Following Timber Tramways: Ideal Walking Routes
Published in The Argus, Saturday 26th August 1933, page 6
By Lindsay Gillam
For 70 years sawmillers have operated in Victoria on a large scale. Now hundreds of miles of abandoned timber tramways lie in all parts of the State awaiting investigation. Much time and labour has been spent in the clearing and construction of these lines, and it seems a pity that, once finished with, they should be allowed to become overgrown and forgotten. To me there is far more romance and interest in following some rustic tramway mill towns than in walking on any highway.
I read with pleasure that members of a walking club in Melbourne intended to spend a week-end clearing the old Claverton tramway from Woori Yallock, which, when cleared, will make another way of approach to Mount Toolebewong with its “outer circle” and its fine views. If more of the numerous walking clubs set aside certain week-ends in every year, and, in conjunction with district tourist committees, helped to clear the overlapping scrub and undergrowth from the best of these nearer disused tramways, they would earn the gratitude of all bush-lovers, for the lines traverse some of the finest streams and forest country left to Victoria.
The Warburton-Powelltown-Noojee district is particularly attractive to the walker. Besides the invigorating scenery the frequent deserted mill towns and huts obviate the necessity for carrying tents. A walk taken recently with friends from Noojee to Warburton by way of the timber tramways was greatly enjoyed. For the first several miles the Latrobe River flows beside the line; then a mile or so beyond, a long bridge crossing the river, the Latrobe Valley is left for the Divide.
Entering the Ada Forest we had glimpses of the forest as it was in the beginning. The tramway leaves the Ada Forest through an archway of ferns and comes out on the Dividing Range at Starling’s Gap, the site of an old sawmill. There are at least three huts habitable in the Gap. The erstwhile tenant of the first of these we visited had, by the evidence of countless newspaper clippings and portraits on every wall, taken a morbid interest in murders. Leaving this gruesome rogues’ gallery in search of a more homely habitation we discovered and lunched in a hut named Young and Jackson’s.
We left the mill and the tramline for a firebreak that led along the ridges. After some time walking we made a detour to a very old mill almost roofed in by interlacing foliage. An inviting tramline led down a wooded valley, but it could not be followed far on account of the undergrowth. The firebreak was followed again, but we left it shortly for another tramway running at right angles to the break. A few miles down this line, passing stray huts, brought us to the abandoned Mississippi mill.
Here we counted 28 huts in various stages of decomposition, most of them facing a long steaming sawdust dump that smothered the Mississippi Creek for some distance. From here we could see our way was far from pleasant. Rotting logs and huts marred the otherwise pleasant valley. We retraced our footsteps to the firebreak, and we were constant to it until an enticing bypath led off to the left. Through virgin forest we walked to a schoolhouse, and ultimately the Starvation Creek sawmill. The settlement round this mill is large, and the community is complete with a postmaster and sheriff. The postmaster directed us to Kinnoull, where we were to spend the night, and later, in his capacity as sheriff, he cautioned us—a quartet of boisterous voices—about the consequences of being too noisy. The air is extremely keen and bracing about these ridges, the altitude being some 3,000 feet. It is not uncommon during winter months for operations at the mill to cease owing to heavy snowfalls.
The return to Warburton from Starvation Creek for the first eight or nine miles could not have been finer. Great fern gorges in their perfect settings of beech and myrtle were bridged frequently. An occasional hut perched precariously above the line seemed not out of place. Dozens of old overgrown timber lines branched off this main line before we arrived at Big Pat’s Creek. Big Pat’s is the junction of the three or four main parent lines that form the immense network of tramlines beyond Warburton. A single line takes all traffic the three miles into Warburton. Some miles from Warburton, at Powelltown, half a dozen mills are still operating. Most of them lead off the main Powelltown-Noojee line. The feature of interest along this line are the long tunnel just out of Powelltown, and later the Latrobe River.
Healesville is the starting point of an interesting tramline to Toolangi, passing Myers Falls. From Toolangi to Whittlesea numerous tramways may be taken through delightful forest country. Another tramway leads off the Blacks’ Spur road before Marysville is entered, and it follows beside the glorious Wilks Creek Gully on the track to the wolfram mine. Beyond Marysville and past Taggerty a timber line runs up the Rubicon and Royston rivers passing the stately Rubicon Falls. The line ends near the slopes of Mount Federation.
Who would think that Wilson’s Promontory once resounded to the axe of the sawmiller? Yet when you have climbed the Dividing Range towards Sealers’ Cove, a few minutes down the farther side brings you to an old tramway beside a joyous creek. The line follows down a heavenly valley, and ends at a picturesque old jetty in the Cove. This line must have been used last at least 20 years ago, for young trees and ferns have grown in the track. Ten years more without bush fires should suffice Nature to complete the work she has begun of obliterating man’s defiling hand in this paradise.
The Wye River, some 11 miles from Lorne on the newly constructed Ocean Highway is the spot, it is said, where a large company from another State spent £40,000 erecting a large sawmill, a jetty, workers’ cottages, and laying down tramways for many miles inland, only to abandon the undertaking a few weeks after the beginning. The jetty and buildings still stand, and so does the timber.
The Dandenongs, the Healesville and Warburton Ranges, Walhalla, the Grampians, Daylesford, and Cape Otway are only some of the innumerable timbered districts that abound in Victoria where the forests have echoed to the sound of sawmilling and through which pass scores of old tramlines.
