the January 2011 floods which severely damaged the line near Jeparit.

Washaway between Jeparit and Ellam (W.V.R.G.)

Arkona now just a silo site. It opened in 1905 as Katyil, and was re-named Arkona in 1912.

Arkona's platform mound opposite the silos

Antwerp a temporary garage for grain hoppers.

Tarranyurk

The site of Tarranyurk's railway buildings

Jeparit the extension to Jeparit opened in June 1894. The government approved the Jeparit to Albacutya section in September 1898. Jeparit was also the junction of the Yanac branch line. It had a large goods yard, but now the buildings have been removed and just the silos and platform mound survived.

A couple of sleepers mark the Jeparit platform

Ellam just a silos site.
Pullut just a silos site.

Goods train leaving Rainbow for Dimboola, 1966 (from "Patterns of steam")

Rainbow In November 1899 the railway to Albacutya terminated at Croajabrim (renamed Rainbow in 1900). The station had a turntable and large yard. A diesel railcar passenger service ceased in January 1954. Now only murals show what the Rainbow station looked like, the station building and platform have been removed. Rainbow is now the terminus for the grain transportation.

Rainbow goods yard in 1920 (from Museum Victoria collection)

The now deserted Rainbow goods yard (V.R.S. photo)

End of the line - Yaapeet (V.R.S. photo)

Albacutya
Yaapeet the intention in 1913 was to terminate the line at Nypo, but the terminus was further on at Turkey Bottom (it was renamed Yaapeet in June 1914). The line loops to the siding now, with the silos and the mound where the platform was.



Further information and photographs at

 Victorian Railway Stations and Shane McCarthy's "Patterns of steam"and John Sargent's "Country railway stations Victoria" series

Family via letters

Archival records can help people connect with their histories, trace the experiences of ancestors and learn about the times and places in which they lived.
Footprints: The journey of Lucy and Percy Pepper reveals the story of Lucy and Percy Pepper and their family. The book reveals through letters and correspondence how they were affected by laws and government policies that defined who was ‘Aboriginal’ and who was not. It chronicles their struggle to keep their extended family together, fight for Australia in World War I, make  good on a soldier settlement block in Gippsland, and survive ill health and poverty.

Lucy with her children - Gwendoline, Phillip, Alice, Sarah, Lena & Sam

This extraordinary story of the fight is told through correspondence between Percy and Lucy Pepper, government officials and Aboriginal administrators. The letters now form a part of the collections of the National Archives of Australia and Public Record Office Victoria, they were gathered together by Simon Flagg when he worked for PROV.
Through telling the story of the Peppers, the book  illustrates many of the issues that Aboriginal families faced in early twentieth-century Victoria.
This is an ebook in epub format and requires a compatible ebook reader application on a portable device (such as iPad, other tablet computer, Kindle or Kobo), or on a laptop or desktop PC, and is available for $9.95 from the Public Records Office
Don't wish to buy the book, just borrow it? then place a Hold on "Footprints"

Percy Pepper was the son of Nathaniel and Louise Pepper. Nathaniel had grown up on the Ebenezer Mission Station at Antwerp, before moving to the Ramahyuck Mission Station in Gippsland.

The headstone of Nathaniel's brother Phillip at Ebenezer

The oil on Antwerp

The Library was fortunate recently to have donated, a copy of One of nature's wonderlands : the Victorian Grampians by James W.C. Audas. It was published in 1925 in Melbourne, and is a natural history,concentrating on the flora of the different regions of the Grampians.

'Turret Falls' plate from the book

James Wales Clarendon Audas (1872-1959) was a member of the staff of the National Herbarium of Victoria. His visits to the Grampians made a particular impression on him. He recorded its plant life and brought together his investigations in One of Nature's Wonderlands. During his career Audas was a prolific writer; recounting tales of his botanical wanderings all around the state over half a century.

An interesting aspect of the book was a number of advertisements in the back of the book, including one for Bosisto's Parrot brand eucalyptus oil.

Joseph Bosisto was born on 21 March 1824 in Leads, England. He left school in 1839 and was apprenticed to a druggist. Engaged by F.H. Faulding, he sailed to Adelaide in June 1848. In 1852 he married Eliza Johnston, they settled at Richmond, Victoria, where in a renovated hotel stable he had a prosperous pharmacy and was consulted as 'Doctor' Bosisto.
Keenly interested in the eucalyptus plant and its multi-faceted uses, Bosisto with the encouragement of Ferdinand Von Mueller, the Government Botanist, began to explore eucalyptus oil on a commercial basis. He set up a small eucalyptus oil distillation plant near Dandenong Creek in1852. Bosisto was probably first to make distil eucalyptus oil commercially and to win repute for manufacturing Australia's first 'original' product. His decoctions of eucalyptus oil used in a variety of medicinal products were to make him a household name. The parrot sitting on the eucalyptus branch, inside the yellow circle was his most famous trademark.

