Victorian Railways tourist's guide, 1885

In 1885 the following book was published Victorian Railways tourist's guide: containing accurate and full particulars of the watering places, scenery, shooting, fishing, sporting, hotel accommodation, etc. in Victoria also a new and complete railway map showing all the present and projected lines edited by Jos. Pickersgill.  You can see a digitised version of it on the National Library of Australia website, here.

There are three pages relating to the Casey Cardinia region - which are reproduced below and also transcribed. There are good descriptions of Dandenong, Berwick, Beaconsfield and the  partially drained Koo wee Rup Swamp. There is an interesting poem about Dandenong. There is also a lot of advice about 'sport' by which they actually mean hunting - wallabies, opossums and game. There is nothing about Cranbourne as the railway line to Cranbourne and beyond did not open until 1888 - 1890 and this guide book only relates to places on the rail network.

Dandenong

A beautiful and favorite place of resort for excursionists from Melbourne, situated under the magnificent Dandenong Ranges, and within easy distance of the celebrated Fern Tree Gullies (about twelve miles). It lies on a flat, and is the heart of the richly-grassed and fertile agricultural and grazing country.  The scenery in the district is very fine, and the air pure and salubrious. Dandenong and the whole of the surrounding neighbourhood afford splendid shooting on the plains and in the gullies. Since the railway line has been extended to this place, a large number of residents of Melbourne have built country villas in and around the township. The hotels are large, commodious, and very comfortable, Dawson’s being the leading hostelrie. Mr. Dawson’s stables are replete with all the necessities in the way of hiring, and a favorite starting point for Fern Tree gullies; and full information can be obtained from the popular proprietor as to the best spots for sport. The local papers are the Advertiser and the South Bourke and Mornington Journal.

Our poet, who has been out for an evening walk, watching the amber and golden glory of the sunset, and seeing the last shafts of the God of Day aimed at the towering ranges to the eastward, comes in and pensively sings this lay:-

“On sunny slope, on mountain tall,

The shadow’d lights of evening fall,

And gentle whispering, scarcely heard,

Save when the drooping leaves are stirr’d

The soft warm zephyr sighs along

Thy pleasant glades, oh! Dandenong

The music of a thousand rills,

That pour from yon o’erhanging hills,

The sombre forest, dim and dark, 

The gloomy gorges, stern and stark,

Such sounds and sights are found among

Thy lovely scenes, oh! Dandenong

The ferny dells, so passing fair,

So sweet the fresh life-giving air,

The verdant plains, and flower-gemm’d groves,

The shady nooks the wild-bird loves,

Fit subject for the poet’s song,

All these are thine, Oh! Dandenong.”

From Dandenong we pass Hallam’s Road and Narree Warren, and at twenty-six and three-quarter miles reach Berwick

Berwick

On the Kardinia Creek, a place is being rapidly taken up for residential purposes by gentlemen having business in Melbourne. It lies in the heart of a country famous for the beauty of its scenery, having the Dandenong ranges distant, seven miles to the north, and the Gembrook ranges twelve miles north-east. Both these ranges are heavily timbered and well watered, the soil is rich chocolate, and it is over-grown, except where cleared, with fern trees and sassafras. Lying back from the township in the direction of the Dandenong ranges, gold had been found in nearly all the gullies, but the only ground which has been systematically worked is the Emerald diggings, about fourteen miles distant.  Tin has also been found in this locality, and in the gullies of the Gembrook range discoveries of emerald, topazes, amethysts, and sapphires have been made. Hence the name. 

Berwick 1887 (28 miles from Melbourne)

Taken only two years after the Tourist Guide was written this is how the travellers using the guide would have seen Berwick. Bain's Hotel, mentioned in the guide, is on the left.

Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria photograph album  State Library of Victoria Image H2012.114/2

The town of Berwick, although prettily situated one which, from the summits of its hills, gives a fair view of Port Phillip and Western Port Bay and the surrounding country, is not a place that possesses any special inducement to the tourist for a prolonged stay. It is quiet and rural, and that is all. There is a good Hotel (Bains’) with a fine fruit garden. It is a good dairy-farming, cheese-making, and hop and vine -growing locality, and excellent wine is made hereabouts. But the tourist who wants to enjoy good wallaby shooting may be amply satisfied by a journey of about ten miles to the hills that overlook the Emerald diggings to the north, where, in the gullies, he may find plenty. He may also succeed in bringing down, now and again, a rare black opossum, whose skin makes the very best rugs. On the other side of the hills “digger holes” are frequently deep, and their mouth covered up with a treacherous undergrowth. Another word to the wise, “Look out for leeches”

Proceeding onwards from Berwick, we arrive at the newly formed township of Beaconsfield.

