Hanging Rock

Hanging Rock is a geological rarity born of volcanic activity located close to the town of Woodend in Victoria, Australia. Its dramatic, irregular form lies within the broader landscape of the Macedon Ranges. Encountering this imposing natural structure involves traversing roads that give little hint as to what to expect. Tantalising glimpses are possible when gaps appear in the heavy roadside foliage, but the most striking perspectives only emerge once in close proximity. When Hanging Rock is fully revealed, its appearance is breath-taking—its craggy facade and dark-hued pinnacles possessing a uniqueness and authority that resists comparison as it stations itself as a solitary presence within the relative flatness of the immediate terrain. The exposed rock face is stunning, characterised by sheer, vertical cliffs that loom over the surrounding agricultural countryside. On many occasions over the years I've travelled the highway running through the Macedon Ranges, and I have frequently noted a distinct microclimate around the Woodend area, most obvious in winter. A persistent drizzle and mist often enshrouds this specific stretch, while clarity prevails on either side—a divergence likely due to its slightly elevated position compared to nearby lowland areas, creating a distinct atmospheric pocket.

I found the thought of Hanging Rock compelling as a child, although the exact origins of this interest are elusive. It wasn't until my twenties that I watched the eponymous movie, but I do recall a television advertisement that was promoting a soundtrack album. There were snippets of footage from the film alongside the spectral-sounding theme music, which was so thrilling and strangely galvanising. This was apparently enough to stimulate vague notions of delicate white dresses, evanescing figures, and a magical locale, which all coalesced in my imagination in some intuitive way. These enigmatic fragments were further underpinned by a half-heard whispery web of adult commentary that referenced dark goings-on at Hanging Rock. My mother tells me I would play games centred around picnics at Hanging Rock with my dolls and cat, the latter bedecked in an embroidered baby dress. I don't remember this, but can well imagine such a tableau fitting the general aesthetic as I perceived it then. I think more than anything, what prompted this interest was an immediate sensory identification with particular elements spied amongst these fleeting shots—images of honeyed grasses and towering rocks correlated strongly with my experiences as a child growing up amidst the granite boulders and golden summer hills of Taungurung Country. I recognised this place—the colours, the raven calls, the spell, the songs, the humming and thrumming of insects reverberating so loudly they induce a loss of form. Holy afternoons amongst the radiant light as it caressed the muted greens of the eucalypts. My fascination with Hanging Rock prompted my father to organise a day trip there one weekend. Slightly frightened, I approached with great solemnity, unequivocally anticipating auspicious events and brimming with expectations of the uncanny. My father disrupted this mood somewhat by regularly ‘disappearing’ inside rock clefts, then reappearing with great mirth, at one point exclaiming, 'Well someone has to get lost at Hanging Rock!' Not long ago, I found a tiny dried wildflower and a small rock that I had collected that day, sealed in an envelope, carefully labelled. Since that initial visit, I've returned to Hanging Rock numerous times. Each approach rekindles an appreciation of its stately and anomalous nature. It appears like a massive stone idol operating on a different temporal system—an otherworldly entity within its commonplace surrounds.

The Macedon Ranges are part of the Great Dividing Range, a collection of mountain ranges composed of layers of rock formed during colossal volcanic eruptions that took place some 36–370 million years in the past. Hanging Rock emerged as a mamelon formation around 6.25 million years ago, resulting from an eruption of lava through a narrow vent in the underlying bedrock that established a steep-sided volcanic structure. Subsequent eruptions layered additional strata, and Hanging Rock underwent ongoing weathering that led to the evolution of its numerous distinctive formations such as pinnacles, monoliths, caves, and boulders. Over time, Hanging Rock settled into its current configuration, and now stands at a height of 718 metres above sea level. Along with two other nearby mamelons known as Camel’s Hump and Brock’s Monument, it forms a unique volcanic province with more similarities to those in the Eastern Highlands of New South Wales and Queensland than to the volcanic plains found elsewhere in Victoria. Significant mamelons such as Hanging Rock are rare, both within Australia and in an international context. It is considered to be the best example of this type of geological formation in Victoria, and among the most accessible mamelons globally. While its various complex elements are collectively known as Hanging Rock, the titular hanging rock itself is just one among them, being a large boulder resting atop two others that creates a short tunnel and adds an extra layer of intrigue to its geological diagenesis.

Hanging Rock sits within a wider reserve of largely cleared land that has some historical significance as a popular recreational destination. The reserve has hosted bi-annual horse races since the 1860s, alongside seasonal markets, car shows, and various one-off events. In recent years, concerts featuring well-known artists have been held regularly. Hanging Rock has a considerably more extensive history stretching back at least 26,000 years as an important Aboriginal Australian cultural site. It is positioned near the traditional land boundaries of three Aboriginal Australian community groups: the Wurundjeri, the Dja Dja Wurrung, and the Taungurung. Specifically, the Gal Gal Baluk clan of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, the Nira-Bulok clan of the Taungurung people, and the Gunung Willam-Balluk clan of the Wurundjeri people. Although each of these three Traditional Owner groups claim some custodianship of Hanging Rock, the site holds important cultural and spiritual significance for all, emphasising its relevance as a place of shared cultural heritage.

Generally speaking, for the Taungurung, Dja Dja Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples, Hanging Rock encompasses a spectrum of values tied to mythology, resources, and ceremony. It is an integral part of a wide-ranging and interconnected cultural landscape, which includes the mamelon atop Mount Macedon—Camel's Hump—that is visible from Hanging Rock, and situated to the south in Wurundjeri Country. Hanging Rock is positioned just west of the headwaters of Deep Creek, a location identified as a songline and transit route for the Wurundjeri people. It has links to numerous other culturally significant places such as the traditional stone sources of the Dja Dja Wurrung people at Coliban Dam to the north-west, the Goulburn River to the north that runs primarily through Taungurung Country, and Mt. William to the northeast. Within the Hanging Rock precinct, an area known as the East Paddock served as a locale that could accommodate large gatherings of people, where water, food, and shelter were readily available. The Wurundjeri Elders believe the East Paddock was also a ceremonial site with important mythological associations. As a prominent landmark, Hanging Rock likely served as a site for ceremonies and other traditional activities involving assemblies of the three groups. These gatherings encompassed various events such as marriages, conflict resolution, trade, and initiation rituals, marking Hanging Rock as a vital feature in cultural lore.

Multiple archaeological excavations at Hanging Rock have revealed deposits of stone tools, which indicate that the site was occupied and utilised by First Nations people prior to the end of the last Ice Age. Some of the stone sources used to craft the tools found at Hanging Rock came from a considerable distance, supporting accounts that place Hanging Rock within a much larger social and economic network. Archaeological investigations conducted in the East Paddock uncovered a significant number of artifacts made of a type of volcanic glass called tachylite. X-ray fluorescence analysis conducted by La Trobe University demonstrated that this tachylite was obtained from the Coliban River, a journey that would have required several days of walking north on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. At Hanging Rock, the tachylite was likely worked onsite to create tools and implements, which were subsequently used in traditional practices.

Efforts to decisively ascertain Hanging Rock's original name have encountered complications. Some propose 'Anneyelong', derived from an inscription beneath an engraving of Hanging Rock by a German naturalist named William Blandowski. During an expedition of central Victoria in the mid-1850’s, Blandowski and his Aboriginal Australian travelling companions, Sandy and Mackenzie, passed by Hanging Rock, where this name ‘Anneyelong' was likely conveyed to Blandowski by his fellow travellers. It has been more recently suggested by some linguists and Traditional Owners that the linguistically correct spelling of the name might actually be ‘Ngannelong'. The exact meaning of this name remains unclear at this point.

For thousands of years Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung custodians met cultural responsibilities in diligently caring for Hanging Rock. However, following the devastating impacts of European invasion they faced enormous disruption to their way of life, with widespread mortality due to introduced diseases, displacement from their lands, and frontier conflict. Survivors were often forcibly relocated to missions, which were frequently located in places far from their traditional Country, disregarding and dislocating fundamental spiritual, familial, and cultural ties. Only recently have Aboriginal Australian custodians of Hanging Rock received some rightful acknowledgement in the official recognition of its significance as a cultural landscape. The State Government of Victoria and Macedon Ranges Shire Council now recognise First Nations peoples rights to traditional custodianship, and ongoing joint management of Hanging Rock now involves the Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung, and Wurundjeri Traditional Owners playing a role as partners in planning, managing and decision-making. As outlined in the Hanging Rock Strategic Plan, the Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning, in collaboration with the Macedon Ranges Shire Council, the local community, and the three Traditional Owner groups, are developing a master plan for the management of the Hanging Rock Reserve. The draft master plan includes an objective to utilise a network of songline trails to delineate culturally significant places, while another goal is for the three Traditional Owner groups to collectively decide upon a traditional name, leading to the formal retitling of Hanging Rock.

As a place of such cultural significance, Hanging Rock is undoubtedly steeped in numerous stories. According to a traditional tale of the Taungurung people, the long vertical rock formations of its distinctive facade represent young boys (wiylak) who misbehaved during initiation ceremonies. As a consequence of disregarding the ceremony's importance and failing to show adequate respect, the boys were transformed into stone by the creator spirit, Bundjil. Regrettably, there is a scarcity of other documented Aboriginal Australian stories associated with Hanging Rock in the public domain at this stage. Conversely, a more recent and widely circulated one originating from a non-Aboriginal Australian source has influenced some perceptions of this site, and acquired a type of mythological status for more cryptic reasons. First published in 1967, Joan Lindsay’s novel Picnic at Hanging Rock is set at the turn of the twentieth century on Valentine's Day. The plot unfolds as a group of schoolgirls and their teachers embark on a trip to Hanging Rock for a picnic. The disappearance of two students, Miranda and Marion, along with their teacher, Miss McCraw, enfolds the narrative in mystery as Lindsay chose to conclude the book with deliberate ambiguity, leaving their fate unresolved. Despite its fictional nature, Lindsay subtly hinted that the story may have been based on real-life events.

As a child, Lindsay and her family had holidayed in the Macedon Ranges and made several visits to Hanging Rock. Friends recount that she remained captivated by the place throughout her life and generally felt a profound connection to nature. Lindsay asserted that the inspiration for Picnic at Hanging Rock came to her through a series of recurring dreams, which materialised nightly in a consecutive fashion over the course of around a fortnight. Compelled to capture these nocturnal visions, she would wake each morning and rush to transcribe them, completing her novel at a frenetic pace within just a few weeks. This unusual generative process sets the tone for a pervasive theme of dreaming and altered states of consciousness that runs throughout.

