Melbourne

The Swan River mahogany paves an empire

3 October 2025 / 4 Comments

For centuries, timber has been the backbone of human progress, building homes, fuelling fires, and shaping cities. Few of its many applications are as overlooked yet profound as the humble wooden paver. These blocks of timber, placed beneath the wheels of horse-drawn carriages and later automobiles, not only quieted the clamorous streets of bustling cities but also symbolised a harmonious partnership between nature’s bounty and human ingenuity.

Guardians of health and security: Point Nepean’s twin roles in history

18 April 2025 / 4 Comments

Point Nepean, located at the tip of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, is a site of remarkable historical significance. It houses Australia’s second-oldest surviving barracks-style quarantine buildings and fortifications that once protected the colony’s coastline. As the primary quarantine station in Victoria until 1979, Point Nepean played a pivotal role in safeguarding public health.

Another flood, another poor response

1 November 2024 / 10 Comments

Eugowra station was established in 1834, and the town took its name from the station when a village popped up in the 1860s on the station about 35 kilometres east of Forbes.

The town is most famous for a gold robbery in 1862 when Frank Gardiner and his gang of bushrangers pulled off the biggest gold robbery at Escort Rock just outside of town.

Queensland’s border response to the 1919 Spanish Flu

16 August 2024 / 1 Comment

When the railways of Queensland and New South Wales met in 1888, the border towns of Wallangarra and Jennings were created. It was the only rail link between Brisbane and Sydney, leading to a new era in transport. As a consequence, both states introduced the Intercolonial Express train service.

However, the two governments could not resolve the differences in the railway gauges between each state.

The rise and fall and rise again of a valley’s Rattler

10 May 2024 / 2 Comments

As settlers moved into the rich, fertile areas of the Mary Valley in the 1860s, they wanted a railway to connect them more readily to the outside world and markets for their produce.

The government ignored their early calls, but all that changed when prospectors discovered gold at nearby Gympie in 1867.

Special ANZAC stories

25 April 2024 / 8 Comments

I have decided to write this blog to commemorate and remember the men from settlements in and around Surrey Hills who fought in wars.

In Chapter 10 of my book, “Fires, Farms and Forests”, I outlined some of the war service by men from Guildford Junction. This blog goes into more detail and includes stories about men from Parrawe and Bulgobac.

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The fruit and salad bowl of Queensland

12 April 2024 / 6 Comments

Introduction

If you have driven around the patchwork of fertile red volcanic soils east of Bundaberg, you would have noticed several paddocks of fruit and vegetable crops, in addition to the vast cane fields. Bundaberg is best known for its sugar cane and rum. However, these days, the region is a true fruit and salad bowl area feeding the nation.

The humble clothes peg

29 March 2024 / 6 Comments

Ever since humans have worn garments, they have had to wash them. Where to put the garments to dry has a fascinating history. We always think that pegs hung them. However, clothes pegs only have a relatively recent past. Before the nineteenth century, laundry was hung on bushes, limbs or lines without fasteners to hold the clothes in place. … Read more

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The tragic loss of the Voyager

9 February 2024 / 3 Comments

Introduction

“They became men overnight”. A reference to young 19 year-old crewmen that had only been in the Navy for six months and rose to the occasion in the rescue operations after Voyager collided with HMAS Melbourne.

Tomorrow marks the day, 60 years ago, of the worst peace-time tragedy for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

The 1939 fires – a blame game

5 January 2024 / 4 Comments

“And of course there were ignitions by the fistful. Lightning kindled some fires, but most emanated from a register of casual incendiarists that reads like a roster of rural Australia: settlers, graziers, prospectors, splitters, mineworkers, arsonists, loggers and mill bushmen, hunters looking to drive game, fishermen hoping to open up the scrub around the streams, foresters unable to contain controlled burns, bush residents seeking to ward off wildfire by protective fire, travellers and transients of all kinds.