Beaconsfield

Formerly known as the Haunted Gully Alluvia Diggings, which is rapidly becoming an important place, not so much from its agricultural and pastoral capabilities, which are comparatively small, as from its having been taken up by a number of Melbourne gentlemen as a suitable place for a suburban residences. It is twenty-eight miles from Melbourne, but as three trains run each way daily it suits business men who like to like in the country and yet within easy access of the metropolis. The surrounding country is rather mountainous in character, with picturesque gullies intersecting. The views to be obtained are beautiful - Queenscliff, Sorrento, the You Yangs and Port Phillip Bay being seen to the west and north west. Mount Macedon to the north, the Lilydale Gembrook Ranges to the north-east, the Baw Baw and other Gippsland Ranges to the east, and the Bass Ranges, Western Port Bay, French and Phillip Islands, and Arthur’s Seat to the south-east, south and south-west, respectively. Beaconsfield is a favourite centre for metropolitan sportsmen out for a day’s shooting. Beaconsfield possess good hotel accommodation, as is a desirable place to visit for an outing, whether for sport or for the sake of fresh air, or a quiet trip into the pretty, tranquil parts outskirts of the metropolis.

From Beaconsfield we traverse a long stretch of country now considerably taken up for settlement, and extending along the northern boundary of the far-famed Koo-wee-rup Swamp - a tract that a few years ago was worse than useless being a terror to travellers, and appropriately named the ‘Glue Pots.’ Having been partially drained and cleared, this expanse is rapidly becoming one of the richest agricultural territories in the colony, and it offers an almost illimitable surface for shooting. Go where one will in this district one is bound to find game.

The railway passes through the newly settled townships of Pakenham, Tynong, Bunyip, Longwarry, Drouin, Warragul, Darnum, Yarragon, Trafalgar, and Moe, any one of which may be said to be excellent centres for the traveller bent on shooting and reaches Morwell.

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Bunyip Byways Tourism map

I came across this Bunyip  Byways tourism map the other day. The Bunyip Byways was a joint tourism promotion from the City of Casey and the Cardinia Shire.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

Bunyip Byways was obviously established after December 15 1994 which is when the two Councils officially came into being, but I was unsure of the exact date. However, through the wonders of a Google search,   I came across a reference to it in the Village Bell, Issue 117 from August 1997. The Village Bell is a community newsletter, run by volunteers from the Upper Beaconsfield Association. This newsletter has been produced continuously since July 1978, a remarkable achievement. Not only that, but you can access them all on-line through the Upper Beaconsfield Association website  https://upperbeaconsfield.org.au/

The article by Jo Carter from the August 1997 Village Bell had this to say about the Bunyip Byways project:  You will have noticed the signs Bunyip Byways which have appeared throughout the Shire, signposting the Bunyip Byways Trail. In an endeavour to attract tourists to the area, the Casey Cardinia Tourism Association has drawn up a trail which promotes the many interesting features and places of natural beauty within our communities. The name 'Bunyip' (Buneep) is derived from a local WOONGI (aboriginal) legend of a mystical water-based creature TOO ROO DUN who lived in the great Koo-Wee-Rup swamp. The cost of the Trail has been met by grants from the Federal Department of Tourism, and Casey and Cardinia Councils. The Trail forms a circular route through Berwick, Harkaway, Cardinia Resevoir, Emerald, Cockatoo, Gembrook, Tynong, Bunyip, Garfield, Cora Lynn, Bayles, KooWee-Rup, Tooradin and Cranbourne. There is a Bunyip Byways tourism map available which will assist travellers to find both well known and lesser known places of interest to explore. The Beaconhills Golf Club and the local restaurant Japonica Jelly are noted on the map. And of course we have many walks in Upper Beaconsfield which are not mentioned in the Bunyip Byways Trails. "This area does have significant attractions and natural features," says Ian Hall of the Tourism Centre. "We want visitors to view the wildlife on the edge of the City, walk in the nature reserves and bushland, as well as try the wine, buy the antiques, visit the nurseries, eat the natural produce and relax in the many restaurants and pubs." The article finishes off with some contact details, which I wont list here, as the holders of  the phone numbers may well have changed in the past 20 years.

This edition also had an interesting article about Tasmanian Tigers in Upper Beaconsfield, hence the masthead of the newsletter.   

There is still a Bunyip Byways sign near the Cardinia Reservoir, on Wellington Road, but that's the only one I know, I should take  a photo of it one day to record it for posterity. And congratulations to the Village Bell team at the Upper Beaconsfield Association who have taken the time to not only produce a newsletter for nearly 40 years but to make the interesting local information available to everyone by digitising the editions and putting them on their website.

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Touring in the 1930s.

I have just been given this fabulous set of Shell maps. Judging by the wonderful Art Deco style cover I presume that they are from the 1930s. 