While the book was well received upon publication, it acquired further dimensions of richness and notoriety when adapted into a feature film directed by Peter Weir in 1975. A critical and popular success, Picnic at Hanging Rock helped firmly establish Weir’s international reputation. When Weir first approached Lindsay in 1973 to secure the rights for the film adaptation, he expressed curiosity about the enigmatic ending and suggested various explanations. Lindsay refused to confirm or deny his postulations and responded, 'Any of the above’. This obliquity permitted Weir the freedom to hone his own interpretation and vision for the film, to great effect. Picnic at Hanging Rock is now considered to be a cardinal part of the Australian New Wave, a movement in Australian cinema that emerged during a time when the industry had been struggling with an economic downturn. Beginning in the 1970s, it persisted throughout the 1980s and spurred a surge of global interest in Australian cinema. While many films of the Australian New Wave were defined by their distinctive techniques, Picnic at Hanging Rock stood out even in this context, characterised by its enigmatic style and lack of narrative resolution regarding the mysterious disappearances. Rather than providing explicit explanations, it encouraged viewers, as Lindsay had encouraged Weir, to rely on their own instincts, fostering a unique and immersive cinematic experience.

The text transposed into a screenplay by Cliff Green remained faithful to the book, while the addition of Weir's imagery resulted in an adaptation that was visually eloquent and lyrical. Weir infused the film with a sagacity that displayed a notable sensitivity for Hanging Rock itself, evident in impressive shots that capture its many features, especially in the opening scenes wherein certain formations appear to take on the shape of imposing faces. Weir was able to artfully reproduce the mood of the central Victorian summer. Filming in February, he captured its mellow-gold, hazy softness, the languor that descends upon the land, and the soporific sounds of the bush—the rhythmic crescendos of insects and birds executing a kind of lullaby, bringing to life a crucial element of the narrative. To enhance this dream-like atmosphere, Weir experimented with bridal veils placed over the lenses, creating gently diffused images with a glowing, diaphanous quality. The employment of such creative strategies meant Weir's interpretation has an almost mesmerisingly luminous effect that stands as a testament to the synergy between literary and cinematic artistry, and the ability to craft something that transcends the boundaries of the written word.

The effectiveness of the cinematography is enormously enhanced by the evocative soundtrack. The main title music comes from two traditional Romanian panpipe pieces known as doinas, arranged and performed by Gheorghe Zamfir accompanied on organ by Marcel Cellier. The choice of the doina, a traditional form of Romanian music appreciated for its emotional resonance, adds an additional layer of poignancy to the film. The music's delicate, uplifting, yet vaguely disturbing qualities have an almost visceral effect that emphasises the alluring power of Hanging Rock. It becomes a key aspect of the film's enchanting atmosphere, contributing to the creation of a preternatural experience for the audience. Equally bewitching, however, was the use of less standard soundscapes, which used naturally occurring ambient noises in place of more typically melodic ones. Weir has made mention of utilising low-frequency noise inaudible to the human ear at strategic points throughout the film, and of employing reversed recordings of earthquake vibrations in order to generate the thunder-like rumbling and ominous droning sounds that accompany the characters as they traverse the upper reaches of Hanging Rock. In working with sound in this subtle way, Weir was continually manipulating mood while evoking subliminal responses and alerting the viewer to the presence of invisible forces of non-human origin.

The lack of a clear resolution to events was exasperating for many audiences accustomed to clear-cut explanations. This unconventional approach even resulted in an incident wherein one American film distributor threw his coffee cup at the screen in frustration. But perhaps it made a particular kind of sense to Australian audiences, and certainly it invited interpretations based on resonant topics of the time. As a conceptual device in the art and literature of that era, the Australian natural environment was frequently portrayed as brutal and unyielding. The notion of menace in the landscape, and alienation from it, was especially fitting in the non-Aboriginal Australian context, where a psychologically uneasy relationship with the land prevailed in many quarters. Other films from the Australian New Wave such as the riveting Wake in Fright, based on a book by Kenneth Cook, effectively employed such themes. Individuals of European descent were often depicted as foreigners in a hostile territory more akin to another planet than a different continent, armed with an imperative to conquer or be conquered, encouraging a battle-like attitude towards nature. This portrayal painted the landscape as non-nurturing and inaccessible, despite the reality that it was the home of people who had not only survived but thrived for millennia due to its benevolent qualities. While dangers may have existed, exaggerating an antagonistic relationship has historically also served a function for some newcomers to Australia, justifying an often violent takeover that involved wide-spread despoiling and theft. This tendency to perceive the natural world as threatening accordingly influenced the popular conclusion that something sinister had befallen the missing women in Picnic at Hanging Rock.

A cursory interpretation might identify clichéd tropes in text and film of delicate women striving to conform to repressive English standards, with Australia's natural environment depicted as being especially inimical to women, who could only risk the most superficial and guarded contact. The opening scenes of the film are almost cloying, such is the excess of signalling regarding supposed feminine daintiness and folly, involving exchanges of romantic cards and recitations of saccharine poems. But, given that these scenes are also peppered with portentous statements, the lightness is heavily shadowed, and they are possibly more an allusion to the innocence of youth and the fragility of life itself, with the celebration of St. Valentine introducing themes of love and loss. Additionally, while the women appear pliable and obedient at first, it becomes clear that these societal constraints are imposed rather than innate, and given the choice they are to be abandoned at the first opportunity. The central character of Miranda, initially appearing frail and ethereal, later turns out to be bold and intrepid—she engages ardently with the omnipotent thrall of the rock and adopts the role of leader in proceeding beyond the permitted boundaries. These earlier depictions are ultimately superseded by those of women at peace in a place considered dangerous and terrifying to many. A six-part television series made in 2016 makes use of a similar interpretation wherein the characters are anxious to rebel against coerced repression; however, this is conveyed in the more phallocentric and predictable approaches that plague many stories where women feature, and in doing so imparts little of the subtle magic and more complex sensuality of the book or film. A considerable use of artistic licence also effectively renders it a separate entity in spirit.

The suggestion of people vanishing was also poignant, reflecting the historical reality of First Nations people being displaced from once-populous areas, and the conspiracy of silence given legislative stature in the fallacious doctrine of Terra Nullius, leaving Australia with something akin to a haunted landscape. The history of these forced removals remained largely unwritten and unacknowledged. Additionally, the contemporary presence of First Nations people was not even officially recognised. 1967, the year of the novel's publication, was also a defining period for Australia, as it marked the amendment of the Australian Constitution to finally include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as equal members of the population, with the Commonwealth able to make laws regarding them. Prior to this change, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had been explicitly omitted from the census count and subject to differing state laws and prejudicial policies rooted in assimilationist ideologies. This discriminatory exclusion denied First Nations people their presence and history in their own country and was fundamental in propagating the fiction that they had effectively ceased to exist.

The fact that these interpretations may not necessarily align with the creative goals of Lindsay or Weir does not diminish their validity. Impactful works of art usually serve as catalysts for discussion. While some view Picnic at Hanging Rock as a symbolic commentary on the dysfunctional European relationship with Australia and its First Nations people, it's worthwhile recognising that the subjective nature of appraising creative works allows for multiple coexisting perspectives. Lindsay herself encouraged diverse interpretations of her work, and emphasised its multifarious nature. These thematic conjectures are legitimate, but I do not think they were the dominant intentions in the minds of Lindsay or Weir. In a 1976 interview, Weir emphasises his lack of interest in such ideas: 'Australian books tend to concentrate on the idea of being an Australian, on fitting into your environment, on what the country means to you, on the crisis of a European man trying to fit into an alien environment at the bottom of the world... And these things have never interested me at all’. Similarly, Lindsay frequently expressed her love rather than distaste for the Australian landscape. As an artist, she reportedly said that she aimed for the novel be a kind of 'atmosphere of place' that captured something of its essential nature, much as a painting might. The sense of unease engendered by both novel and film is the product of an expert conveyance of the incomparable ambience and aesthetic values of Hanging Rock itself. The intentions of both seem more likely to have been to induce a sense of reverence and veneration, rather than perpetuate a message of estrangement or conflict. As a consequence, the central element of both book and film that predominantly ignited audience imaginations was Hanging Rock itself.

In the opening sequence of the movie, Hanging Rock is revealed as a curtain of mist drops away, and this establishes the rock as the dominant character in the narrative. The inherent magnetism of this ancient place coupled with the uniqueness of its geological features would always mean that it would command attention, but the representation of its majesty through these and other similarly beguiling shots brought it to a world stage, inspiring admiration and curiosity. How did such a place come into being, and what lies behind its formidable power to transfix? Humans are often driven to construct stories to explain gaps in our knowledge or regarding things that especially inspire us—this storytelling tendency is the basis of many belief systems around the world. In particular, especially captivating landscapes fascinate, and can inspire both creative processes and strong emotional reactions that can lead to personal transformation. The visual impact of Hanging Rock summoned up the shared human capacity for receptiveness to numinous locations. The audience senses that there is something unknowable about this place. It prompts feelings of awe and a type of comfort, while simultaneously generating an awareness of our fragility and transience compared to its permanence. The Taungurung story is one example of recognising our reflection in landscapes, and the many different ways in which we may connect with a place because of what we have inferred.

Many cultures around the world have legends associated with places that seem to yield this particularly resonant quality that stirs the senses, this heightened spiritual or transcendent quality. Irish Celtic folklore refers to such places as 'thin places’. This concept holds that these are locations where the boundary between the visible and invisible worlds is considered more porous, allowing for a closer connection to the sacred and the unseen. Hanging Rock appears to have been a type of thin place for Lindsay. Her fascination with the site began in her early years and persisted throughout her life. Lindsay was described by friends as a kind of mystic with a profound sensitivity to the natural world, and was believed by some to possess an extraordinary awareness. At times it seemed she could sense things that others couldn't, and reportedly, there were many occasions of her knowing details about the past or predicting future events without pertinent information being provided beforehand. It's conceivable that Lindsay had a deeper sensitivity to place than is typical for several reasons, making her well-suited to convey something intrinsic yet challenging to articulate precisely. It seems credible that perhaps Lindsay's novel was an attempt to give a framework and form to the subjective impressions elicited by Hanging Rock, and although many now associate it inextricably with her creation, it was Hanging Rock that defined the shape of the book and not the other way around.

The popularity of Picnic at Hanging Rock resulted in the construction of an additional mythology of place. Such was the evocative impact of the narrative that genuine confusion arose regarding its fictional nature. Lindsay's intentional vagueness contributed, but the rendering of Hanging Rock as inscrutable and supranormal encouraged a widely felt intuition that it could very feasibly be a place where the inexplicable might occur—somewhere people could seemingly vanish into thin air. The alchemy of Lindsay's writing combined with Weir's cinematic adroitness, replete with haunting musical score, pierced both the conscious and unconscious and made the story seem far more real than imagined. Debate persisted for years regarding whether the story was based on actual historical events, despite there being no evidence of any such things occurring. Many felt compelled to solve the mystery and various theories, essays, and articles circulated, along with books of hypothetical solutions that went into greater depth, such as The Murders at Hanging Rock by Yvonne Rousseau in 1980. Lindsay was repeatedly asked about this strange phenomenon throughout her life and expressed surprise at the time people invested. Lindsay's publisher was dismissive of these efforts, but Lindsay, although somewhat nonplussed, asserted, 'Yes, but something did happen', as though the facts were in some way unclear even to her. Anne Lambert, the actor who played Miranda, recalls her first meeting with Lindsay as being somewhat unusual. During a break from filming, Lambert and Lindsay came across one another, and Lambert remembers Lindsay's first words as being, 'Miranda, it's been so long!’ A heartfelt embrace followed, and Lambert says Lindsay had tears in her eyes—the moment was as authentically moving as if a true reunion was taking place. This indicates that there were genuinely aspects of this story that had a sort of reality for Lindsay, whether because of the experiential nature of the dream state that was its genesis, or because there were secrets known only to her that she had left purposefully unrevealed.

