The Bellarine Peninsula's original vegetation

Early settler diaries often described the Bellarine Peninsula as a land that was ideal for grazing and cropping. They were delighted with its open woodlands, its extensive grasslands and its fertile soils. John Batman, one of the founders of Melbourne, describes it as, 'softly undulating hills and plains with the richest grass and verdure so delightful to the eyes of a sheep farmer.'

Batman and others also described it as being like a ‘gentleman’s park’ suggesting that it was an open landscape with established well-spaced trees and uniform grassy plains. What they did not appreciate was that a unique geomorphology and over 2,000 generations of human occupation had shaped this living landscape. 

The soil was varied as was the vegetation it supported. On the highest ground the black ‘older volcanic’ clay loam was shaded by well spaced Drooping Sheoaks (Allocasuarina verticillata) and other small trees. To the west and south, fertile marine sandy loams, elevated by movement along the Bellarine and Leopold faults, provided the perfect conditions for eucalypt grassy woodlands to thrive. Open eucalypt woodlands also developed on the east side of the Bellarine Peninsula on the gentler slopes bordering Swan Bay,

On the most recent alluvial soils in low-lying areas at the Lake Connewarre wetlands and the numerous salt lakes on the south side of the Peninsula, there were unique and hardy plant communities. Examples of these are the Moonah (Melaleuca lanceolata) woodlands and White Mangroves (Avecinnia marina), which supported twelve types of salt marsh vegetation, the glassworts and seablite, being important foods for the critically endangered Orange-bellied Parrot (Neophema chrysogaster) that has migrated in winter from Tasmania to the Bellarine Peninsula for millennia.
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The Wadawurrung people are the traditional owners and stewards of the lands and waters that extended from the Geelong-Lorne coastline inland to Ballarat and Werribee. They shaped its vegetation with sophisticated management practices for more than 40,000 years. The people that lived on the Bellarine Peninsula were the Bengalat Clan. 

An open grassy woodland

An open grassy woodland is what the early explorers described on their exploratory visits to the Bellarine Peninsula in the early 1800s.

In Autumn 1802 Matthew Flinders described the vegetation on the northern side
(Flinders had named the Bellarine Peninsula ‘Indented Head’);

‘Indented Head, at the northern part of the western peninsula, had an appearance particularly agreeable; the grass had been burned not long before and had sprung up green and tender.

‘The wood was so thinly scattered that one might see to a considerable distance and the hills rose one over the other to a moderate elevation… the soil probably not deep, as I judged by the small size of the trees……the most common kinds of wood are the casuarina and eucalyptus.’
 
John Batman anchored near Point Henry in Autumn 1835, walked east about 32km and climbed the Bellarine Hills. He described;

‘Very rich light black soil covered in Kangaroo Grass two feet high [0.6 m] and as thick as it could stand. The trees were not more than six to the acre and those small sheoak and wattle. I walked for a considerable extent and all of the same description… and most of the high hill was covered with grass to the summit and not a tree’.

Batman was describing a very open and grassy environment at the summit, and the lower slopes with a small tree every 25 – 30 metres. He makes no mention of eucalypts, which suggests that they were either absent or in small numbers.

Thirty-two years before, James Fleming, the agriculturalist of the Grimes survey team, that assessed the bay and surrounding landscapes for it's potential for settlement, climbed Mt. Bellarine confirming Batman’s description;

   ‘…the timber small, oak and mimosa of sorts.’  

Trees and shrubs of Mount Bellarine, Portarlington

Mount Bellarine is an ancient volcano from an age called the Oligocene. Basalt lava and fiery emissions from Mt. Bellarine lit up the night skies over 25 million years ago. The soil that has developed from the basalt is a fertile clay loam that shrinks and cracks in the dry seasons.

These volcanic hills rise to 120m above sea level, which exposes trees and shrubs to punishing winds. A well-adapted, widespread tree that survives today is the Drooping Sheoak, (Allocasuarina verticillata).

Another durable small tree that has adapted well to the clay soil is the broadleaf Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinose var. macrophylla). A few very old Sweet Bursaria still survive in the Portarlington cemetery and represent a widespread plant community of the past.
 
