PIONEERS AND SWAMPS IN AND SOUTH OF MELBOURNE, VIC., AUST. :: FamilyTreeCircles.com Genealogy
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PIONEERS AND SWAMPS IN AND SOUTH OF MELBOURNE, VIC., AUST.

Journal by itellya

The nearest swamp to Melbourne was the West Melbourne Swamp and it was a great nuisance causing a huge detour for those wishing to reach the areas to the west of the infant settlement. They had to travel along Macedon road (Mt Alexander Rd) to Braybrook Rd (Buckley St, Essendon)and then,reaching the end of that track, follow a track which led to the present end of Rhonda St where in 1803 an aboriginal fish trap stopped Charles Grimes' progress upstream by boat. This was the original Solomon's Ford,used by settlers such as George Russell of Golf Hill and John Aitken of Mt Aitken,west of Sunbury.

Aitken bought section 8, Doutta Galla, between today's Cannes Avenue and Beatrice Avenue, as a depot where he could rest his stock before taking them to market in Melbourne. When a more direct route became available, this block was leased to such as Robert McDougall,formerly of Cona, Glenroy and later Arundel,Tullamarine.

Eventually the West Melbourne swamp was drained but Dynon Rd was known for many years thereafter as Swamp Road.

Moving towards the Mornington Peninsula, there was a huge swamp in the Carrum hinterland. Just as in the case of the Nile in Egypt,the soil was regularly inundated and top dressed with rich sediments, making the reclaimed swamp a renowned dairying area. James Young of Frankston fame was an early settler, as were the ancestors of Noel McMahen,the champion Melbourne footballer of the 1950's, and the Keys family which was related by marriage to the McMahens and the McMahons (whose hotel near the coast was on the same site and the forerunner of today's Riviera Hotel.)

The network of drains required to drain the run off from the Dandenong area that fed the swamp is best illustrated by the Lyndhurst parish map. (Google LYNDHURST, COUNTY OF MORNINGTON.) The humble Carrum Creek became the Patterson River taking much of the water that used to flow to the sea along Kananook Creek,making that stream the focus of numerous complaints about smell.

The Tootgarook Swamp,fed by run off from Arthurs Seat, stretched from Boneo to Port Phillip Bay where some of the water met breakers opposite the present hospital site. Ned Williams of "Eastbourne" dug the channel between today's Eastbourne Rd and the coast alongside which the Wong-Shing family established the market garden which gave Chinaman's Creek its name. The Crichtons of Glenlee had also made efforts to dispel water from the swamp, one member of the family occupying James Lovie's grants between Browns Rd and the southern part of the swamp.

The early pioneers' chief concern was making a living, ecology not even being on the shopping list. The limeburners cleared all the she-oaks and by disturbing the surface caused a huge ti tree and rabbit infestation in areas they had worked. The aboriginal fire farming had confined ti tree to the coastal fringe; a burn off at least every five years was required to stop the spread of ti tree and this had not been done.After the demand for lime slackened, Sullivan and Stenniken helped the locals, many former lime burners, make a crust by supplying Melbourne bakers with 2 foot 6 inch lengths of fiercely burning ti tree for their ovens.James Little Brown,after whom Browns Rd was named, reclaimed the devasted area in record time from about 1909.

Cameron Brown and his wife are modern-day pioneers, champions of the environment, which had been neglected for so many years. The Shire of Flinders' main concern had been to help ratepayers make a living so they could afford to pay their rates. The shire had so little money that all of Rosebud's public facilities were built on the precious foreshore, there being no such environmental safeguard as the Coastal Strategy which eventually stopped the construction of the Southern Peninsula Aquatic Centre there very recently. A swamp was seen as being of absolutely no value.

A majority of councillors wanted to financially destroy the Browns for having the audacity to oppose an illegally issued extension of a permit for St Elmos Close which intrudes into the Chinamans Creek Nature Reserve (Melway 169 H 6), but was forced to back down on their bid for court costs, denying that was ever their aim.

I'd never heard of the Balnarring wetlands and that's the reason I'm writing this journal, having just read a children's book about it called The Symphony.

The Balnarring Community Wetlands are about 65 km south of Melbourne.

They are reached from a turnoff at Civic Court at Balnarring Village on the Frankston-Flinders Rd.

15 years ago, parents, teachers and community members in Balnarring formed a sub-committee to develop and manage a wetlands site adjacent to the primary school. The Balbirooroo Community Wetlands Management Plan provides strategic direction for both the school and community in their on-going efforts to enhance and manage the wetlands.

Balbirooroo is a tribal language Koori name for Ibis.

Work at the wetlands has included construction and placement of nest boxes in trees, interpretive signage, and provision of habitat for fauna species, e.g. Growling Grass Frogs.