Picnic at Hanging Rock was famous for its lack of resolution, and this was central to its success and popularity. However, years after the book’s initial publication, it was revealed that a final chapter existed that explained the girls' fates, which had been excised by Lindsay's publisher prior to publication. This eighteenth chapter was published at Lindsay's request after her death as a standalone book in 1987 titled The Secret of Hanging Rock, and its release caused some controversy as it differs notably in style from the rest of the book. In contrast to the preceding chapters, The Secret of Hanging Rock has an almost stream-of-consciousness style, with some elements more aligned with science fiction. Opinions on this final chapter are mixed, with many feeling that it adds no value to the original text and instead detracts from it. Some even question its authenticity, so thoroughly does it deviate. Nonsensical conversations and descriptions of fantastical events like corsets floating in the air baffled people. A whirling vortex appearing in space took things into distinctly surreal territory. In particular, those who have attempted to parse this chapter’s full meaning often write about the almost Dadaist fatuity of the newly reappeared mathematics teacher 'turning into a crab'—the peak of absurdism via which this chapter was wholly denigrated. Upon closer reading, one might see that this is not so literally stated, yet it is still cited frequently as the kind of smoking gun that proves Lindsay had lost her way and that the publishers had unquestionably made the right decision to exclude the chapter. One contributor to a book of various theories who personally favoured a landslide explanation opined that to explain the mystery using 'inconsistent, supernatural, or far-fetched reasoning' degraded the reputation of 'both Joan Lindsay and of the novel itself’. One can imagine, given her knowledge of the withheld chapter as well as her interest in the esoteric throughout her life, that Lindsay might have found this severe attitude entertaining. It seemed that while so many people had wanted to know what had happened and had expended considerable time in puzzling it out, the resolution provided only left many frustrated because it so adamantly defies logic. The narrative up to this point makes sense, even if the conclusion is not entirely satisfactory, whereas The Secret of Hanging Rock takes a running leap into indisputably supernatural waters. Its existence remains mostly overlooked or consciously ignored, almost like an embarrassing relative. Due to this general dismissal, many people have no idea it even exists or that the famous mystery concerning the disappearances has been solved. Regardless, it appears that when offered this denouement, the preference is to retain the antecedent mystery along with its more morbid possibilities.

A later scene in both novel and film sees the characters Irma, Marion, and Miranda silently ascend the higher elevations of Hanging Rock, then disappear into a passage behind a monolith. Their fellow student Edith pleads with them to come back, but is ignored. The scene concludes with a solitary Edith screaming repeatedly in profound psychic agitation. This is the last we see of Marion and Miranda in the version of the narrative that most are familiar with. The Secret of Hanging Rock unfolds from this point. The departure from the preceding style begins immediately with language that infers something deeply peculiar has occurred:

'It is happening now. As it has been happening ever since Edith Horton ran stumbling and screaming towards the plain. As it will go on happening until the end of time. The scene is never varied by so much as the falling of a leaf or the flight of a bird. To the four people on the Rock it is always acted out in the tepid twilight of a present without a past. Their joys and agonies are forever new’.

These abstruse opening lines appear to allude to a quantum understanding of time as being non-linear, suggesting that the past, present, and future might coexist concurrently. Lindsay was reportedly fascinated by a curious tale involving two English academics named Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain. The two women reported that while walking in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles one afternoon in 1901, they entered a region of the gardens where they encountered people clothed in late eighteenth-century dress, including Marie Antoinette herself. Titled An Adventure, their account of this experience was published in 1911 (using pseudonyms), and inspired considerable debate—no surprise given the women were claiming to have engaged in some kind of time travel. In writing, 'As it will go on happening until the end of time. The scene is never varied by so much as the falling of a leaf or the flight of a bird' Lindsay seems to be envisioning a variation of this strange episode, wherein a moment in time has somehow become embedded within a location, and can be accessed given certain conditions. Possibly, parts of Hanging Rock may be able to absorb events and serve as a repository of experience—the rock acting as a type of holographic plate—with this scene latent within it and reanimated by a specific type of light perhaps, replaying over and over, forever.

Having passed beyond the monolith and upon reaching another plateau, the girls are overcome with a profound lethargy that has them lie down and drift into a sleep so deep that a lizard feels secure enough to curl up in the crook of Marion's arm. Miranda awakens first and is greeted by 'a colourless twilight in which every detail was intensified, every object clearly defined and separate’. Shortly afterwards, more reference to this kind of hyper-sense or hallucinogenic state Miranda seems to be experiencing is made when Miranda hears the separate beating of Irma and Marion’s hearts while they still sleep. It becomes evident that choosing to venture through the passage behind the monolith involved a sort of initiation into an alternate reality, and the plateau they arrived upon is some kind of divergent dimension that operates as a transition point where the usual laws and limitations do not apply. The intimation is made early on that Hanging Rock is no ordinary place when it is noticed that several people's watches have suddenly stopped—the science fiction elements now introduced expand upon preexisting philosophical concepts rather than contradict them. Shortly after the other girls rouse themselves, an older woman bursts through the shrubs that border the plateau, ecstatically crying 'Through!' before collapsing to the ground in a faint. The girls do not seem to recognise her, nor she they, yet the narration suggests she is their mathematics teacher, Miss McCraw. Miranda loosens the woman’s corset to help revive her, and the girls then decide to remove their own and throw them over a nearby cliff. The corsets appear to hover statically in mid-air, while Miss McCraw propounds that they are 'stuck fast in time'. Miss McCraw seems perfectly at ease, even jubilant, and it appears she has arrived exactly where she hoped or expected to: 'I perceive that I have discarded a good deal of clothing. However, here I am. The pressure on my physical body must have been very severe’. This statement suggests that she was even quite well prepared, acknowledging that travelling through inter-dimensional portals is not necessarily easy on the body and there is no guarantee of arriving unscathed, hence her exhilaration upon arrival.

While the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics didn't acquire its formal name until 1970, it’s plausible that Lindsay was acquainted with its underlying concepts as proposed by American physicist Hugh Everett III in 1957. The MWI suggests the existence of numerous parallel worlds coexisting simultaneously in the same space and time as our own. Everett's hypothesis involves the idea of the universe ‘splitting’ into different versions when confronted with quantum choices. In the MWI, our reality is just one amongst an endless array of universes, all existing in the same physical space but evolving independently and isolated from one another. These universes contain replicas of individuals living lives that are almost indistinguishable yet unfold independently. This theory seems to align to a certain degree with the experiences of the characters on the plateau, where they perceive each other with a sense of familiarity yet notice subtle differences. After Miss McCraw comments on the corsets, Marion says to her, 'I didn’t mean to stare. Only when you said that about time I had such a funny feeling that I had met you somewhere. A long time ago’. It appears they have not yet integrated completely with these other versions of themselves, or they have retained their previous form, which now strives to adjust to this newly accessed universe, where everything is slightly mismatched and time does not operate on a simple continuum.

In the concluding pages of The Secret of Hanging Rock, the girls notice a snake lying beside a crack running underneath the lower of two massive boulders that are balanced on top of each other. After the snake slithers away behind some vines, they pull away the vegetation and reveal a hole in the ground, possibly the entrance to a cave or tunnel, into which the snake has disappeared. Understanding that they should follow, Miss McCraw requests to go first, saying that once inside she will rap on the rock to signal to the next person to join her. Contorting herself into a crab-like shape, she flattens herself upon the ground and is thus able to slip through the narrow opening. Here is the much derided point at which McGraw 'turns into a crab'. However, what is actually written is less literal. Given the somewhat jumbled together imagery of crab-like features, human body parts and clothing, it seems more likely to have been a purely fanciful descriptive passage, especially as the two who follow apparently have no need to shape-shift in order to enter. Marion follows after receiving the agreed-upon tapping signal. After her departure, Irma suddenly becomes very reluctant to enter the hole, and implores Miranda not to go 'down there’. Miranda, however, is excited about the coming adventure and eagerly approaches upon hearing her cue. Irma waits, but no signal comes. Eventually, one of the boulders falls precisely over the entrance to the hole, denying Irma ingress.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, with and without the addition of the eighteenth chapter, transcends straightforward storytelling and delves into the mythic. The act of entering the hole/cave correlates with numerous ancient myths that involve passages through an underworld. Caves have historically been venerated by pagans as places of magical energy, and associated with landscapes of spiritual significance in various traditions. They frequently symbolise thresholds of transformation, connecting the material and ethereal realms, and venturing into an underworld through caves is a process commonly linked with transmutative journeys after death. It's noteworthy that those granted entry to this symbolic underworld at Hanging Rock possess character traits that make them well-suited for such potential metamorphosis. Miranda, with her love of nature and philosophical inclinations, Marion, a kind of natural scientist, and Miss McCraw, a mathematician—a poet in her own way, fluent in the language of Pythagoras and the music of the spheres. These characters all have the capacity to see beyond the superficial and are more attuned to appreciating abstract existence and its miracles.

At least part of the reason why Picnic at Hanging Rock affected people deeply was likely because it contained these genuinely mythological aspects familiar across many cultures that appear in parables reflecting human challenges, encompassing universal themes like birth, death, and the afterlife. Mythic elements such as supernatural phenomena, journeying, and transformation are all evidenced in the narrative, and many sections appear to have a dual meaning due to subtly inlaid archetypal symbolism. The ultimately mythological nature of the story becomes especially clear in The Secret of Hanging Rock, when a kind of hero's quest culminates for the chosen few who stand at the threshold of entry into another level of existence. Even the way in which the story originated has mythological features, coming in dream form like messages from an otherworld. Throughout the novel and film, a pervasive theme of dreaming is evident—the opening scenes of the film could not make this more clear when a voice recites a paraphrasing of Edgar Allen Poe: 'All that we are, and all that we seem, is but a dream within a dream.' Characters drift in and out of sleep, waking up in altered realities, as is the case in many mythological tales. Obviously, discussing dreaming and landscapes in the Australian context could be a reference to Aboriginal Australian beliefs concerning the Dreamtime, but I think Lindsay perhaps had the sensitivity and humility not to try and appropriate culturally specific concepts inlaid with multiple layers of meaning, and instead relied on her own feeling for place and her interpretation of its psychic space.