The mimosa mentioned by Batman and Flemming would have been Black Wattle (Acacia mearnsii), Lightwood (A. implexa), Golden Wattle (A. pycnantha) and Hedge Wattle (A. paradoxa). All can still be seen on Mt. Bellarine today, though there are no remnant eucalypts on the elevated areas.

The River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), and Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) grow along drainage lines on the volcanic soils between Portarlington and Drysdale. Examples of mature River Red Gums can still be seen at Drakes Bushland Reserve east of Drysdale. These majestic trees would have been widespread in 1835. 

Marine sandy loams: Drysdale

The elevated hills to the north, south and west of Drysdale are composed of an extensive thin sheet of sands, silts, clays and gravels. They formed around five million years ago under retreating shallow seas in the Pliocene. The deposits left behind developed into sandy soils and sandy loams that suited a more diverse mix of grassland plants, shrubs and trees. The topography and quantity of clay in the soil determined which plants would thrive. In January 1803 Surveyor Charles Grimes described the vegetation on hills between Clifton Springs and Point Richards;

‘…gentle rising hills of good land thinly wooded with low and decayed timber.’
(This observation at the end of a dry summer was of vegetation that had been regularly exposed to hot north winds).

There are only a few remnant plants still surviving along the steep coastal cliffs that hint at what Grimes would have seen. These are Drooping Sheoak, Golden Wattle, Moonah (Melaleuca lanceolate), Common Boobialla (Myoporum insulare) and Seaberry Saltbush (Rhagodia candolleana).
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Inland the protected gullies and ephemeral creeks would have supported River Red Gums. McLeod’s Waterhole Reserve in Drysdale is fed by permanent springs. Originally it consisted of bogs and marshes that fed a creek that flowed into Corio Bay. River Red Gums and associated wetland species like Swamp Gum, Blackwood, Black Sheaok (Allocasuarina littoralis), Moonah, Hop Goodenia (Goodenia ovata), Prickly Tea-tree (Leptospermum continentale), Shrub Everlasting (Ozothamnus ferrugineus) and Golden Spray (Viminaria juncea) would have thrived around this wetland environment. Only eleven River Red Gum specimens remained in 1962 and only one is left today.

Curlewis

Two kilometres west of McLeod’s Waterhole Reserve near Curlewis is ‘Coriyule’, the original home of Anne Drysdale and Caroline Newcombe built in 1849. This was a flat landscape of well-spaced trees and grasslands. The low areas would have been dominated by River Red Gum and the drier areas by Coast Manna Gum. The usual mix of other species would have included Drooping Sheoak, Black Wattle, Lightwood, Golden Wattle and Silver Banksia (Banksia marginata).

 Anne Drysdale wrote in her journal ‘there was an abundance of wildlife in the area in the form of kangaroos, emus and scrub turkeys’. She also recalled acacias, sheoaks and wildflowers;
​‘the place is so beautiful, clean and fresh, it’s like a nobleman’s park’
​

Eucalypt woodlands: Ocean Grove and Wallington
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Eucalypts were an important canopy tree on the Pliocene sandy loams. In protected areas they grow into substantial trees like the Bellarine Yellow Gum (Eucalyptus leucoxylon subsp. bellarinensis) which was wide spread. It thrived on the undulating landscapes of Ocean Grove where the soil is sandy loam with a clay subsoil. There is still a significant stand north of Thacker Street that has been recognised by Ecology Australia as being a site of National Conservation Significance.

The Bellarine Yellow Gum is an important food source for the endangered Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor). These colourful birds breed in Tasmania and have migrated to the mainland in winter for millennia to feed on the nectar of this flowering eucalypt species.  

Usually associated with the Yellow Gums is the Coast Manna Gum in well drained areas and Swamp Gums where the drainage is poor. The latter association can still be seen in the Ocean Grove Nature Reserve where the Swamp Gum is the dominant eucalypt species. Other species that are part of the ecological mix in the Nature Reserve are Black Sheoak, Austral Grasstrees, Hedge Wattle, Golden Wattle and Coast Tea-tree.
           