The maps also include parts of the Motor Car Act. Click on the image to enlarge it. My favourite part of this Act covers the Wind Screen Wiper. It says that Every vehicle fitted with a wind screen must have attached thereto an efficient wiper. The Act also warns us not to use a Public Highway for racing or  a trial speed and also not to sound the horn when passing Churches. And another interesting part of the Act says The law now requires drivers to signal when about to stop, turn right or when the driver requires other vehicles to pass him on his right.

However, because this is a blog about the history of the Casey Cardinia, then you may be interested in this map. If we travel along the Princes Highway from Dandenong, we get to Narre Warren. Narre Warren North is described as 'Old Narre Warren', which is what it was, I just haven't seen it described like that on a map.  Modern day Narre Warren was established when the railway station opened in 1882. If we head up to the hills, going east from Belgrave, the town of  Aura is of interest. Menzies Creek was known as Aura from 1917-1923. 

Further east we have Gembrook North and Gembrook West, names no longer in use. Also of interest, right down the bottom we have Sherwood Junction, also a name no longer used, on the corner of the South Gippsland Highway and Tooradin-Baxter Road and further east they still use the name Yallock, even though with the opening of the Bayles station in 1922, the town and the name began to fall into decline.

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Day trips around Casey and Cardinia

As it is Holiday time I thought you might be interested in a few local day trips. The trips originally featured in the book The Herald Short Tours. I picked it up for $2.00 in a second hand book shop. There is no publication date, but the original owners had annotated the book with the dates on which they did some of the drives, so this puts the date of publication sometime after February 14 1966 (the day we changed to Decimal currency) and April 14, 1968 - the first date listed in the book. It has a number of tours varying in length from 29 miles (about 46 kilometres) to 226 miles (360 kms). Below are some of the drives that take in parts of the City of Casey and Cardinia Shire.





This first trip, Go south to Beauty, covers much of the Shire of Cardinia - it starts at Dandenong then goes through Berwick, Pakenham, onto Bunyip (the easternmost town in the Cardinia Shire) onto Gippsland to Drouin, Triholm, Nyora. We then re-enter the Cardinia Shire at Lang Lang, travel around Western Port Bay to Tooradin, then back to Dandenong via Cranbourne. This would still be a good trip today, it is 150 miles (or about 240 kilometres) though perhaps the part from Dandenong to Pakenham could no longer be described as leisurely. The deviation at Pakenham East (as the town which developed around the Pakenham Railway Station was officially called at this time) onto the back road to Nar Nar Goon is still a good option as it takes you through not only Nar Nar Goon but Tynong, Garfield and Bunyip. Views of French Island can be seen from Lang Lang and Tooradin and Koo-Wee-Rup was once a part of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp but is now the biggest producer of asparagus in Australia.





The second trip, Trip to Fishing Village, which is 82 miles or 131 kilometres also goes through Tooradin. Tooradin is still picturesque and a good spot for a picnic and for fishing, but is no longer a commercial fishing centre. Just out of Tooradin, off the Tooradin Baxter Road, are the three coastal towns of Cannons Creek, Warneet and Blind Bight, on Rutherford Inlet. Cannons Creek and Warneet were initially fishing camps with a few holiday shacks. It was around the late 1960s and early 1970s that the permanent residents moved in. Blind Bight is a newer town, with the first land sales held in 1974. The coastal towns are
well worth a visit as there is significant remnants of coastal vegetation, interesting cliff formations, mangroves and a good spot for bird watching and fishing.

The trip then goes onto Pearcedale, which was known as Langwarrin until 1905. Pearcedale is at the south western end of the City of Casey and is still market garden area. The trip then takes you to Frankston, a popular sea side resort, back to Carrum Downs to Dandenong. Carrum Downs, now in the City of Frankston, was part of the Cranbourne Road Board when it was established in 1860 and in the Shire of Cranbourne Boundaries until the 1994 Council Amalgamations.


Our last trip, the Varied Scenic Run, takes us through the northern section of the City of Casey. It is a run of 60 miles or about 96 kilometres. In the late 1960s you would have seen bushland, new housing areas, market gardens and an occasional orchard. If you done this drive in 1968 and not been back to the area in the intervening 42 years, then you might be surprised to find that your trip along Heatherton Road now takes you through Endeavour Hills. The first land sales for this suburb were held in 1973. In 1968 you would have passed Brundrett's Roses in Narre Warren North which was established in 1926 and is now a Housing Estate. Another surprise would be the Fountain Gate Shopping Centre. The area occupied by the Shopping Centre, which opened in 1980, was a farm in 1968.

The book suggests that this would be an ideal drive to run in a new car or for a new driver. The drive would be a bit busier today than it would have been in 1968, however if it was undertaken in peak hour it would certainly give Learners experience in driving along busy roads!

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