The sense of impending grief subtly introduced from the beginning permeates, generating a melancholy undercurrent that flows beneath the surface frivolity. As the character Miranda begins her initial ascent of Hanging Rock, she turns and waves, and although she has promised to return soon we see finality in this gesture, especially as Miranda has already advised her devoted friend Sara to find others to love as she 'won’t be here much longer’. The anguish the events that followed provoked in many was another of the defining impacts of Picnic at Hanging Rock. The film’s aesthetic beauty and pace, which bestowed an almost hypnotic quality, contributed to the audience's connection with the characters and created for some a deep emotional investment. Many felt a real sense of loss following the disappearances, especially that of Miranda. Anne Lambert has spoken in interviews of being approached and embraced by complete strangers who recognise her from the film. There is a palpable air of relief as they do so, reassuring themselves that Miranda is still here, and not lost after all.

Although the inferences to parallel universes seem clear in the concluding chapter, there are also indicators implying that the foreshadowed deaths have occurred, although this is not directly stated. The disorientating circumstances and altered behaviour of the girls upon awakening on the plateau, along with their disordered dialogue, have a similarity to the chaos that often follows bereavement, both for those left behind and perhaps for the departed themselves. Such a scenario would correspond in some ways with the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the Bardo—an intermediate state between life and death—wherein all manner of singular phenomena can occur as the newly disembodied consciousness reckons with the transmutational process, and the arrival into a new form and sensory reality. The confusion described mirrors the real-life experience of grappling with the profundity of death and its associated changes. The characters become new to one another in a place where old connections no longer exist and where memories are of no more substance than a dream. Despite exhibiting heightened perception and apparent memory loss regarding aspects of their identities and each other, there is a lack of distress over this, contrary to conventional expectations. The act of discarding their corsets becomes emblematic of their entry into non-material existence or, at the very least, a new existence detached from the material world. The plateau is conceivably an intermediate space between earthbound existence and the disincarnate—a type of antechamber—and the three individuals who venture into the hole are evidently passing completely from their former state of being with no option to return—the falling boulder makes this demarcation clear. The slightly disparate element here is Irma, who, while allowed to experience this space, is not able to progress further. At this transitional juncture, it appears that she could choose to go in either direction, but the choice was made for her. Perhaps her expression of apprehension and reluctance was enough to have an invitation rescinded. However, although she eventually returns to the world, it seems that she was not untouched by the strange conditions experienced in this in-between region. When found after several days, she is barefoot and unharmed, with no signs of injury or the effects of exposure to be expected after such a period of time.

As Irma waited in vain to receive her signal, her gaze fixed on the colourless sky, she asked aloud, 'Where were they going? Where was anyone going? Why, oh why, had Miranda thrust her bright head into a dark hole in the ground?' This echoes the unanswerable questions that arise when confronted with the incomprehensible, that those grieving often grapple with when faced with an irrevocably altered life and severed bonds. In subsequent moments after the boulder falls, Irma, in her misery, flings herself upon it, tearing and beating at it with her bare hands, expressing the wordless horror of the realisation that she will never see them again. Her desperate cries of distress and grief embody a stark recognition of mortality and our inherent powerlessness. This scene conveys the devastation of sudden and absolute absence, when a loved one precedes you into the unknown, and the inconceivable extinguishment of something bright and alive. In a way, this entire last chapter's uncompromising and abrupt nature reflects in its overall form the surreal and awkward realities of death—the lack of closure, the unresolved business, and the untidy endings that can characterise the aftermath of loss.

The Secret of Hanging Rock actually harmonises unreservedly with what is in aggregate a deeply metaphysical story, based at first on sensorial impressions and gestated in a subliminal dream state—states that don’t always make sense except perhaps in a sort of intuitive feeling of rightness. Dreams reveal variances of reality that, by their very nature, seem resistant to language; honing them into a logical narrative often necessitates the dissolution of the original impulse. In this concluding chapter, Lindsay gives the dream language its head and makes little effort to shape it into the tidy structure of the preceding chapters, polished down to a more palatable end product. If one is able to shrug off the meaning constructed through decades of understanding the incomplete story as a particular thing, one sees that rather than being an aberration, the last chapter makes sense of numerous allusions that appear earlier in the text and brings together all these themes of love, loss, longing, separation, and transition. The book is revealed as something far superior to a discourse upon nature as something intimidating and ever-ready to chasten the trespasser, and far more than an unusually engrossing thriller. Instead, it is a journey between worlds upon an ancient site with the apparent power to facilitate metamorphosis, permitting something exceptional to come into being. Although many were apparently unimpressed, it is salient to note that despite its divisive nature, Lindsay specifically wanted The Secret of Hanging Rock to be published. And while it is often pointed out that it was still in draft form as a way of perhaps invalidating it, the fact is that Lindsay certainly had plenty of time to tweak and correct it in the close to two decades between its writing and her death. If she had wanted to fully accept the verdict of her publisher that her novel was better without it, she could have, but she didn’t. I assume that although many are clearly dissatisfied with it, she was not.

While the mystery of what happened to the schoolgirls and their teacher is ostensibly resolved, in some ways their fate remains uncertain, leaving room for yet more interpretations. It would seem one of the most important things to keep in mind when trying to decipher this eighteenth chapter is that it is not sensible, it is unapologetically illogical, which conversely makes the most sense. Events may seem irrational, but they are perfectly coherent in dream vernacular, in that of a parallel universe, or if occurring in an atypical state. The uncertainty revolves around whether the characters have actually died, leading to an afterlife scenario, or if they have embarked on travel through multiple universes. However, it appears that it is not necessarily one or the other, and rather that there is a fusion of concepts involving liminal states that suggest death is not to be feared as it is not a categorical end. It may well be that the afterlife is when we see science fiction made real. Every possible interpretation might be valid, especially in the context of a discussion of the Many Worlds Interpretation, wherein Everett suggested that our belief in a single outcome of a measurement is a limitation. In truth, all possible outcomes occur simultaneously. While we may perceive only one reality, others exist independently with their own.

The beautifully poetic final chapter enriches and elucidates the rest of the text, and to surmise otherwise deprives one of an appreciation of the far greater breadth of Lindsay's objectives for her work. An expectation of menace leads some to prefer to interpret Picnic at Hanging Rock as a murder mystery, which in turn colours some perspectives of place. With The Secret of Hanging Rock, these vengeful notions are dispelled—this was never Lindsay’s intention. Rather than emphasising threat and otherness, Lindsay suggests the possibility of harmonious blending, encouraging connection between humanity and the natural world. Hanging Rock is not a malicious deity waiting to distribute punishment to interlopers; for those who greet it with joy, appreciation, and trust, it is embracing—a nexus of gateways, a location existing beyond the constraints of time. Hanging Rock is reinforced as a site for transition and initiation, as it has been over many millennia, esteemed by Aboriginal Australians as a meeting place and ceremonial ground. It is a mystical, primordial realm that emanates a distinctive atmosphere as a citadel of ancient power, whose rocks retain the records of ages, and where deeply human, cross-cultural myths converge. Rather than a macabre vanishing point, it is a place of awakening, and arrival into new worlds of illumination.

Western District Lakes

In the western reaches of Victoria lies a vast enclave of rolling plains and pools of water that glisten like mirrors. This is the Western District Lakes area, an expanse of bucolic tranquillity nestled within the Corangamite Shire, with the towns of Camperdown to the south-west and Cressy to the north. But this superficial serenity is deceptive—the real essence of the place lurks beneath the outwardly homogenous surface. The pleasant vistas promise peace, but it is instead a place of constant motion. The wind seldom abates, and so there is a kind of incessant agitation in the frequently shifting light and the rippling grasses that shield the earth. It can be somewhat disorientating, and the gusts are strong enough at times that it feels as though one might lose their footing and be carried away. It is a world best suited to creatures in flight, gliding through the sky high above the shimmering sheets of water.

When I first encountered this place I felt mildly perplexed. It was picturesque but vaguely unsettling; it was a while before I identified what was prompting this unease. I realised it was the paucity of trees, with those present for the most part situated strategically to act as windbreaks. Intended as nominal protection for crops and livestock against the strong winds that sweep the plains, these trees are themselves twisted and misshapen by exposure to the elements, hunched over in defensive positions. Yet despite such hints at formidable forces, the landscape appears generally tamed and subdued—a picture of pastoral benevolence and a land conquered.

The extensive wetlands that comprise the Western District Lakes are internationally recognised and were designated a Ramsar site in 1982. Although the region has many lakes, only nine are included in relation to the Ramsar listing. Eight of these are saline, while Lake Terangpom is the sole freshwater lake. These lakes support a diverse range of bird species, including migratory shorebirds. Lake Corangamite is the biggest of the lakes in the area, covering approximately 230 square kilometres and having a circumference of 150 kilometres. These statistics make it the largest permanent saline lake in Australia. The Indigenous name for the lake is Kronimite, and it contains much evidence of a long history of human habitation, archaeologists having uncovered various stone artefacts scattered within its basin.

I lived out here when I was younger, but it wasn’t until years later that I realised this place was more than it appeared. I had known there were two volcanoes within the western district region—Mt. Leura at Camperdown and Tower Hill near Koroit—but I considered them defunct vestiges of a prehistoric past. I was stunned to learn these volcanoes were not extinct at all but dormant, and that this compliant pastureland was in fact a dynamic volcanic field awash in diverse characteristics, yielding prolific evidence of more cataclysmic times. It is known as the Newer Volcanics Province, and it covers an expanse of 15,000 square kilometres. This geological area stretches from Melbourne, Victoria, to Mt. Gambier, South Australia, and is home to over 400 volcanoes. The Newer Volcanics Province was most eruptive between 4.5 million and 5,000 years ago; however, volcanologists consider the field to be ‘active’ with the likelihood of future eruptions. There is currently no estimate available as to when the next eruption will take place.   

The landscape of western Victoria has been heavily influenced by volcanic activity, and related features appear across the plains in a variety of forms that range from small hills to towering peaks, the highest of which is Mt. Elephant rising 380 metres above sea level near the town of Derrinallum. Around the Lakes region, lava flows formed a flat to undulating basaltic plain that is dotted with scoria cones and maars. The lakes system consists of deep crater lakes as well as hundreds of shallow lakes and wetlands formed by the blocking of streams by other lava flows. Lake Corangamite is one such lake, formed when occluded streams were diverted into depressions created from volcanic activity. The salinity of these lakes can vary greatly from fresh to hypersaline due to factors such as the type of basalt substrate, seasonal variations, and catchment-to-surface area ratios. There are also variations in colour due to high mineral concentrations in some, which result in blue or greenish shades.