It is likely that the Yellow Gum was widespread throughout the elevated Pliocene soils with a clay base. This would give it a potential distribution from the raised areas of Leopold, round the higher northern and eastern slopes of Lake Connewarre (where it was historically recorded on the higher slopes) and then east to a line between Marcus Hill and Curlewis. It is east of this line that the sandy soils become deeper and the Manna Gum becomes the dominant eucalypt species

The Coastal Manna Gum usually has an understorey of Drooping Sheoak, Black Sheoak, Black Wattle and Austral Grasstree. This ecological mix of species can be seen at Basin Reserve east of Drysdale. This is a four-hectare undulating remnant of indigenous vegetation where Cherry Ballart; Kangaroo Apple (Solanum aviculare), Silky Tea-tree (Leptospermum myrsenoides) and Prickly Tea-tree also grow.

​Mannerim sheoaks






​Toward Mannerim the Drooping Sheoak once again was dominant in the harder, gravelly, wind eroded Pliocene soil. The large trunks on some of the Drooping Sheoaks in a private reserve suggest that they are very old trees. This open woodland of well-spaced Drooping Sheoaks is likely to be similar to the original woodland of sheoaks that once provided the ideal habitat for the locally extinct Bush Stone-curlew (Burhinus grallarius), its eery call last heard in the 1950’s. The habitat requirements of the curlew suggest that a large area of Drooping Sheoak open woodlands would have existed around Mannerim to support a stable population.

Grasstrees were more widespread

John Batman recorded in his diary on the 29 May 1835 a description of the landscape and trees west of St Leonards;
‘….as a relief to the landscape, the rising eminences were adorned with wattle, native     
honeysuckle [banksia] and the sheoak whose short straight stumpy butts and round heads         
resembled a number of pins sticking in a lady’s pincushion.’
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Batman’s colourful description of sheoaks sounds unlike Drooping Sheoak and more like Grass Trees (Xanthorrhoea australis) which are still found on the sandy soils near Drysdale at the Basin Reserve, Ocean Grove, north-east of Wallington and on the heaths and heathy woodlands of the Borough of Queenscliffe. It’s likely that Grass Trees were far more widespread on the sandy soils than they are today.

​The younger alluvial sands:
‘A gentleman’s park’ - Swan Bay, St Leonards, Indented Head

More recent marine alluvial sand deposits and coastal calcium rich dunes formed during a time of rapid and repeated climate change 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago in the Pleistocene. These softer alluvial sands formed flat plains which can be seen at St Leonards, west of Swan Bay and at Portarlington’s Point Richards Flora and Fauna Reserve.
          
James Fleming described the trees of the land near St Leonards in February 1803;

‘The land is light sand from the point of the hill and in some places swampy; the timbers something larger consisting of gum, oak, banksia and mimosa and some small pine, one half 
of it dead by the country being lately burnt.’

The well-drained, low nutrient loams that developed from these marine sand deposits formed flat plains that suited the Bellarine Yellow Gums. Healthy mature examples of these can be seen at the southern end of Grassy Point Road. These trees are remnants of a much larger community of Yellow Gums that would have occupied the higher ground across the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula. A grassland shaded by well-spaced giant eucalypts clearly evokes Batman’s image of ‘a gentleman’s park’.
 
On the flat plains west of Swan Bay, St Leonards and Indented Head, River Red Gums occupied the moister drainage lines. Mature examples of these are growing on the creek behind Indented Head. Moister soils suited the Swamp Gum.
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Other significant species that can be seen on the roadsides are Drooping Sheoak, Cherry Ballart (Exocarpus cupressiformis), Golden Wattle, Black Wattle, Sweet Bursaria and Seaberry Saltbush. These would have formed the open woodland community, supported by Manna Gum, Silver Banksia, Black Sheoak (likely to be the ‘small pine’ mentioned by Fleming), Common Boobialla and Hop Goodenia.
​Kangaroo Grass, orchids, lilies and herbs would have been prominent amongst the Grassland flora.  