James Bosisto

Bosisto was a founder of the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria in 1857, its president and co-editor of its Journal. He helped establish the College of Pharmacy. He served for 12 years on the Richmond Municipal Council and was mayor in 1865-67. He represented Richmond in the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1874.

Bosisto lost heavily in the building society crashes and spent his last years in straitened circumstances. He died aged 74 in Richmond on 8 November 1898. He was predeceased by his wife, they had no children. Bosisto formed the Eucalyptus Mallee Oil Company with five other notable citizens. They purchased the Antwerp Station freehold and erected buildings for the distilling equipment. It commenced extracting oil on 24 May 1882. Another large lease of land was added in July 1884. It employed about 70 men, however it was difficult to maintain a sufficient work-force. EMU brand was distilled at the Bosisto & Co Antwerp distillery and Parrot brand at Dandenong or Emerald.

Bosisto was interested in local community affairs. It was through the gradual land settlement and employment at the distillery, that his untiring efforts gained the Antwerp district a Methodist church built on land he donated, he was the patron of the Antwerp Cricket Club. In 1887 he wrote to the Education Department requesting the establishment of a State School.

From 1900 onwards the distillery output began to wane, and in 1904-05, the Antwerp plant was moved to new sites in N.S.W. Surplus stock was disposed of, and later a section of land was sub-divided and sold by auction. Many employees received grants of land and the Antwerp township began to take shape.

Bridges in floods

With news reports on the Dimboola Weir this week, it harks back to the "Still going strong" post in January, when I mentioned a number of wooden bridges. Since then the flood waters have come and gone, and now the roads are open again, We've had our first chance to see the bridges on the lower reaches of the Wimmera River.

Firstly at Jeparit - as seen in the photograph above (2008) and below (2011) not much has changed, despite the township of Jeparit being surrounded by floodwater and the sandbags still on the levee bank. Maybe the corbels on the extreme left have fallen away more, but really it looks remarkably similar.

The Jeparit Bridge was built in 1892 with hewn timber corbels supported by big timber struts. It has seven main trestle and girder spans using strut & crown girder construction.




It was evident from this approach shot ^ of the Tarranyurk Bridge that this one had suffered more than the Jeparit one. It looks as if a chunk has been removed from the upstream side of the roadway. This is a bypassed road bridge west of Tarranyurk on the Tullyvea Road.

Two views of the Tarranyurk Bridge, taken from on the new bridge. In the 2008 photograph, the bowing and buckling of the deck can be seen, and now with the missing trestle the bending is more pronounced.





From under the deck, you can see the reason why the bridge fell in.

The March 2008 photograph shows that the right-hand support had already rotted through and was misaligned, and the one next to it was also extremely worn at the straight beam level.

The 2011 photo was taken from a different spot due to the higher water level and is a span further away. You can see the light coming through from the missing deck area.






At Antwerp the bypassed timber road-bridge on the Antwerp-Woorak Road, was already missing a roadway span, as evident in the 2008 picture.

This probably helped lead to the partial collapse of that section as the trestles have given way and now lean into the river, and the roadway bitumen has separated and dropped several feet from where it met the approach ramp.





A large amount of debris was piled up against the supports on both the new bridge on the upstream side, and the old bridge. The tree trunks still lodged in the old bridge attest to that, and to the height of the river level at the time.

Still going strong

Some other timber bridges around the region that, while disused are still standing.
Jeparit Bridge
A by-passed timber road bridge over the Wimmera River on the outskirts of Jeparit. Built in 1892 of hewn timber corbels supported by big timber struts, it has 7 main trestle and girder spans using an uncommon strut & crown girder construction.

Fulham Bridge


The timber trestle rail bridge on the disused Hamilton to Natimuk East line, over the Glenelg River near Kanagulk. The bridge was built in 1917, is 189m long and has 31 spans. It is next to the homestead of the historic Fulham pastoral station owned by colonial squatters the Armytage family.

Antwerp Bridge
A by-passed timber road bridge over the Wimmera River, west of the Antwerp township on the Antwerp-Woorak Road.
Quantong Bridge

A rail bridge over the Wimmera River at Quantong, on the closed Carpolac rail-line. Built in 1887 the main bridge is 133m long, and the approach bridge in 55m long (the beams of the approach bridge were removed and re-used on the refurbished Winters Flat Bridge on the Maldon tourist rail-line).

Tarranyurk Bridge
A by-passed timber road bridge over the Wimmera River west of Tarranyurk on the road to Tullyvea. According to the Parish Map, the bridge was erected about 1905.

Technical information from "Wooden wonders"