This area has some of the most consistent rainfall in Victoria, resulting in fertile volcanic soils that have supported human life for millennia. The Djargurd Wurrong are the Traditional Owners of much of this region and are made up of twelve clans that each have their own language, traditions, and territory. According to local oral histories, the Djargurd Wurrong witnessed volcanic activity firsthand, and many place names reference this. Archaeological evidence also supports these ancient accounts passed down through the generations. It is believed that First Nations people transformed the landscape through the judicious use of fire over many thousands of years. This changed the appearance of the native bushland, with large areas of forest being replaced by open grasslands. When the first Europeans arrived in the area, they noted that the ground was blackened in some places due to burning—now thought to be the result of a method called fire-stick farming. This was implemented in a carefully regulated way in order to stimulate new pasture growth, maintain species diversity, and make hunting easier.

Prior to European arrival, the native vegetation would have consisted of damp sclerophyll forests and grasslands, with many areas densely timbered in Eucalypts with a thick understory of bracken and shrubs. The woodlands provided a habitat for a wide range of species, such as kangaroos, possums, wallabies, emus, and koalas, and the lakes supported plentiful aquatic and bird species. The swathes of open grasslands made it almost immediately suitable for livestock and agriculture, and when the first Europeans arrived they set to work clearing the land further and erecting fences using stone cleared from the ground in order to protect livestock from predators and delineate boundaries.

The original landscape has consequently been radically altered, reduced to fragments preserved in reserves or on difficult-to-develop terrain; some volcanic ridges and crater regions situated in excessively stony ground still retain some of their original features. However, the majority of the land has been heavily modified, with trees and shrubs mostly found in windbreaks or along water courses. The destruction of the original floral landscape is almost complete as a result of livestock grazing and cropping. The grasslands, once abundant with perennial and annual flowering plants, have been stripped of their diversity, including the once abundant Yam Daisy (Myrnong), which was a vital source of starch for local First Nations people. Several of the volcanic rises have been mined for the scoria gravel contained within and bear unsightly gashes from this practice.

In certain weather, especially during the colder months, this mostly treeless landscape with its dry stone walls can evoke a wild yet melancholic atmosphere reminiscent of the English moors or the west of Ireland. This is perhaps not so surprising given that many of the first generations of European arrivals hailed from that part of the globe and sought to replicate the aesthetics of their homeland in this unfamiliar place. While many wrote home of the lush and arable plains in glowing terms, not all early descriptions were positive. Some settlers expressed antipathy, feeling discomfited by the dramatic landscape and the alien vegetation. Social isolation and the perceived harshness of their surroundings led to a rush to domesticate what appeared to the European eye as an uncontrolled wilderness. Their evident success at times engenders a strange feeling; the pillaged environs are the outcome of a drive to repress a fundamentally vital landscape. Although attractive in some aspects, it is as though something has been forced into a subterfuge it can’t quite pull off. The ghosts of past landscapes linger, making one uneasy about this deception.

As the number of Europeans in the district increased in the late 1830s and early 1840s,  Aboriginal land was rapidly appropriated by squatters. This land theft and pastoralist dominance had a catastrophic impact on their way of life, which had been finely balanced for tens of thousands of years. First Nations people were shut out of their traditional hunting grounds and lost access to water sources and traditional sites of great cultural importance and utility. This invasion also caused severe loss of life through disease and frontier conflict. Many Europeans established themselves on vast tracts of land known as ‘runs’, and by the mid-1840s, most of the grazeable land in the region had been taken.

While delicate terms such as ‘took up’ (a run) proliferate throughout the annals of Australian history, they obscure the brutal reality of colonisation. Repeatedly, one will encounter other sanitising euphemisms such as ‘settled’ but this is obfuscatory language related directly to the fiction of ‘Terra Nullius’ (belonging to no one). This language implies that the First Nations people of Australia willingly gave up their land and autonomy to European invaders, rather than having it taken from them through force and duplicity. It erases the suffering and trauma experienced as a result of European invasion and presents a false narrative of First Nations peoples apparent acceptance of it.

It is a matter of record that across Australia there was determined resistance and wide-spread frontier violence.  Propagation of a version of colonisation involving peaceable acquiescence is misleading and disrespectful. The First Nations cultures of Australia were, and remain, intellectually and spiritually advanced, with complex systems of law and customs that include a deep sense of responsibility and connection to the land, developed over many millennia. This is not something that they would have relinquished without a fight. Despite the immense challenges they faced, they were able to organise themselves strategically and fight against the colonists in skirmishes and attacks. In some cases, they were able to successfully resist the invaders for a prolonged period, which is remarkable considering the odds against them and the numerous unfair advantages held by the encroaching side. Ultimately, however, it became impossible to continue fighting against firearms, poison, and diseases to which they had no immunity. In numerous cases colonists took retaliatory measures, which often had tragic consequences. There are several documented accounts of massacres in the Western District Lakes area, plus many more across the entire Western District, which was once referred to as "a distant field of murder", as noted in Jan Critchett's book of the same name, first published in 1990. This book details some of the more than one hundred separate massacres and killings that have been recorded in this part of Victoria alone, many of which occurred in the initial years of European arrival between 1839 and 1842. These are just the ones that have been formally recorded—Aboriginal oral histories in this region speak of more.

. . .

Bordering the western side of Lake Corangamite is a small rural locality named Leslie Manor. Originally known as the Punpundah Estate, it was one of the immense ‘runs’ that were established in the area. The 18000-acre property, located between Foxhow and Pomborneit, was obtained by John Hastie and Samuel Proudfoot Hawkins in 1841 and later sold to pastoralist George Russell in 1867. Russell renamed the estate Leslie Manor in honour of his wife, who passed away shortly after the purchase. Russell is a prominent and respected figure in Western District history; however, the manner in which he achieved this status appears questionable. An obituary for Russell published in The Argus in 1888 describes his close involvement in plans to eradicate the Indigenous population in Tasmania, and on more than one occasion he made ‘one of a party’ participating in reprisal attacks against the First Nations people around the Geelong region.

Leslie Manor remained one huge property until it was divided into smaller land parcels for soldier settlers in the early 20th century. When I lived there all the farms were functioning, and the days were replete with the sounds of animals and industry, but the country is far quieter now. My home was surrounded by lakes, and when I was told of the weirdness of the different salinity levels I was fascinated— it seemed a kind of magic that one could be salt and another just a few hundred metres away, freshwater. I was told that a small saline one nearby named Lake Bulkil Narra was full of rubbish — discarded farming paraphernalia, tyres, old cars. I pictured fully intact FJ Holdens sedately parked on the floor of the lake. I’d often come here and gaze at the steel-coloured surface hoping for something to be revealed, but it never was.

There wasn’t a lot to do besides ramble along the dirt roads that dissected the flat land and take in the lakes and big skies. The two most notable landmarks were the telecom exchange at the end of the road and the small Leslie Manor hall—still used occasionally for community events but nowhere near as frequently as it had been in the past when it functioned as a school, dance hall, church, and general gathering place. I recall sneaking in through an unlocked window and rifling through a filing cabinet in search of something salacious. I was forced to make do with perusing old Country Women's Association meeting minutes, which contained a total lack of intrigue and made little sense to me.  A few years ago I returned to visit the area, as I have done several times over the years. Stopping at the hall, I was startled to see it dressed in a fresh coat of paint. Peering through a window, I could see it had been converted into a sort of Airbnb. A kitchen setting, couch and beds had replaced the faded vinyl chairs and laminated tables. The tuneless upright piano and the tinted photograph of Elizabeth II fresh from her coronation had all been removed. A little saddened by what some would call progress, I began walking away just as a slightly intimidating and distinctly incongruous black Mercedes SUV pulled up to the gate. By random chance it was the new owner, territorial instincts aflame upon seeing me on what was now his property.

Once I had explained myself he was welcoming, and enthused at length about his new property, with something of the air of the landed gentry glorying in his largesse. He had purchased a substantial amount of land in the area, and amongst his holdings was the original Punpundah homestead, which he used as a sort of weekender several times a year rather than a primary residence. I remembered coming across this place on one of my long walks, and I wondered to myself how holidaying at such a place could ever be a relaxing proposition. It was high summer, the paddocks famished and the light bright. I was walking aimlessly down yet another unsealed track when, unexpectedly, I spotted a crop of bluestone buildings some distance from the road. Built in the 1840’s, the large main house and its accompanying outbuildings resembled a penal colony, crouching in dour isolation amongst long golden grass dappled with strokes of silver under the scorching summer sky. I shuddered even though it was a hot day. There seemed something admonitory about it, and I felt I had stumbled across a place I had no business being.

As we walked around the grounds of the hall, the new owner highlighted unique characteristics and detailed future plans. In his unguarded enthusiasm, he brought to mind a child who had collected a new toy for his play set. He appeared lightly charmed by his own altruism in saving a place of local value, despite the irony of having now turned it into a private residence available for rent. My attention began to drift as I became engulfed in memories. When he paused, I ventured to share some, but his polite disinterest conveyed to me clearly that he preferred his own vision of the past and that of the future. I returned to my role as audience, but as he resumed his synopsis of improvements, my thoughts again began to stray. I remembered a long-ago auction when the hall still operated as a community hub. Farmers from the surrounding area gathered inside on a rainy day, their boots tracking mud across the floorboards. Steam from the heat of bodies and breath fogged up the windows, and the earthy smell of damp driza-bones mingled with the slightly dusty smell of the old timber building. It was perhaps a year before the wool crash, but everyone knew by now that the signs were ominous. I was just a child with no comprehension of these adult concerns, but I do remember vividly the loaded atmosphere and the sombre mood. The eyes bright with repressed, unrelenting strain, as the twilight of an era descended, and the inevitable loomed around the corner. Like a relic from the days of Punpundah, this new rural overlord before me would never know the anxiety in that room, moments before catastrophe.

The wool industry has long been a significant contributor to Australia's export income. In order to stabilise wool prices and mitigate fluctuations, the Australian Wool Commission established the Australian Wool Reserve Price Scheme in November 1970. This price floor scheme was later taken over by the Australian Wool Corporation in January 1973. They were to purchase wool when the price fell below the floor price, with the scheme being funded through a levy on wool sold by farmers. The Reserve Price Scheme functioned fairly effectively until 1987, when the Wool Council of Australia was formed and took over the responsibility of setting the floor price. They set the price at 830 cents per kilogram, which artificially inflated confidence among wool producers and encouraged them to increase production. As a result, farmers purchased more sheep and produced substantially larger volumes of wool than they would have had they been receiving the real market prices at the time.

Around this time, for a variety of reasons, the wool market began to show signs of collapse. Some of these reasons included a decrease in purchases from major buyers such as China and Russia, a shift towards other textiles, and a decrease in demand for luxury goods such as wool due to the global economic downturn. Despite these challenges, the Australian Wool Corporation and the Wool Council of Australia  continued to refuse to lower the floor price, even as the Australian Wool Corporation depleted its buying reserves and began borrowing, and a massive surplus of unsalable wool accumulated in warehouses across the country. Their obstinacy led to the Wool Crisis of 1990-91, which caused global wool prices and production to plummet.