​The first detailed plant records of St. Leonards

Sailing with Matthew Flinders in Autumn 1802 were naturalist Robert Brown and botanical artist Ferdinand Bauer. They explored the land behind St Leonards and recorded 95 plant species. Some of the specimens collected around Edwards Point and St Leonards were;
(Note: I have updated their botanical names)

Canopy trees– Eucalyptus camaldulensis, River Red Gum, E. viminalis subsp. Pryoriana, Coast Manna Gum; E. ovata, Swamp Gum
Understorey – Silver Banksia, Banksia marginata; Cherry Ballart, Exocarpos cupressiformis, Drooping Sheoak, Allocasuarina verticillata
Shrubs - Native Holly, Lomatia ilicifolia; Wirilda, Acacia retinodes; Moonah, Melaleuca lanceolata; Coast Beard Heath, Leucopogan parviflorus; Coast Tea-tree, Leptospermum laevigatum (now Gaudium laevigatum - renamed in 2023)
Ground layer - Bidgee Widgee, Acaena novae zelandiae; Bower Spinach, Tetragonia tetragonioides; Creeping Brookweed, Samolus repens; Common Flatweed, Platylobium obtusangulum; Sword Sedge, Lepidospermum congestum, Blady Grass, Imperata cylindrica;
Climbers - Fine-leafed Clematis, Clematis microphylla, Native Pea, Glycine clandestina
           

St. Leonard’s big trees

Lieutenant James Tuckey surveyed Port Phillip Bay in October 1803 and walked over 2 km inland from near St Leonards. He described the natural environment as ‘beautiful country, thickly wooded, but the soil sandy and without water’. He was interested in trees that could be used to repair battleships and wrote;

‘The Honeysuckle (banksia) is the largest tree found here; it grows near the shore and in most dry and sandy places. The shaft seldom exceeds eight feet [2.4 m], the branches large and straggling and if sound of sufficient growth for a line of battleships knees and timbers.'

There is an ongoing debate about whether Tuckey was describing Coast Banksia (Banksia integrifolia) or the now very rare and much larger tree form of Silver Banksia (B. marginata). The jury is still out, though ecologists mostly agree that the Coast Banksia is not indigenous to the Bellarine Peninsula

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Captain George Cole was a colonial entrepreneur. He purchased large areas of land around St Leonards in 1857 that was described by the real-estate agent as ‘thickly wooded with gum, honeysuckle and wattle’ One of his many enterprises was selling firewood into Melbourne where local supplies were already exhausted.

Clearing started,
‘…and axes bit deep into the trees. Piles of wood stood awaiting transport. St Leonards became noted for its timber trade. At one period it is said there were over 300 men employed in this work. Timber-cutting, as a big industry, lasted until the 1870s.’

Herbs, orchids and lilies
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The open areas on the sandy dry soils of Indented Head were rich in herbs, lilies and orchid species. These plants have evolved succulent roots to store water and energy to sustain them through drought and extreme heat. These succulent roots were an important food source for the Bengalat clan.

For example, in a few hours Bengalat women could harvest enough Murnong (Microceris walteri) and other tubers to fill a large basket;

‘The native women were spread out over the plain as far as the eye could see, collecting            
Murnong, or in their language 'pannin,' … I inspected their bags and baskets on return and each
had a load as much as she could carry.’
(George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines, Port Phillip District (Victoria), 1838)
 
The Derwent Company started a large sheep run on the Bellarine Peninsula in 1836. The sheep quickly developed a taste for Murnong roots and by 1840 the Bengalat women were distraught because;

   ‘the ngamadjig (sheep) eat it all’
 
There was no Murnong left for them to harvest anywhere near Geelong.

​Point Richards Flora and Fauna Reserve
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This 62ha reserve is situated on unconsolidated sands that were laid down when the sea level rose about 90m, at the end of the last ice age around 8,000 years ago. About 3,000 years later, the sea level fell about 1m and the sea retreated, creating flat sand-covered coastal plains like the Point Richards Flora and Fauna Reserve.

It was set aside in the 1970s to protect a population of Southern Brown Bandicoots (Isoodon obesulus) that was surviving in the sheltered environment created by extensive areas of Spiny-headed Mat-rush (Lomandra longifolia) and Bracken Fern (Pteridium esculentum).
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The freshwater ephemeral wetlands in this reserve support the rare and endangered Growling Grass Frog (Litoria raniformis) as well as other species of frog. Their growling call in November would have been a sound heard throughout the Bellarine Peninsula’s freshwater wetlands before they were drained by the first settlers. These shallow wetlands would have been an important ecological feature of the alluvial sands. 

