Walhalla was once a bustling gold rush town but today is a charming vision of leafy green trees and heritage buildings that delights tourists. The small town nestles in the narrow valley of Stringers Creek. It was a pleasure to visit over the long weekend. We looked out upon this gorgeous green view from our holiday house high in the hillside.
This town which is only a few hours drive east of Melbourne feels like a total break from the city. It's isolation can be demonstrated by the fact that it was the last mainland town in the state to be connected to the electricity grid in 1998 and only got the internet in 2019.
Lee Manor (2 Right Branch Road) holiday house is over 100 years old and is both quaintly historic and comfortably modern. For example, the kitchen has both a dresser of vintage plates and gorgeous green Smeg appliances. It was my first time operating an airfryer for arancini from the Traralgon Farmers Market.
The loungeroom has a state of the art flatscreen tv but no wifi. It has modern freestanding fireplace and sepia photos of Walhalla. We rather liked the rocking lounge chair but I think I preferred the sofa looking out into the green views of the rotunda.
These views could also be viewed by the verandah and from the porch outside the front door. I was very fond of a little green parrot with a red breast that was rather friendly by the table and chairs outdoors.
The dining area of the living room had a wonderful view out to the tree fern just outside the window. While the house had a great range of kitchenware, there is something lovely about the simplicity of a holiday home that does not need to accommodate every aspect of our lives.
Life seemed even simpler without other houses about. No noisy tv shows or the loud phone conversation that can intrude upon others' lives at home.
The two bedrooms with the pretty quilts on the double beds were simple without wardrobes of clothes. I love that a suitcase of clothes is enough on holiday. We were tired when we arrived in the evening after a long drive, a stop at Traralgon and finally, when we arrive, we had a climb up a gravel driveway and then a flight of stairs to the front door. I slept well in my holiday bed.
On our first full day we went to Traralgon but the second day was spent in Walhalla. We started at the
Walhalla Goldfields Railway. It was quite busy so I was glad we booked. I suspect that the end of the summer school holidays and a public holiday made it more popular than usual. The vintage train appeals to trainspotters, history buffs and wildlife lovers. I wonder where the suitcases in the pile at the station was found. There was certainly no room nor need for luggage on the 5km journey to Thomson Station.
When the railway closed in 1958, some of the old steam trains went to Puffing Billy, Melbourne's iconic heritage tourist railway and are still in use today. The Wallhalla railway now has diesel engines from around the 1960s.
The carriages are charmingly historic, though I could not tell you the period. Importantly the windows were open so that it was easy to admire and photograph the impressive passing scenery.
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Here is a typical view. (Actually it is quite a challenge to get a decent photo from a moving train and it took quite a lot of photos to get one like this which I really like.) I have a fondness for tall thin eucalyptus trees and the shady fronds of the large tree ferns. It was also a bit frightening to look up to the steep drop was from the road to Walhalla. Best not to think about it when driving!
One of the lovely views from the train was the road bridge across the Thomson River. On the way over to Thomson Station, a red car was parked and people waved to us. The sun shone and the world was beautiful.
At Thomson Station we had 15 to 20 minutes to buy gifts, look at historic artifacts and admire the red engine. It was just as well it was a mild day of about 24 C so it was very pleasant just hanging out there. (Thank goodness we weren't there the next day when it was 36 C in Walhalla.)
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We also had time at the station to walk down to admire that view of the road bridge and view the railway track running over the Thomson River. Then we were told to board the train to ride back to Walhalla. It was wonderful to have a second chance to enjoy the bush scenery.
Back at Walhalla Station we could check out more history of the station. I would have loved more time to look at the displays. This railway has a sad story. Walhalla was difficult to get to. Even
today it is a long winding drive to get the heart of the mountains. The
townspeople lobbied for a railway and finally the government completed
building a railway line into Walhalla in 1910. By the the gold boom was
in decline and the railway was mostly useful for transporting buildings
and mining equipment out of the town. As the flyer above demonstrates, it was also used in the mid 20th Century for happier times of Back to Walhalla days that reunited the townsfolk who used to live here.
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Near to the railway along the Main Road towards the centre of town is the Walhalla Cemetery. It is an historic cemetary of graves up the hillside. To even reach the gate was a stroll uphill. It is quite picturesque with the old tombstones surrounded by bush. I came to Walhalla in about 1992 with my university friend Kathleen and this is one of the main memories I have of that visit. I am very glad I was finally able to return to the town and the cemetery.
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This grave is typical of many stories you see here. John Parry is buried here aged 55 years old in 1892 surrounded by his two children: John aged 17 months in 1871 and Elizabeth aged 25 months in 1872 and his grandchild John aged 3 months. The mortality rate here was high. There were many infant deaths and young adult deaths. Mining life here was a hard life and children died of diseases that vaccinations have almost eradicated today. Even now, the idea of having to evacuate the town from fire or flood along the narrow winding road seems frightening. It must have been an effort to get the coffins to the graves.
In this photo you can see how steep the cemetery is. I felt like a mountain goat as I nagivated the narrow dirt paths around the graves. They are not clustered together in the way graves are in city cemeteries. Most are so old it was not easy to read them. A few gravestones were wooden and not in great condition.
Once I left the cemetery, I went home to get Sylvia and then we walked along the Main Road past heritage sights to the Walhalla Witchery for lunch in a most unusual cafe. More about that in a future post!
Then we went next door to the Walhalla Old Post and Telegraph Office. It was a wonderful museum with insights into both the history of communications and the history of the town.
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I loved looking over all the communication paraphernalia. Items such as the exchange and the morse code machines were reminders of when communications were conducted by central public services like this. The collection of old telephones ranging from the above wall phone with the speaker to the handsets with a rotary dial and curly cord I grew up with to various iterations on the mobile phone.
Out the back was the residence which was lived in by the last post mistress Doreen Hannan who started working there in 1928. After the post office transferred to the General Store in 1962, she lived there until 1988. Following this, the building was acquired by the State Government. It is a really attractive display of a home from the last century, It feels like it was like Doreen left it, well looked after but a bit worn around the edges.
Sylvia and I particularly liked the model of the Rotunda. Like the railway, the museum is mainly run by volunteers. I enjoyed a chat with a volunteer about how Walhalla had changed with the arrival of electricity to have more holiday houses and how there aren't many volunteers there days with dwindling numbers of permanent residents. I would have talked more if not interrupted by Sylvia's string of purple beads breaking. After picking up as many as we could find, we left.
We walked back to our holiday home. On the way we stopped at the Corner Store. It had lovely gifts and souvenirs to buy. Much of it was not cheap but was delightful to browse. Above are some old tins and some candles in the shapes of ice cream sundaes. The store also had a small historic display and holds ghost tours so there are some spooky gifts available.
Finally we cam to the rotunda and Star Hotel which were at the base of the hill where we were staying. It would have been nice to try the meals at the couple of pubs but we weren't around long enough. I did not fancy looking at the cricket field. A friend told me that it was so hilly that they had to flatten a hill to get enough space for a cricket oval and it was quite a steep walk up there. We had enough uphill walks to our holiday home.
We returned there for our last night. The sun set upon our holiday and in the morning we got up for one last breakfast overlooking the rotunda in the park before putting away the last of the dishes and packing the last of our bags. Then we put our bags on the pulley system so we didn't have to lug them down all the steps and sloping gravel path. Did I tell you about the mechanised pulley system with a large square tub to load the luggage and send it down the hill? It was brilliant! Then we packed the car and headed along the picturesque winding road one more time as we drove home.
More posts on the holiday to come.
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