This was one of the most colossal business disasters in Australia’s history. One of the major reasons for it was the change in governance arrangements that had led to increased political pressure to raise the guaranteed minimum floor price to unsustainable levels. Another factor was the resolute refusal of decision makers to admit that they had made mistakes and their active resistance to and dismissal of advice from competent economists warning against their flawed and irresponsible approach, even when the advice came from economists within their employ. The Hawke government failed to take direct action, possibly due to their desire to avoid controversy and maintain support given the upcoming federal election in 1990. The delays in shutting down the scheme contributed significantly to the escalation of costs. When the responsible minister, John Kerin, finally did act, he erred by initially cutting the reserve price to 700 cents per kilogram, which was still far too high. There were no buyers, and the Reserve Price Scheme was eventually suspended in February 1991, but not before 4.8 million wool bales of unwanted wool had accumulated, which took about a decade to sell and resulted in billions of dollars in losses. The mismanagement and subsequent collapse of the Reserve Price Scheme caused financial ruin for farmers and wool-related businesses both nationally and internationally. These reckless decisions caused untold anguish and hardship, and the social costs continue to this day. The wool industry in Australia has never fully recovered from this government-sanctioned statutory intervention, and those who masterminded these calamitous events have largely escaped censure, despite calls for a Royal Commission. As writer and former farmer Charles Massey puts it so succinctly, “We can count the billions of dollars lost, but we don't have statistics for the depression, the suicides, the fractured families, or the agony caused to farmers by having to shoot and bury thousands of worthless sheep. I don't think those responsible for this misery have ever been adequately held to account."

The land out here now sits largely idle. Where once each house was occupied, some for several generations, most are now uninhabited. Although some farming still occurs, the paddocks appear for the most part deserted — certainly in comparison to the boom years. After an epoch of maximum exploitation and upheaval, the country now rests and regenerates.

. . .

Camperdown is surrounded by several large lakes. To the west of Camperdown are Lakes Bullen Merri and Gnotuk, and to the east is Lake Purrumbete. These lakes appear picturesque and tranquil, with verdant slopes embracing azure waters. However they are actually maar volcanoes—craters with low rims around them formed by enormous explosions caused by interaction between magma and groundwater. Lake Purrumbete is especially notable as it is one of the largest maar volcanoes in the world, measuring over 3km in width. In contrast, most maars are only up to 500 metres in diameter. Lake Bullen Merri and Lake Gnotuk are twin lakes separated by a high land bridge. Lake Bullen Merri is brackish, while the smaller Lake Gnotuk is hypersaline. Megafauna are known to have inhabited this landscape, as fossil bones of the large marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex have been found in the vicinity of Lake Gnotuk.

This area was the territory of the Leehoorah gundidj, and the land bridge was known as Wuurong killing. It featured a fresh water spring that would have been highly valued by the local people and was a significant camping, hunting, and fishing area. It is believed that eel traps were also built on the lake banks. The lakes and surrounding forest provided ample opportunities for hunting, with a variety of wild fowl and marsupials present in the area. The east side of Lake Bullen Merri was called Karm Karm and was a long-established campsite for the Leehoorah Gundidj. The high plateau with majestic views of the lakes and surrounding plains, now home to the Camperdown Botanic Gardens and the local caravan park, was known as Gnotukk. Today, the native vegetation has been almost completely cleared. Views of this area as it once was—referred to colloquially as the Basin Banks by Europeans—can be seen in paintings by Eugène von Guérard completed in 1857 and 1858.   

In 1839, this area was associated with a brutal massacre in which almost the entire Tarnbeere Gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrong people were murdered. Somewhat unusually for the time, there are numerous local accounts and official reports of this horrific event. The massacre took place near a creek west of Camperdown, where pastoralist Frederick Taylor and his shepherds killed 35 to 40 men, women, and children while they lay sleeping. A group led by Taylor rabidly pursued one survivor, Bareetch Chuurneen, but she managed to escape by bravely jumping into Lake Bullen Merri and swimming approximately three kilometres to safety on the east bank, all the while carrying her child on her back. Those who perished were reportedly dumped in the creek and later burnt, according to some accounts. This was seemingly verified by pastoralist Niel Black, who found a mass grave on his Glenormiston property after purchase, a property previously belonging to Frederick Taylor, who had commandeered the land in 1839. The local Europeans, typically detached from such events, were so appalled that they changed the name of the waterway from Taylors River to Mount Emu Creek. The site of this massacre is now known as Murdering Gully.

Overlooking Lake Gnotuk from the east is the Camperdown cemetery. Meticulously tended, the dead lie cloaked in well-disciplined emerald grass. In a prominent central position unmissable from the entrance, is a large grey granite obelisk—a monument erected to honour Wombeetch Puyuun, thought to be the last member of the Leehoorah Gundidj clan still living freely on his ancestral lands at the time of his passing. This memorial was erected by his friend James Dawson, a figure of note within the colonial history of western Victoria. Dawson was originally from Scotland and emigrated to Victoria in 1840, where he was a resident of the Camperdown district for several decades until his death in 1900. A pastoralist and businessman, he was unusual in that he formed mutually respectful relationships with the local Aboriginal people, and he was at one point assigned the governmental role of Local Guardian of Aborigines. He and his daughter Isabella spent much time recording cultural information and languages shared by the First Nations people they came into contact with in western Victoria, and they published this research in 1881 in book format. This was the first compendium of its kind in Australia.

Wombeetch Puyuun was an exceptional man in many ways. Most of the members of the Djargurd Wurrong who had survived pastoral expansion in the middle of the century had been forcibly moved to the Framlingham Mission, established in 1865 near Warrnambool and roughly 50 kilometres west of Camperdown, located on the country of the Kirrae Wurong people. A small group of ageing Djagurd Wurrong men, including Wombeetch Puyuun, refused to go and remained living on their own land, which fell within the boundaries of what had by this time become the township of Camperdown. At one stage, Wombeetch Puyuun found himself before the local magistrate, answering to a charge of public intoxication. Adjured to consider relocating to Framingham Mission, Wombeetch Puyuun rejected this entreaty and said he was going nowhere — instead suggesting the magistrate make renumeration to him of sixpence rent for continuing to live on his country. As Camperdown expanded, Wombeetch Puyuun continued to reside in his mia-mia near present-day Walker Street, where today a reconciliation garden has been named in his honour.

Wombeetch Puyuun passed away due to bronchitis in February 1883 and was unceremoniously interred in a swampy area outside of the consecrated cemetery grounds by the local colonists. His friend Dawson had been away visiting his native Scotland, and he was shocked upon his return to discover the treatment his friend had received in death. Outraged at this lack of respect toward a man of Wombeetch Puyuuns’s stature, Dawson sought donations in order to fund a monument to be erected in his memory from various local citizens of note who he knew had been either directly responsible for, or complicit in, the depredations, violence and dispossession visited upon Wombeetch Puyuun and his countrymen. He published an article in the local newspaper and distributed flyers to the pastoralists, who now benefited so richly from the land stolen from the traditional owners. Not a single one of those thus lobbied contributed nor even bothered to feign sympathy with the proposal. Wrote one in response: ‘My wife wants her drawing-room papered.’

Dawson was left to cover the expenses by himself, and although lacking official permission, he personally reburied the body of Wombeetch Puyuun in his own pre-purchased plot. Inscribed upon the memorial are the words ‘In Memory of the Aborigines of This District’ and below this, ‘Here Lies the Body of the Chief Wombeetch Puyuun the Last of the Local Tribes’. The granite also has two dates carved into it—1840 and 1883— representing the span of time it took for European colonisation to displace the Djagurd Wurrong from the area through varied harrowing means after countless millennia. The memorial stands as a dignified rebuke to those who seek to erase the barbarous reality of the past. Said one pastoralist with somewhat anachronistic honesty when asked to contribute, ‘‘It will point for all time to our treatment of this unfortunate race—the possessors of the soil we took from them, and we gave in return the vices belonging to our boasted civilisation. I decline to assist’.

. . .

It is difficult to grasp fully the drastic changes wrought within such a short span of time upon a diverse and fecund landscape enslaved by agricultural imperatives. In my time living there, I found enchantment in it nonetheless, and now knowing its true properties, I admire it more still; it only slumbers in its deceptive placidity. Heavy mists are frequent here, and at times the sparse features of the landscape disappear entirely under a shroud of uncompromising nothingness. These are the rare intervals of almost complete stillness punctuating an otherwise persistent restlessness, no matter how clement the day.  Because of this unceasing flux, one often has the impression in this land of the non earth-bound that something is always moving just beyond one’s field of vision— it can be maddening. The great washes of blue and green hues shift and transform, intensify and fade, as the the clouds skitter across the horizon. The grass whispers. The wind sighs.

The Flinders Ranges

In early winter last year I embarked upon the lengthy trek from Melbourne to the tiny outback town of Copley in South Australia. Copley is situated in the Northern Flinders Ranges just off route B83, a road also known colloquially as the Outback Highway. This has become a familiar journey for me, but it had taken some time before I discovered the outback for myself, despite having relatives in South Australia. When visiting, I would base myself in the capital city Adelaide, occasionally skirting around the edges of more remote areas on day trips to old mining towns like Kapunda or exploring the Clare Valley, but always tending to retreat back toward urbanisation before nightfall. When I finally did venture into this vast hinterland, I was irreversibly enchanted, and consequently have spent much time traversing it over a span of nearly two decades. Lacking first-hand experience, one might assume the regions within to be roughly of a kind, but they are quite distinct. All the seperate districts of the ranges encompass a plethora of specific wonders of diverse antiquity and uniqueness.

The Northern Flinders Ranges is an area I’ve come to know better than others, having established a history with it over several visits, with my initial trip occurring back in 2005. I’d never heard of the place prior to a peculiar series of events transpiring. A friend was en route north to Alice Springs planning to participate in an exhibition when her car broke down in Copley. Forced to an abrupt halt while the car was repaired, she was sidelined by a state of numinous wonder and became victim to a type of abduction by landscape. Enraptured, she ventured no further and elected to remain permanently. Perhaps a year or two after this, I found myself in Copley through similarly chance events. While in Adelaide, I heard word from a friend travelling Australia; he was on his way to Copley and planning a stopover there as many travellers opt to do, given the scarcity of towns with services in the outback. My curiosity having been raised to a feverish pitch thanks to intriguing and wondrous tales relayed by the friend now resident, I arranged a spontaneous rendezvous. Although Adelaide and Copley are by no definition close, when practiced in covering the wide distances required for much interstate travel in Australia, the seven-hour drive involved seems a relatively short day trip.