Indented Head, Barwon Heads Bluff, Thirteenth Beach
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The shallow seas of the Pleistocene around Mt. Bellarine were rich in marine life which later formed calcium rich deposits. This combination of sand and calcium hardened into a natural cement that resists erosion, creating the higher ground west of Indented Head, at the Bluff at Point Lonsdale and the dune formations along Thirteenth Beach.

Only the toughest plants can grow in these exposed dry coastal conditions and once again Drooping Sheoak and Moonah were dominant species. They were supported by a rich suite of hardy shrubs, grasses, herbs and groundcovers. Examples of these are Coast Wattle (Acacia sophorae), Common Boobialla, Coast Wirilda (Acacia uncifolia), Sea Box (Alyxia buxifolia), Coast Saltbush (Atriplex cineria), White Correa (Correa alba), Cushion Bush (Leucophyta brownii), Coast Daisy-bush (Olearia axillari), Thyme Rice-flower (Pimelea serpyllifolia ssp. Serpyllifolia), Running Postman (Kennedia prostrata) and Coast Beard Heath (Leucopogon parviflorus).

Lake Connewarre
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Less than 10,000 years old, these younger sediments are a combination of freshwater stream deposits and saline marine sediments. The 860ha Lake Connewarre Wetlands Complex receives fresh water from the Barwon River to the west and salty tidal flows at Barwon Heads to the south. It is one of the largest estuarine systems on the central Victorian coast covering 3,300 ha.
This wetlands complex consists of;

• The freshwater Reedy Lake
• The saline Lake Connewarre and lower Barwon River and Hospital Swamp
• Salt Swamp on the south side of the main lake
• Lake Murtnagurt.

At the time of European settlement Lake Connewarre was larger and twice as deep as it is today. 
 
Subdivision surveys of 1841 & 1852 recorded large gums, Drooping Sheoak and Silver Banksia. The large gums would have been the Bellarine Yellow Gum which were also recorded on the northern and eastern slopes of Lake Connewarre. This suggests that the Yellow Gum Woodlands would have extended at least as far as the Portarlington Road where the River Red Gum became the dominant eucalypt.

In 1855 Skene surveyed south of Lake Connewarre and he recorded;
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‘…moderately to thickly timbered with sheoak and gum … other blocks were considerably encumbered by stumps of sheoak which have been used for firewood, the gum trees still remain.’

​The Barwon River estuary
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At the coastal end of Lake Connewarre is the Barwon River estuary which is home to the White Mangrove (Avicennia marina) growing on mudflats. The pneumatophores of the mangroves provide a protected nursery environment for many fish species and crustaceans that feed on the diverse macroalgae.

Learning from the past

When Batman’s party arrived at St Leonards on June 8th 1835 on the Bellarine Peninsula, he was surprised at the lightly timbered grasslands that he found. Except for inland areas, around St. Leonards, Drysdale and north of Lake Connewarre that were more densely wooded and dominated by large eucalypt species, the more elevated and exposed areas of the Peninsula were open and parklike.

This was no chance occurrence but a landscape created by the Bengalat clan. Using fire as a tool to manage the vegetation, they had developed a sustainable and productive landscape that they had cared for over 40,000 years.
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The European settlers quickly made their mark on the remarkable but fragile ecosystems. They introduced sheep, cleared native trees, planted crops, drained and filled many wetlands. It took only eighteen months for the Wadawurrung to be dispossessed from their land within a 25mile radius of Geelong - 4 years for agriculture and sheep to remove all the Murnong, and 40 years for the Peninsula to be cleared of most of its native vegetation. These radical landscape changes have put the unique ecologies of the Bellarine Peninsula under enormous stress.

There is an intriguing monument beside the coastal walking track between Portarlington and Indented Heads. I often stop and contemplate the rusting steel anchors that mark the site where Matthew Flinders may have pitched his tent some 224 years ago on April 29th, 1802.

If we could turn back the clock to the moment of Flinder's first visit to this beautiful landscape, hopefully we would choose a more biodiverse future for the Bellarine Peninsula and learn from the traditional knowledge and wisdom of the Bengalat clan of the Wadawurrung people.

As Homo sapiens we can trace our history back in time to our humble beginnings in East Africa some 300,000 years ago. Archaeologists believe that sapiens began spreading out of Africa about 70,000 years ago. Remarkably, they found their way to the distant continent of Australia in less than 10,000 years. Thus began the incredible story of the First Australians, who developed and refined the longest continuous culture on earth.