Regular school and community working bees at the wetlands continue the on-going and large scale revegetation efforts to enhance and develop the wetlands

I visited these beautiful Wetlands on Sunday September 27, 2009. My 3 km exploration included the Koorie Trail, the Ian Wisken Wetland Walk, and the Korra Bun-yan Wetland (Growling Grass Frog).

The Wetlands were originally inhabited by the Bunurong People.

The area is quite extensive, 12 hectares, and includes a large Lagoon, smaller lakes and ponds, intrepretative signs, boardwalks, footbridges, bird-hide, lookout, picnic tables, and viewing platforms.

Adjacent to the Wetlands is the old embankment of the disused Bittern-Red Hill Railway, which operated from 1921 until 1953.

For further details about the Wetlands, visit

http://www.balnarringps.vic.edu.au/wetlands/

THE BOOK.
The Symphony - Paul Dillon - Google Books
books.google.com/books/about/The_Symphony.html?id=ByzroAEACAAJ
Rating: 5 - ‎1 review
Jun 13, 2014 - Wow, that story would make a great film" Yusuf {Cat Stevens} ... This is the profound message of The Symphony by Paul Dillon, a charming ...
The Symphony
Front Cover
Paul Dillon
Serenity Press, 13 Jun 2014 - 118 pages

Each day and night a magical musical symphony is performed under the stars, the sun, and the moon. Each of the animals in the Balbirooroo wetland has a different voice and sound to make in their mysterious orchestra. Every day Sticky Webster, the symphony conductor, weave's a spider's web for each animal in her old gum tree. In the morning the sparkling dew drops settle on each web, and they become the musical notes that each animal is to sing in their part of the symphony. But...... the symphony is suddenly silenced when the oldest frog in the wetland The Balbirooroo Guru informs all the creatures that their water has been poisoned and all of the Pobblebonk frogs have left. Can Five girls, a nosy blue dragonfly, a banjo playing cockatoo, and a young hero frog called Kobi save the Balbirooroo wetland and the symphony........... If not it could even reach you humans too!! '' Wow, that story would make a great film" Yusuf {Cat Stevens}

User Review
Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
Music is a metaphor for life and life exists only in harmony with all of nature. This is the profound message of The Symphony by Paul Dillon, a charming book that makes the wholeness of nature into a musical symphony, where all get along, sing along, play along well together, all in harmony. The book also educates the young reader about different living creatures that inhabit a wetland, which has a very delicate ecosystem, and it points out what happens when something careless happens or is done to the wetland, like dumping leftover paint into the water. It affects every living creature and it affects the musical harmony of nature's symphony.
Rose, Lily, Molly, Laila and Shanti are five young girls who value and care deeply for the wetland. They are the ones, the humans that is, who first notice that something is wrong with their precious wetland. When no adult will listen to their concerns, the girls set out on their own to solve the problem. And they do, experiencing countless adventures on their journey, just as the Pobblebonk frogs venture on their own journey to find a safe habitat. The girls' adventure, their attempt to save the wetland, is only taken seriously by the adults when they are missing overnight. When they are found, returning to the wetland with the rescued Pobblebonk frogs, the adults finally listen and share their concern. That is when the wetland's most notable symphony takes form and humans, children and adult, along with all of nature, join together to make beautiful music.
This is an excellent story about ecology and preserving our environment. Paul Dillon, the author, lives near the real Balbirooroo wetland, just outside of Melbourne, Australia, the wetland that makes the backdrop for this story. Combining a love of music with a love of nature, Paul has created a compelling story about the most beautiful music ever performed: the music of life all around us and, for Paul, the music of the wetland. Well done!

The only thing that has moved me as much as this book is DANCING WITH WOLVES. As a kid at Saturday arvo matinees,like all the others, I'd cheer the cowboys/cavalry and boo the injuns and although I'd developed a bit more tolerance, when I watched the said movie, I felt ashamed to be a paleface.

When Cameron Brown was waging his battle to protect the Tootgarook wetlands, I felt great sympathy for him but thought a frog or two didn't matter that much.Paul Dillon's book has certainly changed my tune (or should that be symphony.) Every school should have at least one copy in its library. What better way for children to learn to appreciate the environment and have a very enjoyable and humorous read at the same time.

by itellya Profile | Research | Contact | Subscribe | Block this user
on 2015-02-20 22:57:49

Itellya is researching local history on the Mornington Peninsula and is willing to help family historians with information about the area between Somerville and Blairgowrie. He has extensive information about Henry Gomm of Somerville, Joseph Porta (Victoria's first bellows manufacturer) and Captain Adams of Rosebud.

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Comments

by Morgan2409 on 2015-02-21 02:10:22

"In 1843 Joseph Stewart squatted on the foreshore between the Mordialloc Crekk and the mouth of the Kananook at Frankston. The Run was taken over by James McMahon in 1852. James later gained pre-emptive rights to part of the land where he built the "Long Beach Hotel", now the site of the Riviera Hotel, Seaford

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