Old Gippstown

15th July 2009

Well surely by now you have figured out that one of my many passions is a tour back in time. Thanks to others that have the same passion and to those people who don't throw away their old treasures but donate them to museums, we can visit old towns to commemorate such times.

Another town I must mention is Old Gippstown, Moe. Again, this is a place that protects and maintains buildings that have been brought from all over to replicate living in the farming communities of the Gippsland.

It doesn't cost very much at all for a family to visit but it is certainly worth heaps in teaching our children about such times.

The day we visited was not very busy at all - I hope that this is not a show of the times that people have forgotten or are just not interested in remembering. 

 If this house was on a farm somewhere up for sale people would be swarming to buy it. Only thing wrong is that the kitchen, as all houses at that time were the same, was a separate building so if the kitchen caught fire the rest of the house would not burn down.

The volunteers are also very special. The men or women who were responsible in building this old beauty would have to have a special interest in this era.

While visiting the fire station, a lovely man even started up the vehicle for our boys. It sounded like it wouldn't necessarily get you to your next stop and gee it stunk of fuel but it was a lovely gesture.

Old Gippstown took us a few hours after lunch to explore. As it wasn't the Victorian school holidays at the time activities had ceased. The lovely old general store was still open for business though and thanks to the lovely fire engine man so was the fire station.

Take a visit soon to Old Gippstown to learn about farming the Gippsland in the old days.

Walhalla

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

When I was a little girl I remember watching a move called "Lost Horizon". It told a story of a plane that crashed in the Himalayas. The passengers were rescued and taken to a mysterious valley that was full of peace and tranquility. What I most liked about this movie was that one minute they were trekking through very heavy snow then through a cave they arrived in paradise. One extreme to another.

Walhalla is nothing like the mysterious valley in the movie but it was similar to me that we drove along a winding road and suddenly came to a gem hidden at the end of a valley.

Walhalla is a historic mountain gold rush village located in Victoria's Baw Baw Ranges. Like most gold rush towns they thrived while the gold was around then once it ran out, the town shrunk in size. Walhalla has only a handful of permanent residents now but I am sure they are proud to call it their home and wouldn't live anywhere else.

It has survived some terrible devastating bushfires but when you visit you would never know if it wasn't for the information held in the fire station.






All the existing buildings are an indication of the integrity of Walhalla's history.

The day that we were at Walhalla there was some celebration happening in the Town Hall. This filled the streets with cars and noise. I wish we had been there on a different day because I believe the empty streets and eerie quietness would have set the day off much better. Who knows we may have heard a whisper from back in the 1800s - I wish!


Again I feel happy that we have embraced Walhalla and made sure that it stays alive and not become a ghost town - even though it is classified as one of Australia's. Victoria I believe is very good at maintaining their heritage by taking these old and historic towns under their wing. There are many towns that have not survived but I suppose it is hard to maintain them if all they were were tent cities.