​It is believed that the first arrivals probably numbered 1,000 - 2,000 people and the population of Australia is likely to have remained small as they migraged into the southern parts of the continent. At that time the landscape was dominated by giant animals and the climate was becoming cooler and more arid.

As they moved south, the First Australians adapted to an extraordinary variety of climates and landscapes, some very physically demanding, so their cultures and languages diversified, however, they retained one important common goal - to protect and preserve Australia’s unique flora and fauna, the plants and animals that their survival depended on.

​So began thousands of years of experimenting and learning about Australia’s very unusual plants; their culinary and healing properties, their value as food for the grazing animals they hunted and the ecosystems they supported, the best way to maintain and manage these ecosystems across the immense Australian continent. 

The First Australians were Animists and considered plants and animals to be their equals. They used totemism to create very close and intimate links with Australia’s fauna. Individuals were given a personal totem at birth and this totem animal was loved as if it was part of their extended family. They developed a very detailed knowledge of their totem’s ecological needs and it was their duty to protect both their totem and its habitat.

Animists were the first conservationists and they believed that the natural world wasn’t just to provide for the needs of humans. They believed it should be protected and nurtured and failure to do so was wrong, and could also result in momentous consequences, like the extinction of species or loss of important habitats.

Yuval Noah Harari in his remarkable book ‘Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind’, describes animist culture and gives this example;

‘An animist hunter addressing a herd of deer and asking one of them to sacrifice itself. If the hunt is successful the hunter may ask the dead animal to forgive him’.

This gesture shows recognition and deep respect for one life that has been taken to nourish another. ​

Explorer's first impressions of Victoria were of 'open landscapes with widely spaced trees'

​Lieutenant John Murray was the first to sail into Port Phillip Bay and describe the Australian bush on 14th February 1802, after climbing (and naming) Arthurs Seat, on the Mornington Peninsula. From his vantage point he compared it to, “the beauty and experience of Greenwich Park in London.“ 
​
Murray also described;
‘...open woodlands with stout trees of various kinds that were pleasant to walk through because they were well spaced with no thick brush to intercept travellers.’ He saw grass huts and evidence of burning under trees.

The transition was swift and ruthless

The Port Phillip Association was formed in Van Diemen’s Land in 1835. Lead by John Batman and Joseph Gellibrand, the Association was responsible for the unlawful and ruthless land-grab of 250,000ha, which included the whole Bellarine Peninsula and the land between Geelong and Melbourne. 

Batman arrived on the Bellarine Peninsula in May 1835 and walked 20km east from Point Henry. He couldn't have been more delighted when he wrote in his diary;

‘the whole (landscape), appeared like land laid out as a farm for some 100 years back.’

Within nine days, Batman had  his bogus and meaningless contract of sale 'signed'  by Aboriginal men who didn't understand what the sheet of paper represented. Soon after, the first waves of settlers and their sheep began arriving. 

The burning question 

Explorer, Major Thomas Mitchel was one of the first to understand why the Australian landscapes were so open when the British colonists first arrived;

‘The native applies fire to the grass at certain seasons, so that a young green crop may subsequently spring up and so attract and enable him to kill or take the kangaroo with nets. In summer, the burning of the long grass also discloses vermin, birds’ nests, etc., on which the females and the children, who chiefly burn the grass, feed. 

​'But for this simple process, the Australian woods might have been as thick a jungle, like those of New Zealand or America, instead of open forests.’ (Mitchel, 1839)

Mitchel observed the changes that burning made to the Australian landscape, but he didn't fully appreciated its level of sophistocation of it application.

A comprehensive review of the effects of Aboriginal burning on biota was done by Bowman in 1998. In his review he shone a clearer light on its importance;

'Fire is a powerful tool that Aborigines used systematically and purposeflly over the landscape. There is little doubt that Aborigtianl burning was skillful and central to the maintenance of the landscapes colonised by Europeans in the 19th century.'

