Lake Eildon Reveals Its Secrets
The Age
Saturday February 1, 2003
RECEDING WATER LEVELS IN ONE OF VICTORIA'S LARGEST RESERVOIRS ARE DISPLAYING THE LONG-FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF RIVER SETTLEMENTS.
The waters of Lake Eildon have not yet sunk to the low levels of 2000, but by April this year they almost certainly will. Contrary to popular belief, says Ivor Bumbers, of Eildon Lake Charters, this doesn't make the lake less interesting for visitors, but more.
As the lake recedes, remnants of the past emerge from the water. Bumbers is finding that people not only want to go out with him on the lake to fish and waterski, but to explore previously hidden shores for signs of former habitation.
He is only too happy to oblige, having uncovered a lot of local stories over the past few years, which he tells as part of a historical sightseeing tour that will only get more intriguing as the lake disappears.
At present the lake's shoreline is half that of Port Phillip Bay. Filled to capacity, it is twice that of the bay. The lake was only 16 per cent full on January 20. In May, 2000, it was 13.8per cent, but even then its stretch of water was 37 kilometres long.
``This would be like waterskiing from Melbourne's CBD to Lilydale," says Bumbers, who, like many tourism operators in Eildon, has suffered from a public perception that there is not enough water to make a visit worthwhile.
Bumbers also believes that a warning that boating on the lake may be restricted is unlikely to prove correct.
Bumbers has lived in Eildon since 1992 but had been a regular visitor since 1969. When he married Ann Dunstan in 1973, they had their honeymoon on a houseboat on the lake in the depths of winter.
It was delightful, he claims. They eventually bought a houseboat for family holidays, and 13 years ago decided to leave the city and live permanently by the lake.
The Bumbers bought the Eildon Bait & Tackle business in 1996 and found more and more people asking about getting out on the lake. "There was nothing available, so we decided to do it ourselves," says Bumbers.
Bumber's boat, Cheanne II, is moored at Jerusalem Creek Jetty. It is a 27-year-old Whittley Cruiser, a sturdy little craft he likens to a 4WD on water. We reach its small mobile jetty by walking across baked, cracked mud and set off through a strip of water lined with houseboats.
There is not a soul to be seen. The boats come to life at weekends and holidays, says Bumbers, when many owners come down to explore the lake.
The forested hills of Lake Eildon National Park rising around us are muted by the pall of smoke coming from the distant bushfires in the alps. The day before, the skies were blue and brilliant and you could see Mount Buller clearly in the distance, says Bumbers. Today it is like moving through low-lying cloud as we make for the site of Darlingford, built in the 1860s at the junction of the Goulburn and Big Rivers.
The boat engine idles as Bumbers explains that about 16 metres beneath us was the township named after Sir Charles Darling, governor of Victoria. It was founded to service farmers and graziers, timber cutters and the gold-mining town of Enoch's Point. Darlingford was submerged in the 1920s, when Sugarloaf Dam was built on the Goulburn River between Mounts Sugarloaf and Pinniger.
After the war, work began on a huge development of the lake known as the Big Eildon Project. The township of Eildon was constructed to accommodate workers. Eildon Dam was finished in 1954 and, given the average rainfall, the lake was expected to take seven years to fill. It took two.
There is no evidence of the old town now; even its name has gone, unlike that of the Sawers family, which farmed nearby under what is now Sawers Bay. Bumbers had one of the Sawers on his boat recently, who told him his elderly father used to go to school in Darlingford via a flying fox across the river.
At one time, says the tour operator, he would tell passengers the remains of Darlingford would never emerge from the deep. But now, after six years of relentless drought, who knows what will happen, he wonders. Experts are predicting that by April, water levels may be as low as 6 per cent, almost back to the level of the river system.
The boat continues above Big River, following its invisible course to the highlight of the tour, the Big River Bridge. Resting on the water and leading nowhere, it has a dreamlike quality about it. Originally the road turned left and headed for Howqua, Jamieson and Mansfield. Now it stops at the face of the cliff because the road has crumbled away.
The bridge was built by the Victorian Country Roads Board in 1930, with five concrete pylons supporting six massive timber joists on a hardwood road surface. We park alongside and walk on the hardwood planks. They are firm and flat beneath our feet. There is no sense of decay or deterioration. Bumbers believes the bridge would still support a fully laden semi-trailer. Its timber handrails are solid even after 45 years of immersion, although some have been knocked off accidentally by houseboats passing above it.
We leave the bridge to its quiet reflections and move to the opposite bank, where the tops of dead trees stand like silent sentinels in the water. Bumbers points out part of the tank-stand for Syd and Elsie Garthwaite's home at what was then the Big River Settlement. Syd worked for the roads board and probably helped to build the bridge.
Next door, a few foundations, a couple of chimneys and a half-submerged cast-iron bedstead are all that is left of the Shoesmith family's old place. A few metres away, almost hidden by the mottled grey trees, the framework of Stan and Millicent Meakin's holiday house is still standing.
Two years ago Bumbers had an elderly passenger on his boat who used to camp near the Big River Bridge in the 1940s.
He talked about the beauty and isolation of the area and the great characters who lived there. When he saw the bridge again and what was left of the settlement, his eyes filled with tears.
FAST FACTS
Eildon is 138 kilometres north-east of Melbourne via the Maroondah Highway. Bookings with Eildon Lake Charters can be made at Eildon Bait & Tackle - call in or telephone. Two-hour historical tours of the lake for up to six people cost $150. Ivor Bumbers can tailor a tour according to need - for example, mixing fishing and water sports with sightseeing. Gear is supplied. Overnight packages for two are available at $295, including a lake tour, meals and motel-style accommodation. Tel: 0428 345 366.
© 2003 The Age
