Zumsteins

Walter Zumstein was born in Melbourne in 1885, of Swiss ancestry, about 1906 he came to the Grampians as a bee-keeper for W. Barnes of honey fame. Leaving Barnes he took his bees in a wheelbarrow as far up the MacKenzie Creek as he could manage (the current Zumsteins site) where he build a cottage and hives.

At the outbreak of World War I, Walter enlisted in the 5th Battalion and was in Scotland when he met his future wife Jean, they married in 1916 and returned to the Grampians in 1919. They had one daughter Jeannie, who moved to America. Walter died after a long illness in the Wimmera Base Hospital in 1963. His body was cremated and the ashes scattered at the back of their cottage.
Between 1934-35 Walter & Jean built pise (rammed earth/clay) cottages using local earth and stone, and second-hand building materials. Walter was sympathetic to the environment, if a rock was in the way, he just built around it, and improvised - holding the walls together is barbed-wire.

Some attempts were made to restore the cottages and surrounds a number of years ago when the Picnic and parking areas were updated. Unfortunately today the cottages are suffering from vandalism and decay.

The cottages and surrounding gardens, tennis court and swimming pool provided accommodation for the tourists increasingly attracted to the area, then and now.

Walter planted 100s of trees both native and exotic (the pictured gum is believed to be the only specimen existing in Victoria). There was an attempt to remove the exotic trees - as not being indigenous to the national park - but after some public outcry, most remain. The camellias and bulbs still flower in spring alongside the wattles.

Yet another Unshelved

Reading this I immediately thought Dewey was paraphasing the old Luther Ingram song

Coffee's the answer

The Silverband Mission

Yesterday, I had a difficult time of it, being paid to go bushwalking!
We are investigating having an author visit to the region, and hosting it at Silverband Falls in the Grampians, so someone had to check out the logistics.
We found drive there (after we turned off the highway) was quite picturesque around Mt Dryden - the ranges behind rolling pastures of green and crops of canola.
Halls Gap was busy with tourists and traffic, including a Northern Grampians gang working on the roadsurface outside the new Tourist Info centre.
We shared the walk in to the Falls with a busload of retirees from Albury, but found no-one else at the base which saved us the embarassment of being seen facing away from the falls and photographing the ground!
Though a guy was concerned that the Albury bus had hit our car when he saw me writing notes back at the carpark.

Stick Shed now & then

Previously (Post of 7th February, 2008) I mentioned Murtoa's famous Stick Shed and how this once mighty storage facility was now abandoned and falling into disrepair. Unfortunately it is still falling down as more cavities open up, but today I was shown an old photo of the shed being built in 1941 which is reproduced below.

A bit of history research

Saw the PROVic's display "Currach Folk" - photographer Bill Doyle's studies in the mid 1960s of Gaelic-speaking fishing and farming communities on the Aran Islands and the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland’s west coast, with their distinctive currachs (boats). The images capture the hardship, dignity and humanity of people whose lives are shaped by the sea.

"Researching Properties" seminar -an overview of the PROV records that relate to the land and the built environment that may be used for research into houses and land in Victoria, (interestingly it included a Marnoo/Kara Kara Parish map as an example) and involved the case study of the history of a Victorian-Art Deco home (just a couple of streets from an ancestral home below) in the City of Melbourne using PROV records.

Heatherlie ghost town

The Mt Difficult Heatherlie “Grampians freestone” sandstone quarry, was established in the early 1860s. Grampians sandstone was noted for its excellent quality and durability. Although one of the strongest freestones in the world, the cost of quarrying and transportation also made it one of the most expensive.

Large quantities of stone were taken from the quarry between 1880 and 1930, demand dropped with the Depression of the 1890s and the quarry closed in 1892/93 after the Public Works contract expired. It was re-opened by a private firm at the turn of the century, and operated spasmodically between 1900 and 1938, and closed again in 1938 due to lack of orders. It finally ceased major operations in 1941 due to the Second World War and the high cost of quarrying. Now part of the Grampians National Park, it can only be used to supply freestone to repair buildings in which the same stone has already been used.


Some of the machinery needed to operate the site is still in place- the furnace and steam chamber, the winch and the four-cylinder steam compression engine.

In 1881/82 a contract was let for the building of a government-financed tramway from Heatherlie to Stawell branch railway (length to be built of 15 miles using 50 lb rails, Victoria Railways laid sidings at the quarry). Stone was moved in blocks weighing up to 11 tons, and carted by tramway to Stawell.

For many years after its construction tourists and day-trippers also used the line. The railway line was closed in 1949 and was dismantled in the following years.

There are a few remnants still visible - raised earth, some of the sleepers and a few rails still in place at the end of the line, plus the remains of a timber trestle bridge at Back Creek off Osleps Track.


Heatherlie stone was used for several local buildings in Stawell, including the Court House (completed in 1872), the Town Hall, the Anglican Church and St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church. The stone was also used on the construction of significant public sites in Melbourne – Parliament House, the State Library & Melbourne Town Hall.

During the mid 1880s more than 140 men were employed at one of the quarries living mainly in tents. Many had their wives and children with them and, when the township of Heatherlie was surveyed and a school opened, a few workers built more permanent dwellings of stone offcuts or rough bark.

Only the managers and their families lived in the crude stone miners cottages that still stand close to the quarry.

Heatherlie was surveyed as a township in 1888, but really only existed on the survey map, as the town did not eventuate, some lots were sold but most workers preferred to travel from Stawell.

The only building actually erected was the school, an education department building was relocated from Darra, near Ballan, for the 33 children in the town, and opened on 14th November 1888, but it closed in October1889 due to no children attending. It never re-opened, and the building was removed in 1892.

A small pile of stone in the centre of the photo mark the site of the school

Slowly the township disappeared, now only the sigposts remain.

Shine a little light

After a smart remark concerning the previous post I was compelled to send the following -

How many library managers does it take to change a lightbulb?

At least one committee and a Light Bulb Strategy focus meeting and plan.

A spark of library humour

Here is a question to keep you awake at night -

How many cataloguers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Just one, but they have to wait to see how LC does it first.
(for the great unwashed LC stands for Library of Congress, the oracle of classification when cataloguing)