Though, it had many other benefits to them, such as preventing devastating wildfires, which according to studies of charcoal deposits in swamps, were very rare before modern settlement. (Gell, Stuart & Smith, 1993) 

The First Australians used fire to keep many of the hilltops open. This enabled communication over long distances using an advanced system of smoke signals. Open hilltops also enhanced personal safety and clan security, by providing 360 degree views of their territory. They could keep an eye on who was coming and going and if they were friend or foe. In William Buckley's memoir, he describes how neighbouring clans would come into camp seeking justice or revenge for a percieved wrongdoing that could result in injury or death.

Burning was used to prepare future camping sites, provided vermin control (Eg. mosquitos), and to enable convenient travel, potentially over long distances, along the many songlines that criss-crossed Australia. 

Woodland & forest belts alternating with grasslands/pantrylands 

Bill Gammage in 'The Biggest Estate on Earth,' (2011), refers to early reports of grassland burning. He suggests that the First Australians aimed to create belts of grasslands alternating with woodlands or forests. These landscapes were ideal for both hunting and havesting plant foods.

The open woodlands were shaded hunting grounds that were often dominated by eucalypts and the Drooping Sheoak, Allocasuarina verticillata, which was highly valued by the First Australians in the southeastern states. One standout value of the sheoak to them (and to us) was its very low flammability. Its foliage chars and doesn't burn and its litter supresses grass growth. To read more about the Drooping Sheoak's cultural importance and it's uses click here.

The grasslands between belts of trees were important pantry lands that supplied desirable energy-rich root vegetables and selected grass seeds used for baking. On Victorian Volcanic Plains, 20% of the 550 species of plants were harvested for food and 50% of the food plants were thought to be root vegetables, which were conveniently available all year-round to harvest from the grasslands, providing an underground pantry. (Gott, 1993)

An important and common root vegetable was the yam-daisy (Microseris walteri). Major Mitchel describes a view from the Grampiens (Gariwerd) 'as a vast extent of open-downs, quite yellow with the flowers of the native yam, whose root, small as it is, constitutes the food of the native women and children, and we observed them digging in the ground for roots.'
​
George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines from 1849 described women havesting yams on the basalt plains, 'spread over the plain as far as I could see them, collecting roots, each had a load as much as she could carry.'

These grasslands also provide a variety of medicinal herbs, used for treating common injuries and ailments. ​

Vegetation on the Bellarine Peninsula before 1835
- a landscape managed by the Bengalat clan of the Wadawurrung

Louis Lane, an archaeologist who studied the Wadawurrung of the Geelong region summed up their lifestyle;

‘They developed a sophisticated and disciplined society that utilised every element of their surroundings while practicing conservation strategies on their clans-land. Their yearly calendar was marked by the flowering of different trees and shrubs and the movement of birds.’ (Lane, 1988)

The Bengalat had a permanent camp in Boronggook (Drysdale), near Lake Lorne, which they called Balla:we:in (anglicised to Bellarine). It was a place with ample fresh water, fed by permanent springs of clear ice-cold water that ran into deep ponds. These ponds were shaded by ancient River Red Gums and protected from weather extremes by dense windbreaks of vegetation. In Lane’s archaeological studies of the camp site at McLeod’s Waterhole, she described it as;
​
‘A paradise for hunter and forager as well as bird and beast. Even after a long dry summer, there was abundant water for ‘Swan, duck, dabchick, water-hens, cranes and pelicans. The surrounding ridges were thickly covered with vegetation.’ (Lane, 1988)

A visit to the country

It was the holiday weekend of November 2021 and I was returning through familiar territory in central Victoria, visiting the town where my parents had started a new life in their mid-sixties. They had severed their very deep roots in Melbourne to start a new business in a country town. That was over fifty years ago, so my visit today involved a walk to their graveside and murmuring a few words to them and remembering their life's struggles and achievements.

Their graveside was looking neglected, so I wandered off to a roadside grassland and picked a generous bunch of Sticky Everlasting Daisies, their beautiful orange flowers guaranteed to chase away my feelings of sadness, and hold their colour for a few months.

It was on my return that I noticed some children’s graves. They were in an old and forgotten part of the cemetery that now looked more like a native grassland, with a cheerful display of white (Creamy Candles), Yellow (Bulbine Lilies) and mauve flowers (Chocolate Lilies). In over 30 years of exploring Victorian grasslands, I had never seen so many Chocolate Lilies in one condensed location, the moist morning air imbibed with their delicious scent.
​
One child’s grave was covered with Chocolate Lilies and it drew my attention. Though very weathered, its inscription was still readable, free of the pale green lichen that seemed to be consuming the other headstones around it.