I set out not knowing exactly what I’d find—I suppose given my limited conception of what a desert entailed I was expecting flat terrain and lots of sand, but it was far more than that. I had never seen country like it. Majestic does not begin to describe its spectacular and imperious nature. A hint of the grandeur to come emerges while driving along the Port Wakefield Highway towards Port Augusta. The rugged ranges appear for the first time and loom in the distance to the right like a defensive wall sheltering a parallel world. That first time I took the turn off to Quorn at the southern end of the ranges I had to pull over to give myself time to digest what was before me. I was overpowered by the sight of jagged slabs of rufous rock rearing up like massive waves upon a wild sea, with undulating ridges and valleys splashed with spiky green vegetation. However, at this point, the preponderance of green hues still bear the hallmarks of more bucolic landscapes. It’s really only after passing through the town of Hawker that one has penetrated far enough to be seized by the understanding that you are about to encounter a place unlike any other, one of almost non-terrestrial uniqueness. The colour balance begins to shift to dominant reds, browns, oranges and yellows, and the greens begin to retreat — becoming accents rather than proportionate. This unfolding awareness occurs not just because of visual impact—additional stimuli ensnares the other senses too. Time seems to slow as the spaces between outposts stretch out. About an hour past Hawker, I began hearing a buzzing noise I couldn’t identify. Pulling over to listen more intently, I could have sworn I heard the crackling of electricity, as though currents were arcing against an otherwise deeply hushed background. I could not see any power lines though or other similar obvious causes—nothing seemed awry. In the end it seemed almost sensible to drop the matter and chalk it up to quotidian sounds of space/time distortions in this land in which the prehistoric appears to have been yesterday, so little seems changed. A place like the outback stands alone, and ideas that seem unequivocal elsewhere should be held in respectful abeyance when surrounded by evidence of the seemingly impossible: the confounding intricacies of evolution and so much else beyond the scope of easy comprehension. The country encourages leaps of imagination, and in so many ways, you would be more foolish not to suspend your disbelief.

The formation of the magnificent Flinders Ranges began around 800 million years ago. A primeval sea covered the entire area and, over time, deposited sediment into a basin complex now known as the Adelaide Superbasin. About 500 million years ago, a collision of tectonic plates caused the sediment to be folded upwards into mountains during a period known as the Delamerian orogeny (mountain building period). Substantial buckling and faulting of the strata resulted in the creation of a major mountain range that, over many millions of years, has undergone significant erosion, resulting in what are now relatively low ranges in a landscape filled with sandstone, limestone, shales and quartzite and rich in lucrative resources such as copper and coal.

The Flinders Ranges contain elements of natural and cultural history that are of global significance. Not only are they unfathomably rich in human history, their wealth of extraordinary geology and fossils make them the only place in the world where 350 million years of earth history and the evolution of life itself can be seen in a near-continuous geological sequence. The fossils  discovered in 1946 in the Ediacaran Hills of the Northern Flinders Ranges contain the world’s finest example of the Ediacaran explosion of life, which began about 635 million years ago, when the creative principle inherent in all living things discovered how to merge cells and so instigate the evolutionary leap of single-celled life forms combining to shape the earliest forms of more complex multicellular animal life.

The Adnyamathanha people are the Traditional Owners of the Flinders Ranges. Comprised of many groups with distinct territorial boundaries, they have inhabited this epic landscape for millennia. In 2016, new evidence was found at a site in the Northern Flinders Ranges called the Warratyi Rock Shelter. These discoveries included complex tools, animal bones—including those of some megafauna—eggshells, ochres, and remnants of cooking fires. Dating methods such as optically simulated luminescence (OSL) and carbon dating were used and revealed that the shelter was first occupied about 50,000 years ago, which proves that humans occupied Australia’s arid interior and began developing sophisticated tools 10,000 years earlier than previously documented. The findings from the Warratyi Rock Shelter show it to contain the oldest evidence of Aboriginal occupation in South Australia. Based on the available evidence and the limitations of what is considered reliable when utilising available dating methods, it is a widely held view by the academic and scientific community that humans first arrived in Australia at least 65,000 years ago. However, the timing of their settlement in arid regions had been uncertain. These discoveries at the Warratyi Rock Shelter push back the assumed date of settlement of the outback by at least 10,000 years, showing that people were living and hunting in the Flinders Ranges long before the end of the last ice age. Evidence of ochre discovered also suggest that people were at that time already decorating their bodies and utilising ochre pigments for art, revealing that an innovative material and spiritual culture existed much earlier than previously recorded for Australia and South-east Asia.

The country of the Adnyamathanha people is rich in valuable stone and ochre and thus contains prized resources for cultural and trading purposes. Ochre is the name given to a family of natural coloured earth pigments found all over the world that contain iron oxide. It forms naturally as clay deposits and sediments in the ground. Ochres are a product of great sacredness and utility for many cultures around the world. For tens of thousands of years, First Nations people mined ochre at various sites around Australia for their own use but also traded it across other regions as a highly regarded commodity in one of humanities earliest known trading systems. The various types of ochre extracted from different deposits across the country were sought after, and ochres of many different colours, textures and qualities were carried and traded across thousands of kilometres by large trading parties travelling by foot. Bush tobacco (pituri) was a common item to trade, as were tools, weapons, ceremonial items, foods, and other ochres not available locally.

On my most recent visit, I was privileged to see firsthand a site extensively quarried for ochre over many thousands of years—a place replete with evidence of the colossal scale of industry involved in this sort of spiritual economy. A friend took me to a place called the Ochre Cliffs, just a few kilometres north of Lyndhurst, which is in turn about twenty minutes from Copely. I had overlooked this site on several occasions, driving past the small, nondescript sign on the outback highway that signalled their location. I had heard at one point that there was a quarry near Lyndhurst; if I had any sense of what might be there, it was of something vaguely industrial, perhaps sufficiently scenic to warrant a marker. Likely, I made this haphazard connection due to nearby Leigh Creek being known for its coal mine and there being several other mines throughout the ranges. I was tired from travel and slightly disoriented as I reckoned with my usual need to adjust to the immense scale of open space out here. Expecting something slightly mundane, I found instead something genuinely breathtaking. With level ground surrounding it, there was little hint of the quarry from a distance. However, when it became apparent, the sight of the colours glowing from this chasm in the earth had me practically trembling at their beauty. Their shocking brilliance and disparate variations set against both the sandy tones of the surrounding plains and the slate autumn sky were almost irresistible; I was struck by an urge to race to the bottom and roll around, coating myself in the shades of sublime, secret earth.

Ochre pigments range from whites to yellows, oranges, reds, pink, black, and even purple. These hues occur due to different types and amounts of iron oxides. The red-brown colours are comprised of high levels of oxidised iron in very fine-grain haematite or limonite. Yellow is created by a mix of white and iron oxide. The white colour itself comes from kaolin, which consists primarily of a clay mineral called kaolinite. In many First Nations communities around the country, ochre was and remains frequently used for various purposes spanning the spiritual, creative, medicinal, and practical. It was central to the preparation of many medicines. Some ochres have been noted to have an antacid effect when ingested, while those rich in iron oxide can assist with fatigue. Due to its rich mineral content, red ochre can be used to protect the skin from the weather and insect bites and is effective for treating wounds.

The use of ochre for spiritual and decorative purposes remains prevalent in art, ceremony, and body decoration. Colours are usually associated with particular meanings and implementation. White is frequently utilised to reflect the spirit world and used during times of grief. Yellow is affiliated with women’s ceremonies, while black ochre is mainly used for men’s ceremonies. Red ochre has many associations but is commonly used to represent the blood of sacred ancestral beings, in times of celebration, and also when conflict is occurring. In art, the ochre is applied dry or, alternatively, mixed with water. Animal fat or birds eggs are also sometimes mixed with pigments for binding purposes. Ochre was traditionally applied in decorative patterns to ritual objects used in ceremonies and to adorn hunting tools such as spears, shields and boomerangs, as it is believed to both bestow spiritual powers upon these artefacts as well as act as a preservative.

The Ochre Cliffs are extensive and spread out over approximately one square kilometre, but the deposit of ochre not visible is known to extend over an area far greater than that which has been mined. Rich seams of cream, orange, pink, yellow, and red ochre line the walls of the quarry. My friend spoke of their radiant quality at dawn and sunset, but I felt well favoured to see them after rain, with the sky pale and stilled, and with every softest subtlety of hue picked up without being overpowered by any other. There are large sections where iron oxide dominates, and the thin veins of cream and yellow that run through brought to mind marbled flesh—raw meat and fat—an open wound exposed to the sky. As though the earth had been cleaved apart—earth made flesh—the sacred and vital colours of living processes, change and renewal. I thought of a resting place of a warrior giant, collecting themselves before rising again, anointed by the surrounding colour. Trying to conceptualise the enormous effort gone into this industry which had continued for aeons for sacred and creative purposes was humbling and deeply affecting. All that work expended for such noble purposes—the ongoing preservation of practises necessary to sustain the conditions for flourishing life.

It was a short trip to the Flinders this time—just a few days. As I began the journey home, I was awestruck anew. Because of the unusually prolific rains earlier in the season, the air was full of moisture and the light diffused; this acted as an ethereal filter, which rendered the entire terrain slightly foreign and the usual colour spectrum differently hued. Instead of a vaguely martian-like topography bathed in vibrant red and burnt orange, things had shifted to blues, mauves, emerald, and deep russet. The ranges were shadowed and indigo, shrouded in twisting mists. Water had induced a magical metamorphosis, and the country was transformed. Rather than seeing an arid landscape, I was reminded of the peat rich hills of Connemara. Everything seemed so inexpressibly softened, benevolent and gentle—pliable almost. And so the same astonishment and wonder hit me again, as it always does when I greet this inexpressibly luminous ancient landscape.  A quietening occurs which quells and slows. The antiquity seems to allow a kind of invisibility, as though the boundaries between physicality and that of the land are permeable and I have a new sense of myself as a translucent bundle of eternal particles, hardly substantial yet intimately connected and enduring.

Wyndham City

In 2018, I moved to the Shire of Wyndham on the far western fringes of Melbourne. Wyndham is an area of conspicuous growth, one of just a handful of locations left in Melbourne offering anything akin to affordable land and housing. It is expanding at a frantic pace—far beyond the infrastructure necessary to sustain it can be implemented. This region of Melbourne has historically been the object of some derision for its supposed lack of sophistication and desirability. It is comprised of newer suburbs, with none of the ornate European architectural legacy found closer to the city centre, erected upon a dramatically flat landscape.

I was in Hoppers Crossing. The first subdivision of residential land occurred here relatively recently, in the mid-twentieth century. Neighbouring Hoppers Crossing to the south is Werribee, which has a considerably older history as a township established to service the surrounding agricultural areas in the 1850’s. It was once infamous for a diabolical scent billowing from within its borders as a consequence of being home to the sewerage processing centre of Melbourne. Coming from country Victoria in the 1990’s along the Princes Highway, one would be alerted to Melbourne’s proximity by hitting the invisible wall of methane encircling Werribee. This is a rare and more subtle event now, due to superior operational processes. Nowadays, the Western Treatment Plant is actually recognised for being an exemplar of how to manage sewerage in an environmentally sustainable way and is an internationally renowned bird habitat. How widely this is known or appreciated is uncertain, and old stereotypes persist of a miasma-shrouded area. Further north from Hoppers Crossing are such suburbs as Truganina and Tarneit, a mixture of industrial, pastoral, and residential areas—prime sites for the expansion of building currently underway.

