The Big Hill

Again we went to the house for coffee/tea with C&W and also to discuss plans for today. We were invited to join them in meeting up with some friends that evening. We had plans to meet Bun's brother Mike, and his wife Renate that evening and, having temporarily forgotten that their visit to Melbourne to join tomorrow's party, was a secret from Wendy, I responded "That will depend upon what M&R's plans are." Chris then jumped in with "Are you FaceTiming them" and kicked Bun who was sitting closest to him. And so the story was created about how we FaceTimed M&R every Saturday evening when it was Saturday morning in England ...

Pleased to get out of the house, we headed to Mont De Lancey, a historic homestead that was lived in by the Sebire family for many generations has "lots to see when you visit the property – the former milking shed, the slab kitchen on the original house site, the museum collection in the remodelled former farm buildings (which is home to over 5,000 eclectic objects, from egg whisks and butter churns to wedding dresses and pig scrapers), plus the historic dairy and chapel."

There was a wedding taking place in the gardens when we arrived. There were no guides available so the gentleman in the office offered us the keys and asked if we were happy to show ourselves around. He explained the half-dozen keys and told us where the light switches were etc, and off we went.

The main museum that contains the 5,000 eclectic objects was interesting to walk around. There were photos of the family throughout the generations plus photos of other families who had first settled in 1867.

"Henry Sebire, his wife Martha and their four children settled in Wandin Yallock where Henry leased 80 acres of newly-surveyed Crown Land.

As they began to build their farm, the hamlet of Wandin had literally only just been ‘put on the map’. The Sebires, along with a handful of other European families, had to fell trees and clear their land before they could build their homes. Henry built their first home using the timber he’d just felled.

Fortunately for him, he was a former stonemason, so he and local labourers made bricks by hand, using clay quarried from the dam – Mont De Lancey became the first brick built house to be built in the district."

After the homestead, we went to the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in Lilydale. This was not hugely interesting except for a display about the Aborigine leader William Barak — 'Beruk' in the Woiwurrang language of his people. He became the leader of a number of clans and is closely associated with the Coranderrk settlement established near Healesville in 1863. The displays described the relationship between Barrak and Swiss emigrés, the Baron Frédéric Guillaume de Pury and his brother Samuel, whose Cooring Yering vineyard was next to the settlement. Barak was a regular visitor to the baron’s vineyard, Yeringberg – where three generations of the de Pury family still live today – and Barak taught the Baron’s young sons Wurundjeri culture, often taking the two boys out hunting. It appeared that Barak was treated as an equal, and the vineyard also employed some of the Aborigines. In the 1920s, many years after Barak's death, Coranderrk was closed by the authorities, and the land was sold off. In 1999, the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation bought 80 hectares of the land and handed it back to the Wandoon Estate Aboriginal Corporation. Members of the Wandin family, descendants of Barak, now run the property as a working farm and cultural centre, open by invitation or appointment.

So the Aborigines were thrown off their land where they had lived for maybe 35,000 years or more, and given a settlement. When the settlement became valuable to the Westerners, the authorities closed the settlement (threw the Aborigines off their land again) and sold it off for more vineyards. The vineyard that now farms some of the area covered by the Aborigine settlement of Coranderrk has the following on their website home page:

"Centare Vineyard is located on Wurundjeri country, by Badgers Creek, approximately 4km from the central Yarra Valley township of Healesville. The land once formed part of the Coranderrk Station, an Aboriginal reserve run by the Victorian government between 1863 and 1924. The property has recently been included in a nomination for registration on the Victorian Heritage Register. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People as Traditional Custodians of the Yarra Valley Wine Region and their connections to land, water and community. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today."

Well that's good of them, they took the land, but they acknowledge them and respect them - just not enough to allow them to live where they always used to live.

After the museum, we mooched around Lilydale and then made a cuppa in the back of Bill before driving to Castello's Croydon Hotel to meet Mike & Renate. This place surprised me on many levels. Firstly it wasn't a hotel but more akin to being part of the "Hungry Horse" chain of family-friendly pubs. A large uninspiring dining area, lots of families with young children, more food on the floor than on the table and a sound level to match. Fortunately, M&R had been put into an annexe with other "seniors" where it was much quieter. Secondly, the food was delicious. Bun and I each had a NASI GORENG, mine was chicken and Bun's was prawn, the best we've eaten outside of Malaysia. Thirdly, there was a seniors menu, but if your chosen meal wasn't on the senior's menu, you had a 20% discount!

We had a lovely evening eating and chatting with M&R, catching up on the almost 4 years since we saw Renate and the 4 months since we saw Mike at Toby's wedding.Read more