This unfortunate boy had been born in the same year as my father, who had lived to the ripe old age of 93. The tragedy of this boy’s untimely death unsettled me, sending a shiver up my spine. I became acutely aware of the fragility of life, particularly in those early colonial years, and how 'fluky' it was that I was alive today.

I thought; what if my father had had his life tragically cut short, and what had happened all those years ago to young James?
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The voice of a young girl

Mummy told me never to go there on my own, but little Jamie was calling. He was lying there all alone and the morning was so cold and foggy. My heart was pounding in my chest, but I said out loud, “you ghosts don’t scare me! I’m Maggie and I’m very brave!” Jamie always said I was the brave one.

Jamie and me were playing hopscotch outside our house on the dusty street. We had the squares all marked out with a stick like I know, and we had our special shiny, flat stones in our hands. I was throwing my lucky stone into square 4, so I didn’t see the man on his cart. I heard him though, yelling like he was crazy, “Oh God!!! Get out of the bloody way,” but that was too late for Jamie.

Now he’s lying there and he needs me to be brave. Some of the headstones along the path are taller than me, but headstones don’t scare me. I know I’m safe when I see the archangel Gabriel looking down with his pretty smile. Mummy always said god’s angels look after us, but they must have been looking the other way when that man lost control of his horse and cart and hit Jamie.
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“Hi Jamie, I picked some beautiful wild flowers from the field for you. They’re white and yellow, your favourite colours, and I found these star shaped purple ones that smell like chocolate. I know you love these ones, cos they make you think of Christmas.
I miss you so much Jamie.”

The voice of a middle-age man

When I rounded the corner and saw those kids playing on the road, I screamed out to warn them. My damnation of a horse had got spooked by a swooping magpie, and it took off so fast I almost fell backwards off my cart. Oh, I’ll never, ever forget that sickening thud and the deafening silence that followed, until the small girl started crying, whimpering like an injured animal.

I try to be a good man and I love kids; I have four children of my own. Now I look at them as they sleep and I cry; I cry because I’ve done such a terrible thing to another family, I cry because I can imagine their loss and their pain, I cry because I can’t sleep at night. When I’m alone I cry, because I constantly relive that unspeakable moment. I crave some blessed relief.

It’s a year after the accident. I passed the girl at the cemetery gate and she smiled at me. Her kind smile felt like a lifeline, a bright welcoming light at the end of my dark tunnel. Every week I would see her when I brought wild flowers to the grave and every week she would look away, her loss too fresh, her painful memories too vivid. Today she seemed to understand my deep sadness for her and her family.
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I’ve always believed that children possess a simple, honest wisdom. So, if she has found it in her heart to forgive me, perhaps it’s time that I began to forgive myself. The sad, regretful person that I’ve become can soon begin to smile again and be grateful for all the joy in my life. Wonderfully, the wild flowers in my hands were brighter and more beautiful after her moment of absolution.

Some background on the Doggett family in the Museums Victoria photo above. Written by Suzette Hartwell

The father holding the reins is Thomas Doggett and his wife is Helen Doggett (known as Nell). They were my paternal great-great grandparents and Helen lived until I was a young teenager, still in the family home in Nicolson street Footscray. We all called her Granny Doggett, a beautiful woman who knew all the family history. Her and Thomas eventually had ten children. 

The little girl standing with the coat is Ada, known as Peenie, born 1904. The little girl that Thomas is holding is Florence (Tootsie) born 1906. The baby that Helen is holding is my paternal grandmother Nellie, born 1909. Sadly she only lived till I was five years old and she was a stunningly beautiful woman who could have been a model. Her son was Jimmy Hartwell, my father. 

The family history tells us the little girls standing by the fence would not get out of the way for the photographer!

Tom Doggett started the successful ‘Wagga’ bike shop in the Footscray shopping area. He and his brother Albert designed and made the bikes. My great Uncle Tom, who never married, taught himself Italian so that he could better converse with the majority of customers of that linage who lived in Footscray at the time.