It was meant to be a temporary move—a convenient base I was offered during a time of general transition. I was trepidatious for many reasons, but thought I’d only be there six months, at the outside. For much of my life, I had alternated between being an inner city dweller or inhabitant of enviable rural locations, and this was really the last place I expected ever to find myself. I’d left behind a place of mountains, streams and towering mountain ash which vibrated joyously with the calls of lyrebirds and kookaburras. A picturesque village of Art Deco and federation weatherboards. Truly paradise to paradise lost, I thought in my pretentious melancholia, initial blindness and failure of imagination.

Upon arrival, I felt oppressed by the seemingly absolute obeyance to functionality. The shopping centres were almost uniformly grey-toned. Long double-laned roads hedged with factories, strip malls and mega stores with garish signs harangued one to come and spend. The whole area was largely devoid of tree cover, and the greenery that did exist was somehow deflated looking, powdered with dust. The houses in the central areas of Hoppers Crossing are largely of a kind, with nothing predating the 1960’s. A significant proportion were either brick veneer or clad in rendered board, material that in many cases had aged poorly and gave an impression of flimsy impermanence. Gardens were full of water thirsty non-natives and maintenance-hungry lawns. In other more salubrious streets squatted oversized faux colonial mansions, repressively maintained, and appearing to have distinct ideas above their station. The new houses, which would appear almost overnight, were bland and markedly cubic. They seemed cardboard-like—patched together with plastic tape and crammed onto tiny plots with the frequent addition of artificial grass carpeting tokenistic pockets of front yard. Everything looked to have been trucked in and positioned upon the surface like objects arranged upon a play mat.

The land had already been well-denuded before these houses had sprawled across the terrain. Once these far-reaching open plains had been awash with native scrub and delicate grasses before being brutalised by stock and agriculture. As a consequence, these suburbs had manifested themselves upon a dustbowl. The earth seemed sandblasted and dehydrated, and I felt disorientated, irritable and desiccated. Yet for all my internal turmoil at the uninspired practicality around me and the lack of unadulterated nature to source nourishment from, the place piqued my curiosity. There was a particular type of eeriness to this desperation for home, which inflamed the desire to stamp ownership upon a substrate clearly unintended for such use, and lacking the ability to truly support these demands. I thought perhaps I should try to document the area before what was left of its native character vanished even further under these bullish estates. So it was in taking aimless drives with my camera and an unsettled spirit that a different vision began to take form. As I travelled into the outlying areas, something eclipsing the immediate sense of affront began to penetrate.

Beyond the mushrooming building sites there is acres of rubbish; that which had not yet been despoiled for maximum utility took the form of neglected paddocks full of dried out weeds festooned in bits of plastic trash propagated by the countless building sites. As far as the eye could see, a vanquished wasteland. There are many dirt roads that are furrowed and almost impassable due to corrugations and erosion. I didn’t even know what these surrounding places were called. When referring to a map I could see place names—Eynesbury, Mount Cottrell, Quandong, Little River— but when out amongst it the boundaries were formless and unmarked. The treeless plains and long straight roads had a kind of familiarity, and it occurred to me that in spirit and form this place felt more like the outback than the fringes of Melbourne. It seemed incredible that this uncanny other world existed in such close proximity. Numerous remnants of agricultural days remained; old farm houses boarded up and coated with reddish dirt, amongst other evidence such as wooden fences, sheep pens and dry stone walls. Where the farmers had left, others had moved in with forbidding gated mansions, like barricaded compounds. Most with roller shutters on windows, some which I never saw opened. I had stumbled across a unique land of failed pastoralists, angry hermits, probable criminals, or maybe just solitary dreamers—likely all and more. Some of the evident hostility no doubt sprang from the feeling of being encroached upon from every angle with new housing projects being marked out every week, ensuring ongoing alterations to what had been a predictable environment. Rapacious developers were continually pushing at psychic boundaries too; numerous signs on fences expressed an aggravated weariness at frequent badgering to sell, with statements like ‘not for sale don’t bother asking’ on display.

On every drive on these back roads, I would spot abandoned, stolen cars, usually burnt and frequently upturned. Secretive looking churches of obscure denominations stood sentinel. Houses with bizarre modifications and numerous out buildings were prolific, showing clear disregard for concepts such as planning approval. And everywhere, illegal rubbish dumping. The feeling at times was dystopian enough to chill my older brother into saying, “This is real Mad Max country” when we were out exploring one day. Later, I discovered how literal that remark was; parts of the original Mad Max movie were filmed in the Little River area in the late 1970’s. The funny thing is how unmistakable it was that Mad Max was the fiction that came and went. So many iconic elements were provided by the location itself; this place was, in parts, still genuinely menacing all these years later. Something untamed was out there, where at first glance it had seemed utterly subjugated.

Slowly, the magnitude of the geomorphology impressed itself upon me. These plains, once so verdant, had been so comprehensively altered that it took time to fully grasp what I was seeing. A smallish rise dotted with towers and satellite dishes intrigued me, and some research revealed that this was Mount Cottrell proper— an unusual shield volcano and one of the largest in Victoria. I belatedly awoke to the fact I was in a volcanic landscape, and in fact geologically connected to the country I had lived upon as a child—the very same Western Volcanic Plains, stretching from these fringes of Melbourne almost to the border of South Australia. The third largest volcanic plains in the world, bested only by the Deccan Plateau in India and the Snake River Plateau in the United States. My ignorance up to this point struck me as an echo of my experiences when younger, spending hours exploring the glassy crater lakes of the Camperdown region with little understanding at the time that they were volcanic remnants. Taking photographs of Mount Cottrell whilst standing amongst bags of dumped rubbish and broken toys, I imagined native plants, orchids, lilies and kangaroo grass shimmering in the wind and thriving in what would have been rich volcanic soil. It seemed remarkable the utter desecration of such a fragile landscape that had taken place in such a short span of time.

As has occurred so tragically on numerous occasions elsewhere on these plains (and nation-wide), the Mount Cottrell area has seen harrowing frontier violence, with a massacre of Wathaurong people taking place in 1836. A dawn ambush saw members of a Wathaurong clan fired upon from a distance—a surprise attack supposedly in retaliation for the murder of a squatter and his convict shepherd, who had recently appropriated land in the district. Approximately ten Wathaurong people were murdered, although estimates vary, with Aboriginal oral history recounting the number of those who died as thirty-five.

This is a venerable landscape, badly brutalised but intelligent and resilient, always graceful. The low plains spreading out from the base of the You Yangs towards Mount Rothwell feature one of the oldest surviving man-made stone arrangements in the world. In an unassuming paddock, not visible from any road, a series of stones with the largest not more than waist-high, has been carefully placed to mark the positions of the setting sun at the solstices and equinoxes. It’s accuracy is to within a few degrees. Known as Wurdi Youang, this stone arrangement is unique due to its unusual shape, and is perhaps the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in the world. Carbon dating at nearby sites indicates that the arrangement could be as old as 11,000 years. This is far older than the Egyptian pyramids, or neolithic monuments such as Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange) in Ireland. A remarkable accomplishment on a global scale, created by Wathaurong people from times past, who have lived on this land for many millennia.

When travelling around, the granite ridges of the You Yangs rising in the distance were visible from many vantage points. I began to see them as a single massive formation similar to Uluru. I found a peace still existed that I had only ever experienced in the most ancient places. I sensed the same inaudible hum resonating. Hints of other aeons danced together in the fragile pastels of the sky at evening time, which then darkened to smouldering glows as night took shape. The flaxen grasses in late afternoon would switch to burnished golds, and other variations of shades would come to life and create a mesmerising display of intricate complexity. The whole place was awash with a primal constancy.

Back in the suburban streets it took more time to soften to the visual aesthetics, but I began to see small beauties everywhere. Acts of care and devotion towards the domiciles, like the effort put into some outlandish but subjectively pleasing colour scheme. The touches of whimsy in the garden—the rambling solar lights and carefully placed ornaments and statues—there was a tenderness to many of these places, as well as an invitation to partake. From my bedroom window I could see a house with only oval windows and a perfect front yard of concrete, with exacting rose bush beds at diagonal points across the impeccable expanse. I discerned in these types of designs an obliviousness to conformity in exchange for a genuinely unique aesthetic designed to give nothing but visual satisfaction to the residents. These myriad variations in concepts of taste and the unfeigned creativity I saw everywhere, even in the somewhat bastardised takes on colonial sensibilities, were a great pleasure to me. I admired the originality at every turn. Ostentatious, proud monuments to sanctuary. A kind of chaos, with such disparity between each property yet every one it’s own pocket of perceptual order.

As I explored the ever-burgeoning estates, I remembered also falling under the spell of newness, and the potency of this particular magic. Some of my favourite times as a child were going to look at properties when my parents planned to upgrade from the small house that barely contained all six of us. The display homes we would visit were kind of of wondrous to me. I remember looped wool carpet, immaculate laminex, and a frisson of delight at the smell of new paint. The pristine blissful nothingness of neutral carpets and pale walls. The great calmness and potential they promised. Fresh starts and new dreams. As a teenager, I maintained my passion for exploring houses, but more often at night. New builds, or old wrecks—the bones and the bodies of places that had nurtured lives or were about to provide shelter for the first time. I understand well their powerful conjuration of optimism and hope.

Those six months at the outside became years. I remained throughout the numerous pandemic-related lockdowns that Melbourne residents endured. The Hoppers Crossing postcode at one point had the highest case numbers in Australia. The populous was unfairly vilified in the media for this; again that prejudice against the western suburbs reared its head. Restricted for months to a five kilometre radius, I retreated frequently to the Werribee river and the old red gum giants bordering it’s girth as it curved towards the ocean at Werribee South. Werribee became a grand place, almost like Kakadu in it’s life generating capacity because of this waterway. I noticed other bordering suburbs like Wyndham Vale had been heavily planted with rapidly growing gums. I saw indigenous plants which had been offered free as part of a council initiative a year or two earlier begin to sprout in neighbours yards. I realised that I could hear sea birds at night while I lay on the concrete outside, trying to shake off the continual feeling of compression. A couple of times during the day I was captivated by groups of pelicans flying overhead.

Already, many of the areas I photographed no longer exist in the same way. In the span of a few years, whole communities have formed where I took questionable pictures of weirdly appealing drainage pipes. The old farms continue to be swallowed up, and the development continues at the same frenzied speed. The hunger for clean slates remains; the old must give way to the new, and so on goes this repeating cycle. But while these rapidly erected houses and streets appear to obliterate the past, there is solace in knowing these enterprises are barely perceived by an ancient, deeper strata, which rather than being ruined, lies dormant.