Kangaroo Ground
What makes your Nillumbik home town/area unique? Who are the characters who have made it so? What sites have significance and why?
During 2005 Nillumbik Shire Council and the Literary Reference Group invited members of the community to respond to these questions, to show us the history and flavour of your place - then and now - in a 500 word anecdote. The following article was written by Sheila Dixon who passed away in April 2008. Her daughter has kindly given permission to share her story.
How many people are there living in Kangaroo Ground? I don’t really know, I suppose I would have to pose that question to the Nillumbik Council. I do know that in the 75 years I have been up here, it is a much larger community now. Not too large mind you, still quite a few people like me who are runaways from the city and still a smattering of graziers with contented cattle scattered over the quiet hills and valleys of the area. Then there are the newcomers. The vineyards and olive plantations. We are on the edge of the Yarra Valley and just a few paddocks away from the really important vineyards: Tarrawarra Glen, Yering,……..and from here to Healesville these vineyards march gracefully up and down the hills in ordered rows. But for now it’s the precious grapes providing the fine wines for Australians and the export market. We have come a long way from the wine saloons of my childhood, those curtained quiet places in the small shopping centres which mainly sold sherry and port to the customers while the men listened to the constant murmuring of a radio giving the latest winners to the races at Caulfield or Flemington. Pinot and Chardonnay wouldn’t have been seen dead there. But I don’t want to write about the past this time, so many small country towns have had their histories lovingly laid out for us to read and marvel at the changes and I can safely leave that to our Museum. I would prefer to tell you about the flavour of this beautiful hamlet only kilometres out of Melbourne, a small rural place where people would prefer bush to suburbia. Around here the lines are blurred for the City and the Bush intertwine with each other and after all it is only hour from Melbourne.
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[edit] Happy homecoming
I live on Henley Road off the main Eltham to Yarra Glen road and after being away for the day in the city it is a happy homecoming to come back here and see the cows lying pondering life under the trees or enjoying their never ending lunch. A time of the year I enjoy is when I drive past the paddocks and seeing dozens of calves, lying in the long grass beside their mothers. I know the big golden bull who mainly lies peacefully in a separate paddock has been about his business and done the thing properly. None of your AIS here, just the real thing. In fact I saw him one day with one of the cows. He was standing thoughtfully behind her and she was chewing her cud and thinking of life as only a cow can do. I’m not sure whether it was before or after the event. I do hope they had a good time. This small road is quite busy. Lots of waves to people going past. Luke Forbes with his water carrier when we’ve had no rain, Robert with ute and a load of gas bottles. In winter there is Max with his firewood and sometimes the SES when we’ve had a storm and a tree has fallen on the road. The Telcos are always doing something mysterious to the underground cables and quite often the local farmers trundle by in a tractor. Then morning and afternoon there is the Kangaroo Gound school bus. Such a thing in my childhood days would never have been thought of.
[edit] Locals
Aside from all this workaday traffic there’s us, the locals. Off to work, taking kids to school, shopping and a million and one reasons for leaving our bush haven for the day and coming thankfully back to it. One of the perks of this little road is the surprises along the way. Sometimes I call myself a mobile bird watcher. For there is much to see in between watching cars. One of my favourites is the black shouldered kite which always seems to be in the same spot. Birds are very predictable. It hovers like a small silent helicopter over one of the paddocks no doubt looking for lunch. It appears to be suspended by an invisible string from the sky. Quite often I see it’s big brother, the wedge tail eagle floating high in the sky with it’s family if it is that time of the year. The young one no doubt starting lessons with Mum and Dad and learning all the tricks of the trade. We are a long way now from those days of seeing eagles patheticly hanging on country fences ‘because they took the young lambs’.That has has gone the way of many old stories and they are now left to do their job of cleaning up the wretched rabbits. This is an area of the wambling echidna. How they make it across the road I don’t know. But few seem to be caught by cars, unlike the wombats. With their slow lopsided wobble somehow they make it from one side to the other looking like small leftovers from the dinosaur age. We have our fair share of ants up here and the echidnas are often seen cleaning up ants nests with relish. People also find they are rather partial to a bath and are seen having a splash in the local bird baths. Now there is something you don’t get in the city. So chalk that up for a reason to live up here. There is one particular place along that road where I always see a grey shrike thrush. Seems to me that they have a living area that is as confined as our backyards. This elegant grey bird with it’s beautiful song is always pottering around on the road picking up this and that and playing dangerous games with cars. The magpies too tend to be on the road and often become casualties.
[edit] Oxley Bridge
Four kilometers along Henley Road and there is Oxley Bridge. A one lane concrete bridge named after my Grandfather who lived here long ago .The land to the right is the beginning of the Bend Of Islands Conservation Area which is the long name for this piece of countryside in Kangaroo Ground/Christmas Hills bound by the beautiful Yarra River which winds in out the hills. Once they nearly had a dam poured into it and no doubt it could have grown like any other piece of country with its dogs , cats , horses, fences and the very things that change the whole thing from bush and native flora and fauna to a sort of watered down suburbia and bush not quite knowing what it was. But the people who lived up here saw it’s potential and began to take up arms so to speak. They lobbied, stood in front of bulldozers and generally made their feelings known to the right people. As time went by, and after much discussion with those right people, The Bend of Islands Environmental Living zone was created. This meant that 400 hectares of bushland was partly left to its own devices while the whole was to be sensitively built on without too much disturbance to the native flora. Dogs, cats and horses were barred and fences removed. This had the bonus of the native animals being able to wander and live where they pleased, keeping to their ancient tracks and trees. But more of that later.
[edit] Hamlet
Kangaroo Ground is a hamlet of some distinction for it is composed of small icons of country life. The church for the beginnings, celebrations and end of life, the cemetery for the memories and a museum for its past. Then there is the Country Fire Brigade and the SES Centre for its present. But all these icons deserve a story for they play so many parts in our lives giving us assurance to live out of the city and still be protected against the natural dramas that turn up every now and again. So here’s to Kangaroo Ground, a rare sort of place these days: a Post Office in a wine shed, the general store,1898-2003, museum, school, fire brigade, church and tennis courts. Some new young people and some old ones, like myself, who cannot contemplate the idea of living in the suburbs. And still the farmers who run their cattle and sheep just as the early settlers in these parts did in the early 1800’s. Many diffferent people and many stories and I hope that these which follow give some idea of the uniqueness of this place. © Sheila Dixon
